Saturday, October 14, 2006
FRIDAY the THIRTEENTH
Today the coaches prescribe a full rest day, but I get the urge to bike down to the pier first thing in the morning, and try out my new Speedo Fastskin. These babies usually cost close to $200, but Speedo must be unloading its old model, since I found it for $75 right there on the speedo.com web site. Triathlon rules proscribe wetsuits over 78F, and I think that’s because the original Ironman, first on Oahu, and now here, is swum is waters that average 79F. They had no wetsuits back in 1979, at least not specifically for swimming, and when your sport is as young as triathlon, you hang onto to what few traditions you can find. Anyway, a wetsuit would just make one overheat in this soup.
About 6 years ago you may have noticed the introduction of racing suits for swimmers at the Olympics which covered quite a bit more than the traditional (generic) speedo. Full length, knee length, with and without arms, everything has been tried. The fabrics are quite constrictive, and generally made of some hydrophobic material with special tiny additions to the surface to reduce drag at the microscopic flow level. When you’re swimming for only 1 minute or two, and every hundredth of a second counts, this must make some difference. A few years later, they started showing up in warm water triathlons, especially among the pros, where the difference between first and second might be worth $50,000 or more. So rules were made by the triathlon boffins: knee length only, and the shoulders can’t be covered.
Needing every advantage I can get when swimming freestyle, I got one for my two warm water swims this year. I have no idea if it will make any difference, but with everything else I’ve bought for this sport, what’s another $75? I spend four times that much every year for running shoes alone, that’s for sure.
So the swim went fine, 40 minutes or so, and who knows how slow or fast I went there in the open water. When I got out and had wriggled out of the thing (I had racing bike shorts underneath), I notice I’m sharing a changing wall under the banyan tree with a triathlon mini all-star team: Normann Stadler, Chris Legh, Luke Bell, Michellie Jones, Lori Bowden. They all seem pleased as punch to see each other, but not too pleased, because by the time I’ve bent down to put my shoes on and unlock my bike – poof!, they’re all gone except for Chris and Luke, who are rambling on in in an undecipherable Aussie vernacular. They are headed over to the King Kam luau site, where a tour guide has assembled about 40 folks in shirts which say “Kona 2006”. They’re all calling each other “Mate”, and saying “Good on ya!” and what not. Chris and Luke are about to be introduced as the feature attraction this morning, I guess.
Before I can wander over to listen, the paper man rolls by. The pier is where the cruise ships unload every morning, and the tour buses and vans pick them up for their various activities of the day. West Hawaii Today, the local paper. (It took me a while to realise this means, not the western part of the state – that would be Kauai and Niihau, I guess. No, this is for the West side of the Island of Hawaii.) I grab one of the papers off his rolling cart, from underneath the sign which says “Free. Take One.” I mainly do this to see what he says, because the paper itself is pretty worthless. It has almost no local news; the best thing about it is the Letters to the Editor, where you can get a glimpse of what’s going on around here. Which isn’t much. One letter four days ago was to remind people that, with Ironman coming, drivers should watch out for joggers in the dark on Ali’i.
The paper guy looks up at me. “Many people take these?’ I ask.
“A few,” he says diffidently. He’s got that Pacific Islander melange look about him, without the chronic smile I see around here a lot. “I can’t wait till you all leave and we can get our pier back,” he adds.
I figure he means the triathletes swarming over the steps down to Dig Me beach. They seem pleasant enough, but maybe the pier is a euphemism for the town. Kona’s usual stock in the tourist trade is day trippers off cruise ships, and retirees hanging out in seaside condos. The Ironman crowd just swarms all over the place, driving and biking and running out the Queen K, snarling an already overloaded road system.
“It’s that bad, huh?” I venture.
He leans towards me conspiratorially. Two of the Aussies grab a paper off his cart, and he sneaks them a quick, sardonic glance. “I mean, why is this the place to be.? You’ve got the heat and the wind going against you. We’re out in the middle of nowhere – it’s so hard to get to. And it’s not like it’s is the Olympics or anything, brah. Hell, they tell me it’s not even a real world championship. Every year, we lose the pier and the whole street for almost a week. What is it with this race?”
I try out my own little theory on him. “I think it’s kind of like Wimbledon for tennis, or the Masters’ for golf. Everybody who does the sport recognizes that this is the one event that means the most. And whatever goes along with that – say, hard grass at Wimbledon or water hazards at Augusta or wind on the Queen K – gets magnified as the ultimate test. And besides, you may not see it here from the inside, but this IS a pretty nice place to go to – so all the industry people, the ones with the money in the sport, they’d rather come here for a week or two than, oh, say, Louisville.”
“Louisville?” He stumbled on that one. I didn’t explain. I wheeled my bike around and pedaled off, trying to avoid a cart full of golf bags heading down to Keahou.