I am starting to fret about all the small, meaningless and uncontrollable things. Like, should I shave my legs or not? Which stupid helmet should I wear? Which way will the wind blow on Saturday, and how hard? WIll there be any clouds? Any little raindrops? What about ocean currents? Do I have enough food? Am I eating too much? Am I getting fat? Skinny? Have I trained enough? Am I tapering too much?
Having no more real work to do before this race, and being here all alone for ten days, it’s no wonder my mind is wandering. Thankfully, Cheryl arrived at noon, and I had someone else to project all of my anxiety on to. Someone who needs structure, a plan, and some tropical clothes. So we went shopping.
Cheryl stepped of the plane in JEANS! It’s 90F, sweltering humidity, searing noon sun, and she thinks jeans are proper resort attire? After getting groceries, and unpacking her stuff, we walked down Ali’i to the sea wall, stopping in the chintzy tourist trap clothing stores. She did try on a few things, soft, clingy, lightweight things, but nothing caught her eye, despite the $25-30 price tags.
We plopped down under an umbrella outside Lava Java around 3:30 PM. I had her go inside to order, so she could get the full LJ experience. This of course would allow me to ogle the fit young things at the table next to us. When she came back, we reminisced about our recent shopping expedition.
“That poor little gecko; I should have gotten his picture!” I said. “But I guess I was so shocked by his fall, I froze up.”
“Poor little thing; he was just lying there, with his leg all under him and his tongue hanging out.”
While we were walking up the steps to the first dress shop, two little geckos – about 5 inches long, and green – dropped right down in front of us, apparently falling from the top of the door frame, or maybe the eaves above. One of them bounced right up and scurried in a half circle, while the other looked stunned, lying kind of on his side, with his right front leg jammed under his chest, and his tongue lolling out of his mouth. For a moment, we thought he wouldn’t make it, that he had mortally splattered on the concrete step. But within 30 seconds, he, too, was up and racing away, probably wondering where the hurricane came from that blew him down from his perch.
And now here we were, soaking up the ambience at Lava Java. In front of us were three young ladies – two in their late 20s, one probably just short of 40 – who seemed German, Dutch, and British. Clearly racing, with little to no body fat amongst them. One, wearing a halter top and shorts, appeared to have a small diamond embedded, like a delicate piercing, in her skin just below her left ribs. To our right sat another triathlete, resplendent in his calf veins quivering without any hair to hide them. He was speaking American, his friend Australian. And on the other side, a table of three of four Germans, again with nary a calf hair amongst the two men and two women. On guy, wearing an IM Canada hat from this year, was eating a giant hamburger and fries with a fork. Not only was he obviously European (no red blooded American would eat a hamburger with a fork), but he also didn’t care too much about the quality of his diet.
In the evening, we drove over the the King Kam Hotel, for the “Iron Gents and Ladies” reception. This affair was strictly for racers (and their guests) 60 and over. There are over 150 of us, about a third of whom attended. I was about the youngest one there. Many of the attendees were veterans of the Kona wars, like 10-20 times. The eldest, Lew Hollander, emceed the night. We got to hear from Mike Reilly, “the voice of ironman” (he’s the guy who says “You are an Ironman” about 2000 times at all US races.) Diana Bertsch, the race director, also gave us her version of an inspirational message.
But the real highlight, the actual purpose, was to have all of us racing get up and say a few words. First of all, the folks who are sixty look about fifty, those who are seventy look sixty, and so on. Second, we heard a potpourri of funny stories and touching stories, like the ones NBC features on its Ironman broadcast.
For example, one of the gents raced here in 2004, cheered on by his son. Shortly afterwards, deployed in Iraq, his son was killed. Dad has been trying (10 times!) since then to qualify, so that he could return and honor his son. This year (surprise!) he gets in via the lottery.
Several others reported on overcoming cancer, or close family members who had overcome serious health issues in the last year or two.
And then there was the guy who, in his 11th trip here last year, had GI trouble on the bike, became dehydrated, fell off, passed out, and ended up taking a taxi home (in his bike clothes!) from the Kona hospital at midnight where he was taken to get him out of atrial fibrillation.
Sigh. All I had to report was my 8 second victory to qualify at IM AZ. If I ever come back, I’ve got to have a better story.