Kona - 2008 - Day 1

Hopefully all of you receiving this actually want to be receiving this! (: I figured the easiest way share my daily kona experience would be to send a mass email. I know this is a bit less personal but this is the only way to get it all done. Anyway it is pretty amazing here and our condo is nice as it does overlook the ocean. Unfortunately and fortunately (for race day anyway) it is on Alii drive which is probably one of the busiest streets here. There is a constant flow of athletes and cars going by as well as surfers hanging out and blasting their jamaican music. So that is interesting. There are lots of tropical birds and even mongoose which we have seen. I thought they were ferrets at first but they are not quite as cute. Well I guess that depends if you think ferrets are cute! Today we took our first swim at the pier and that was so beautiful! You literally could see the bottom the entire way and it was easily over 20 feet I would imagine. Lots of coral and colorful fish as well as lots of athletes. The water was relatively calm but got a little sloshy the further we went out and we probably didn't swim more than about a mile. There was a friendly sea turtle swimming near shore with everyone so that was really cool to see. We then decided we should see "Hawi" which is where the bike turn around is and apparently that wind is much stronger there. So we drove 35 miles and then rode 18 miles or so to the town of Hawi. And they were not kidding when they said the wind picks up there. It was mostly gradual climbing into very swirly wind. It was sort of a headwind but a lot of cross wind too. It was a bit difficult to take in fluids a few times as it felt like you might get blown over if you let go! Suzette got a flat today so we had a 20 min break for her to change her flat. I got that experience yesterday on my little ride so now 2 of us have practiced our tire changing techniques. Unfortunately my brand new $60 tire had to be retired due to the huge gash but the expense of this sport never ends! (: The scenery going up towards Hawi is really awesome anyway so we did enjoy that (well after you get past the miles of black lava rocks) as you are up high and can see the ocean as far as you can see. I can see why it can be a tough bike ride though with the wind and climbing. Also I guess a tradition of the IM is to find the white rocks among the black lave rocks and write messages so you can see tons of messages all up and down the Queen K hwy which is pretty interesting. I don't think I will be participating in that though, seems like too much work hunting for the white rocks. (:Tomorrow registration opens so we will get all our stuff (numbers, gear backs etc) and start that process of getting organized. I am sure we will do a swim again tomorrow and maybe do some sight seeing. All the cafe's and stuff are really cool in the little town of kona as you can see the ocean from most of them so that's really nice. It is a little pricey but we are kind of in the middle of nowhere so that just the way it is.Ok well that was the day in kona today. We hope to go do some sight seeing tomorrow or the next day as the volcanoe is active on the island so we may try to go see that. The weather is pretty warm (85 or so) but the trade winds are going to die down for the next few days so it will feel hotter. Unfortunately they are expected to come back on Friday, yay just in time for the race!!!!!More later,Heather