I arrive in Honolulu on Thursday night around 10 pm. Flight is etremely long and I am super exhausted. My hubby picked me up, we head for a quick bite and then off to bed, it’s now 11:30 pm.
A friend of ours lent us their bike boxes for this trip, in which I am extremely grateful for. My friend helps me pack my bike since Kevin is already in Hawaii on business (okay I watched). In packing the front tire I noticed that it definitely needs replacement. It will have to wait till I get to Honolulu.
It’s Friday morning and I call my step-dad in-law to see what was on his agenda is for the day. Kevin has business to attend to so I am on my own for most of the day. Rusty is taking a walk in the nearby vicinity while Kevin and I are having coffee. I end up leaving with Rusty since he offers to take me to the bike shop. So there I am off to run errands. The only 650 tire the bike shop carries are a Gatorskin tire which work out perfectly. I also purchase some CO2 cartridges to pump up my tires, since neither Kevin nor I packed a tire pump. Off to the grocery store and then finally back to my hotel to put my bike together. It’s already 1 in the afternoon, not a lot of time left in the day. It’s now time to put the bike together. OMG, the back tire is shot. I am mad at myself that I didn’t check this prior but I also didn’t know that I would be running errands in the am, so can’t be too mad at myself. Hmmm, I will need to see if I can get another ride to the shop for another tire. My window for my long bike ride is getting shorter. My husband and I decide to go for quick 15-20 minute swim to see how the water feels. The water temp feels great but the salt was killing me. Off to Rusty’s hotel to get our errands started. It’s mandatory to attend a race briefing prior to getting race packets and lucky for the participants they are scheduled every hour. We get there just as one is beginning, how perfect is this. No joke, it’s in another language. Another participant asks if they will be speaking English and she kindly says no, She mentions the slides are in English so that should suffice, so we stay. It is dinner time so we grab our friends and head to dinner. No time for a bike ride. I am pretty exhausted so we head back to the hotel and am in bed by 8:45 pm.
It’s a beautiful Saturday morning. Prior to doing our swim and run workouts we decide to go eat breakfast. It’s a 15 minute walk to the park from our hotel so this is plenty of time to let the food settle and find spots by the water to put our belongings. It’s hot outside. My schedule says a 30 minute run below my AET. Kevin is laughing at me because of how slow my run is and he expresses his concern that at that pace I might not finish. I ask what pace I am at since he has the Garmin watch and he proceeds to run at my pace which are 12:20 min miles. My long runs should be at 11:16 so yes this is slow. I can only imagine the heat is driving up my heart rate up. We head over to the water where the buoys are all set up and oh boy……..that is the longest mile of buoys I have ever seen. Here’s the truth. Swimming is not a strong skill that I possess. Swimming sets off all these emotions which come over me like a tidal wave. Panic and fear take over each and every time. I especially don’t like the feeling of being swum over, which happens to me often since I am a slow swimmer. I CAN swim, I do it in the pool 2-3 times a week yet it’s different than open water. Today I imagine I am in a large salty pool with happens to have no pool lanes. I plan to swim out for 15 minutes and then turn around and come back. I was all over the place. I was way out to the right so I would correct myself and then I would find myself way over to the left. This was ongoing and a little scary. I need a game plan, how about every 6 strokes I site. Better, much better. My return trip took 5 minutes longer, not a good sign but nothing I can do about it. We head back to the hotel where I read a book on the patio and Kevin takes a nap. We head over to the park to drop off our bikes and then we plan to head off to an early dinner. While getting ready for dinner I notice that I am completely burnt and it hurts. We set-up for race day and decide to go to bed at 9 pm.
Midnight Kevin calls my name and I answer. I ask what time it is and I am annoyed at the time. Neither of us can sleep. I am unable to sleep because of my sunburn and I still can’t believe how burnt I am. I go back to bed as I have to get up at 3:45 am.
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