The Three Coconuts

Let's get the basics out of the way first. Julie "the Diesel", Tyler"the Genius" , and I departed Live Oak at 3:30 am EST headed to the J-ville airport. Almost 6000 miles, stops in Chicago and Maui, and exactly 18 hours later we were on the ground in Kona, 9:30 pm EST, 3:30 pm Hawaiian time. Thats right, 6 hours difference......they don't do the whole Daylight savings thing here otherwise it would only be 5 hours. None-the-less what a shock for the body. The machine is telling you it's past your bed time and the world around you it saying it is mid-afternoon. But that is OK, we have just entered "Island Time".

{insert from Julie: Ate yummy, I swilled bud light like a redneck while Blain sippped a micro brew. Tyler and I split dessert chocolate brownie with ice cream and a peanut butter-maple sauce. Finally got into bed at 8pm here and started waking up at 11:55 pm. Couldn't stay down any more by 4. Keep thinking of my birthday card from my friend Spring. It was a little hamster and you pulled the tab and he begins "It's my birthday and I'm gonna run on an exercise wheel...." so true, so me, so it's dark outside and I'm awake and I don't have my trusty treadmill. Waiting for that slow down Hawaii thing to kick in.... I may require medication. Waiting on the rest of Hawaii to WAKE UP so we can go swim in the ocean. Did I mention I've been drinking real Kona coffee (I normally don't do caffeine unless racing) since I got up. Doing the swim with Tyler at her pace, I woke her up by jumping up and down on the bed, she looks a little worried.}

The rental car thing went fine, Jeep Liberty 4WD, and we were off to the condo with one piece of advise from the rental car agent..........don't be in any hurry, everyone here is on "Island Time." Driving into Kialua/Kona was cool. To see the street names and areas that you only become familar with through TV coverage of the Ironman World Championships is almost surreal. The condo is convienently located about a mile south of town on Ali'i Drive. It is beautiful, newly remodeled with tile floors and granite tops. The lanai is less than 1oo feet from the Pacific ocean. What a view. We drop off the luggage and the first order of business is food. We got a tip on a restaurant named Jackie Rey's Ohana Grill. It doesn't look like much and would probably go unnoticed if you were driving by, but the moment you walk in you know the food is going to be good. It did not disappoint. It was outstanding.

By now it is 6:30 Hawaiian time..........do the math. With our bodies on autopilot we head to Safeway for some quick essentials, coffee, milk, bread, eggs, P-butter, jelly, fruit. We get ready to check out and the conversation went something like this.........."that will be $108.34, do you have a Safeway card?" The Diesel says "no" and the cashier replies "you will before you leave here." The Diesel fills out a quick app and the cashier swipes the new Safeway card and says, "that will be $87.34." We will keep the Safeway card.

Once back to home base we put away the groceries and within a few were in bed, alarm set for 5 am. This is normal considering we have a race in the morning. The King's Swim is a 1.2 mile ocean swim at the Kialua pier next to Dig Me Beach. This is the same course the Ironman World Championships traverse only 1/2 the distance. Sign up is at 6:30 am and race time is 8:00. What we did not expect was that we would wake up at 6:00 am EST.............do the math. Yes the Diesel and I were up and down for the next 3 hours trying to convince our machines that we needed to convert to Hawaiian time. No such luck. So here we sit 4:00 am writing this here blog, drinking 100% Kona coffee. The Diesel is texting her family and neice who just won her Age Group at the BFAST Tri in Ponte Vedra Beach. The Genius is sleeping. Her machine operates on Tyler time. My prerace meal was whole wheat toast, jelly, a banana, OJ, boiled egg white. I choke that down and the Powerbar comes about 45 minutes before race start. The Diesel had 1/2 pot of coffee and a 1/2 a bagel left over from the Chicago airport. The genius had her usual staple.....Ramen noodles.

Well it's time to shower, stretch and put on the race suit. We all three are swimming and we are pumped and afterwards.........a REAL breakfast...........Spam Musubi anyone???????

Aloha!

The Three Coconuts