Honu Pre-Race ~ Stop The Bleeding!*

So far so good! Travel yesterday was super smooth. Traveling with a 7yo is a lot easier than traveling with a younger kid... no diapers, no stroller... she even packed her own suitcase! Then when we checked into the condo we found out they upgraded us to a 2 bedroom vs the 1 bedroom I'd reserved and paid for so Moana was extra excited about having her own bedroom vs being on the couch. And the high pitched yelping when she opened her closet door and found a TV!!! It was almost like Christmas morning. :)

Anyway, it's nice up here in Waikoloa at Paniolo Greens. We are ~20min away from the race start but we are up the hill a bit and it's cooler and there aren't many triathletes around. Often I love being at races and being super social, but having some quiet time away from the action is good for me too. Bonus tip if you ever come race at Honu- it's WAY cheaper up here! Plus, there'a group of wild turkeys that roam the grounds so they are fun to watch.

I got up early this morning and went for a super short/easy jog. It was nice and cool out first thing... 20min of light trotting followed by 4x20" floating strides... finished feeling good.

Then was on to our favorite swim of the year this morning at Hapuna! I swear it was more like social hour because so many folks were there all around the same time so talk talk talk then a bit of swim then more talk talk talk! It was fun though I swam with Nalani and Lectie and Hailey. Didn't look at my watch so I don't know how long we swam but prob about 1/2 hour. I felt smooth and controlled and the water was perfect temperature and really there was just nothing to complain about at all. Mornings like this are really the reason I'll probably never be able to quit triathlon. #SoFun

Most everyone took off and left but Scott and Moana and I stayed for a while and floated around in the water. Moana made "sand-balls" and she and Scott had a sand-ball fight. Fun family time for sure!

I dropped my run stuff off, came home and ate, then rode my bike down to drop it off at T1. Was only ~20min bike ride and most of it was easy, though I did give a few little efforts up to race power on the incline sections and was quite happy with how easy 190w felt. Legs functioning... check!

So everything was taken care of by 1PM then it's just been hang out, socialize, eat, socialize, eat some more, etc.

I'm assuming most of you know how to follow along with the race online tomorrow if you are so inclined to do so... If you're wondering what my goals are, here they are: Beat myself from the last 3 years. My results here have steadily gotten worse over the last 5 years... slower every year! 4:53, 5:07, 5:15, 5:15, 5:20... GAH! So I've been training the last few months with one goal in mind... Stop The Bleeding! I don't think I'm in shape to get under 5 hours again but I do think 5:10* might be reasonable... but really, anything that indicates that I'm stopping that trend of getting slower every year is what I'm after. The only thing about that goal is that the run course is different this year... so there's no saying if it's going to be faster or slower or about the same? So that goal of course should have an asterisk* because the run course is sort of an unknown. I have a hard time believing the course could be slower than the old course (the old course was a really freaking slow course!) but who knows...

I doubt I'll blog tomorrow because I will be drunk starting immediately after the race. :) But maybe Sunday or Monday I'll tell the race story how it all went down.