Kona: October 1, 2014

So, we arrived late last night and unpacked.  got up early this morning--I mean about 4:30 and at 5:30 went to the Safeway to stock up on all things Kona and IM.  A couple of Kona coffees later found me at Dig Me beach about 8:00 AM where I swam 2000 yards and felt pretty good.  The swell was huge today--probably 6-8 feet at about 13-15 seconds.  It really moved you back and forth as we neared the pier.  Here is a shot of me entering the frey and "officially" starting my 2014 Kona campaign:

Back at the pier, I joined Judy and Patrick (who had gone for an early morning run).  We hung out for a while and made plans to go up to Hawi tomorrow.

I went out for an hour shake down ride and returned to see my bride settling into Kona life:

BTW--here is the pic that Judy took when I had assembled my bike and determined that I had no problems this year (in 2012, my older BMC TT01 almost died and I went through a 3 day purgatory of not knowing if I would be able to ride my bike--I had even taken the precaution of renting another one...).  I have to say that the Scicon Aerocomfort Triathlon bag is hand down the best in the business--anyone contemplating buying a new tri-bike transport bag should buy this--happy to answer any questions if you have them!

Here is the shot from the front of our Kona house---someone has to do it!

About 3:30 or so I drove out to the Energy Lab and ran the 4 mile O&B and happened to bump into a certain former Olympic Triathlon Gold medalist:  Jan Frodeno--he was doing 10 repeats up the last 500-750 meters of the Energy Lab hill.  I ended up running (a very small part of his recovery) with him--here is the two of us:




Now to be clear--I was an intruder on his workout but he was very generous in letting me tag along and here we are at the end:

BTW--I'm the guy who looks more like he could be an offensive lineman for the Cowboys....

Also, I spent a good 30 minutes talking to his father in law, a certain Gary Snowsill--who is Jan's father-in-law and who is Emma's father--btw--Emma also won the Gold Medal in Triathlon at the 2008 games....

Besides that--just another day in Kona!