Quick update on Anders and then a report on the Joe Skipper Beer Mile.
First off, we are so, so proud of Anders!
He had a very good swim at 63 and change. Then he followed that up with a 5:07 (on his Garmin) bike that he said was very conservative. He felt great leaving T2. He had been very aggressive at hydrating and taking care of himself on the bike. He left T2 with a realistic shot at sub 10.
His early run miles were nice and conservative and when we saw him at Palani he was running well but we could see the physical stress etched on his face. He made good progress until the Energy Lab and then a 26 minute/mile split. Turned out he was throwing up (a lot) in a bit of a repeat of my experience on Thursday. The Christofferson inability to handle heat was coming to the fore once again.
Long story short, he was forced to walk a lot and had several more episodes of throwing up. Somehow he kept it together and persevered to finish his first Kona in just over 11:30.
Since, imo he's in sub 9 shape (not at Kona but at a cooler race) this is not what he was looking for but it was a tremendous display of grit!
He was whisked off to the medical tent (like father, like son) and was down 12 pounds. After an IV (and then some pizza and fries from Target) he started the road to recovery and is feeling a lot better today (and no doubt glad he toughed it out!)
And then we saw that Joe Skipper sent out an open invite for the Kona Beer Mile at the old airport, which is about a half mile from here. We rode over two watch and I served as the official timer. About 20 guys participated and Joe finished 3rd. The winner did 7:09 and Joe was a few seconds behind (in fairness, the course was probably a 100 meters long):
Off to Huggos tonight. A more detailed set of race reports in a day or two!
Onwards and Upwards....
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