Honu 2016

I'm late to the party in doing my race report, that's because I'm not sure where to begin. I'm overwhelmed with the congrats, support and love I have received since last Saturday. I'm overwhelmed with the start to my 2016 racing year. I'm overwhelmed by the epic day that was had by all and the caliber of ladies (and men) that were out there competing. Cudos to you all (Steph and Hailey to name a couple) for making me and everyone else out there work hard for every second.

Honu is always a difficult race. I haven't done a lot of 70.3 racing, but I'm pretty confident that Honu has got to be one of the harder races on the circuit. You never know what Madame Pele will have in store come race day. Usually it's calm, crystal clear waters, raging heat and whipping winds. Saturday, we had calm waters, rain (what?!), almost zero wind (again, what!?), cloud cover for a good portion of the morning and raging heat. You never know what you're going to get and that's the beauty of racing...making game time decisions, that you've hopefully somewhat mentally prepared for, based on what happens in the moment, because "Hey, you never know!" (NYS lotto anyone!?)

-No surprise, the swim is always my most favorite part of the race, maybe one of these days someone will make a race in which the swim is equally long when compared to the other 2 parts....wishful thinking. I've gotten over the fact that I'm always going to be in one of the last waves, so instead of thinking about having to swim through 100s of people, I think about it as swimming through lots of moving water! Dodging people and navigating around the overly crowded buoys is never easy, but just keep swimming and clear water will be found. I wanted to have a fast swim this year and thanks to my trusty ROKA swimskin, UH masters and the Kaneohe crew, FOTW, course record and my fastest Honu swim by over a minute!

-The bike ride was FAST!! Absolutely no wind made for some killer bike splits. I don't have a whole lot to say about the bike, I rode hard, got grumpy, for approximately 15 minutes in my typical grumpy place on this course (working on it!) and then got my head out of my @$$ and rode hard to the finish. A solid bike ride, but always room for improvement. This course is always fun because you can see people the entire way and the ladies out there sure chipped away a whole bunch at the lead I had coming out of the water. Nice riding!! I had some work to do on the run.

-The new run course looked as though it could be a bit easier than it had been in the past...no dice. How do you make a ridiculously hard run course even harder?! Ask WTC because if that's what they were going for, they nailed it. This run course is NO JOKE! I just want to say thank you to everyone out there for all your cheers and if I didn't acknowledge you it wasn't because I didn't hear or didn't care, it was because I was doing everything I could to keep from curling up in a ball. Thanks Mike for being my carrot for the ENTIRE run, sorry I passed you there right at the end, but Steph was coming fast and and running a heck of a lot better than I was. To the BioAstin and HTC crew at the beginning and end of the road to nowhere, you were there right when I needed those extra cheers, thanks Sam, "You are a Honu!" This was the most mentally tough run I have ever done, focus, hard work, never giving up, relentless forward progress and all the cheers were what got me through. I have never worked so hard for a finish line or been so happy to cross the line the exact second I did.

To Raul, and my BOCA family, thank you for everything you have done and continue to do for me, this sport wouldn't be the same without you all. You've gotten me through a whole lot this year and I wouldn't be where I am today without your love and support. To ROKA, thanks for making the best swim equipment out there, you really are the best in the biz. Planet Sun Hawaii, thanks for always keeping me protected in the extreme Hawaii sun. BioAstin, thanks for helping me see how far I can push myself and what I am capable of.

Because pictures are fun, I'll leave you with some photos from the weekend!

Super proud of this guy for an over 30minute course PR!!!