Around 1100 we headed for home but not before I took this shot of the Haleiwa bridge, a North shore landmark. I'm going to try and get down there during the week now that I'm not IM training full time.

If anyone wants to visit us and go with me, we have two double boats now. I love grown up toys.

BIG turtle

As we were getting ready to leave our spearfishing spot I saw what I thought was a big flat rock under the water. The rock started moving and it turned out to be one of the biggest sea turtles I've ever seen. It's shell was about the size of a refrigerator door and the head was as big as a half gallon milk carton. I wonder how old it is? No one know's what their life span is but they take up to 4o years to mature into adults.

North Shore Paradise

You can see how smooth the water was in the center picture. Hard to believe the difference between Summer and Winter. In the winter I wouldn't even put a kayak in the water here most days it's so rough. Jesse and I played around spearfishing along the rocks. He would start on one end and drive the fish towards me for a chance to spear one then we'd switch. I got lucky and murdered this huge reef-fish in the bottom photo. Actually a group of ten different kinds of fish swam by and this one was the slowest.

Bike/kayak

Another great weekend accomplished. Friday night Marianne, Marie and I went to see the movie Knocked Up in Mililani. I laughed my ass off. Two thumbs up. Saturday Marianne and I rode with the HACC bike club down to the North shore and back. I practiced climbing a hill over there called Pupuka'a looking towards next weeks hillclimb and road race. Sunday we discovered we could stuff two double kayaks on and in the toyota and went kayaking with Jesse and Kristy at Haleiwa . We put in early and the water was like glass. The place was thick with sea turtles and we spotted a large ray also due to Marianne's sharp eye's.

Just soaking it all in

We had a late flight Sunday back home to Oahu so Marianne and went for a swim in a nearby bay, then just relaxed around the resort which is a great place by the way. The island way off in the distance in the third picture is Maui. The last picture is for all the tri geeks out there. It's the Queen K highway looking South. Sacred ground for triathletes.

Hot, Humid,.... did I say hot?

Before the race Marianne and I bumped into our friend and training partner Terri. I used to train with her in Tucson and we hadn't seen each other in 4 years. She is a profesional triathlete and travels around racing quite a bit now. It was fun rehashing old times with her.

So about the race. I knew from looking at past results that I'd have to finish pretty close to 4 1/2 hours to have a shot at qualifying for Kona. I'd gone that time before in another race but this course was tougher. I don't remember ever feeling heat and humidity like that during the full IM race. The swim went perfectly in the most crystal clear water I think I've ever raced in. I had a strong start and didn't get tangled up too bad with the other 1000 or so people racing. The bike course is on the same road as the IM race so I knew what to expect from that. Coming off the bike I was about 7 minutes behind my goal time so it was all going to come down to whether I had a good run that day or not. The first mile went fine and my hopes were rising when my quadriceps started cramping at the top of a hill, which surprised me because I had never experienced it in that situation before. Maybe an electrolyte imbalance? I walked a bit until they loosened up then got back into my rhythm, but I couldn't maintain my pace for more then a few miles before they started to seize up again. So instead of a 1:30 half marathon I ended up with a 1:43 which put the kabosh on my placing top 3 in my age group. So no joy this year. Here are the final results. I'm way down there in 72 place.

I'm already scheming about how I will come back and dominate my age group in this race next year. I also have IM New Zealand in March and possibly IM Australia in November on my calender for next year. My name did come up at the awards for a Half IM championship slot which is this new thing they've started the last few years. But who wants to fly all the way to Florida in December for a half IM when you live in Hawaii?

Honu Half Ironman

Thursday night Marianne, Kristy, Jesse and myself hopped over to the big island to compete in the Honu half Ironman. We were greeted with an amazing sunset on the drive to the Mauna Lani resort, which was the host of the race. The island of Hawaii sits on the Southeast tip of the Hawaiian island chain. It is the newest and largest of the islands with land still being added by it's active volcano's. Many of the resorts on the Kona and Kohala coast areas are built on lava flows from as early as the 1800's. It is so beautiful there compared to Oahu. The developers haven't overrun the place quite yet and the population density is low.

This was the one big race I had banked on this year to qualify for the IM world championships in October. So as not to draw it out too much I'll just say there was no joy in that respect.

Memorial day weekend

Memorial day weekend Marianne and I relaxed around the house and visited a few beaches. The ocean water temp has warmed up recently which is nice. This bottom picture is a visiting Japanese ship docked at Pearl harbor. What a difference 60 years makes.