kona diary - day 5

Pretty smashed after the last couple of days training, heat and disrupted sleep, so I’m glad to have the ‘day off’ today. From here its all gonna be a lot of lighter stuff, a few race efforts and lots of rest…but still , it was up early to swim with Roger who wanted to do the whole course. I was keen to do this again having enjoyed it so much last time, so I agreed to meet for a 6:30 splash, since ‘on paper’ we swim about the same pace. As usual I woke around 3:30am, rose at 5 and headed down wandered out to the pier for 6. Spent half an hour just chilling with a strawberry tea, watching the town go about it’s morning rituals and early dips relatively undisturbed by the bustling population of IronVisitors who take over the beach from about 7 onwards. I was pretty tired so a bit nervous when I saw Roger pull out his new full length blueseventy speed suit. Not even sure that a 80-90 min swim was such a good idea, feeling like this – it was more than scheduled for today. But what the harm?
Well, it was a bit of a slog –swimming really quite slowly and quite a lot of swell out there making it hard to see him, or the buoys. Seemed to take an age to get all the way out there..and longer on the way back! But, I was pleased I’d done it and had the rest of the day to relax.

When I say relax, I mean do a few other things. A trip to the bike shop, bit of a chat about my rear wheel (its out of ‘dish’, which is why it rubs the rear stay – will play with that later), and derailleur ( bent in transit – which is why the gears don’t mesh so well – but about half the price to replace in uk than here so will put up with that). Then up the road for a massage.

Turned out that the lady giving me my run is a former German pro triathlete – Tina Walter – who moved out here after a great 9th place finish in the 2004 race in order to train for the following year. She was hit by a car whilst out training shortly before oct 2005 and , though started the race, was forced to withdraw before the end of the bike. Pretty much ended her career there with permanent back problems. Totally devastating, but nonetheless she moved on and is working as a masseur out here still today. It was really interesting to talk to her about her career. She’s someone who came tto the sport later in life, having been a runner previously, and very rapidly became very good on the bike and of course the run and was posting great results, despite being a relatively weaker swimmer. The rub was good too. I’m looking forward to my next appointment.