Ema’s Lavaman ’08 Race Results (The Numbers):
4/6/08 Sunday 7:35am start (race number 136)
25th in my age group (30-34 Females) out of 58
394th out of 637 overall
Total time: 3:18:01
Swim: 33rd in age group (450th overall) at 39 minutes 44 seconds, 2:29 average per 100 yards
Transition 1: 8th in age group at 2 minutes 17 seconds
Bike: 20th in age group (390th overall) at 1 hour 28 minutes, at a pace of 16.8 miles per hour
Transition 2: 7th in age group at 54 seconds
Run: 28th in age group (383rd overall) at 1 hour 6 minutes, at a pace of 10:46 minutes per mile
Ema’s Lavaman Race Report:
Pulling into the Kailua Kona airport on Friday afternoon was a small feat in and of itself. Me and Steve had managed to arrive around the same time we had originally intended, despite having one leg of our trip operated by the now bankrupt Aloha airlines. It took four hours of phone calls, but in the end, we were able to make it because United was making arrangements for its passengers who had had joint United/Aloha flights. We were incredibly lucky. I know there were others who had to spend even longer making arrangements, paid significant amounts of money extra, and had to arrive at very inconvenient times to make it to the race.
We landed at a small, outdoor airport and deplaned on a staircase. It felt a little like that 80s show “Fantasy Island”- de plane de plane! The airport was built partly with lava rock and was mostly a series of gazebos and palm trees with plenty of fresh island air wafting through. Very cool.
First we made a run to Costco to get some food for race morning (the coaches and mentors gave us a heads up that there would be no breakfast places open the morning of) and got some beer and snacks to keep us from running up too big of a tab at the Hilton Waikoloa. Then, after grabbing a bit of loco moco (hamburger topped with an egg and sauce on rice), we headed to the hotel.
All I can say is, wow! The grounds of the Hilton Waikoloa were stunning: as we pulled up into the semi-open air hotel lounge, a tram pulled up and a boat passed by in a moat. After checking in, we got in the tram and headed to our room, where we could see most of the grounds: an extensive network of moats, pools, waterfalls, bridges, a lagoon connected to the ocean filled with wildlife and hotel guests, lawn chairs, a dolphin lagoon with live dolphins, restaurants, wild birds, trials, and more. The hotel had graciously given Team in Training members an affordable rate for their stay. Go Hilton Waikoloa.
On Saturday, Steve headed out to snorkel in the lagoon while I put pedals on my bike and changed my bike’s front tire’s tube two times. The tube had burst in the shipment process, then the replacement tube was so old it burst upon being pumped up. The final tube was borrowed from a generous teammate who it turned out had paid an extra five grand to get to Kona on time to race. That’s some serious dedication! This guy had trained the hardest and was one of our top fundraisers, but always had a smile and a great attitude. He was an inspiration to the team.
After a quick swim on the race course in the ocean bay, we headed back. The water was warm (no wetsuits needed) and clear. I saw several tropical fish and a turtle despite the fact that there were probably a hundred people in the water at the time. Several people cut their feet on coral, unfortunately, but were not down for the count. Nothing a bit of duck tape can’t fix, apparently.
That afternoon we checked in to the race and sat through about a super boring, hour-long presentation by the race organizers about the course. It turns out the swim was going to be some sort of complicated “M” shaped course of 1.5 km (“Orange buoys on the?” “Left!” “Yellow buoys on the?” “Right!”), followed by a 40 km ride on the Queen K highway which had two very strict “no pass” zones (some race participants were a little peeved by that) and ending with a 10 km run that had a double loop that involved picking up and dropping off a popsicle stick. I’m not joking. Luckily, our whimsical coaches had prepared us with similar tasks during some of our fun workouts like the ride-and-tie relay and the scavenger hunt. I felt a bit encouraged by that.
Straight after the meeting, it was time for the Team in Training pre-race dinner. All 300 Team in Training participants and their families from around the country came to eat and hear from the coaches, organizers and most importantly our honoree speaker, an honoree participant from the Los Angeles team. His story is amazing. He went through chemo-therapy once, then again after getting cancer from the first chemo-therapy (3 years!), then his heart needed to be transplanted last year. He was racing the next day. The man is amazingly brave and tough. But despite all he’s been through, he is grateful for the treatment he got because he survived, which before the research of the last twenty or so years, his chances would have been zero. It was very inspiring and made me feel good about all the fundraising.
Soon enough, Sunday morning came around and it was time to head out for the race. After getting all my stuff together, I opened my door and was heartened to see a welcome message from the mentors to give us some heart as we headed out to the races. There was a little finishing tape that said “TNT Finisher!! Go Team!!” and a mat that said “Here stands a triathlete. Here stands a hero.” Could a person ask for better teammates?
So, this was it! The race was about to begin. Standing on the beach with six hundred participants, I definitely was starting to feel a bit nervous. I had never done the full distances of the swim, bike and run altogether. Was I going to be able to do it, and more importantly, without a lot of pain and suffering? The team got together and did a final “Go Team!” cheer and we were off to the starting line.
The race organizers had a person on a jet ski show us the course- which even they were a little confused about. Then the professionals lined up and the starting horn went off! Boy they were fast. Then the amateur males lined up and were off five minutes later. I was in the third and final wave, which was all women amateurs. I crawled carefully over some coral right in the shallows (didn’t want to get a big cut at the start) but got as far back in the wave as possible so I could avoid being kicked, slapped and swam over by the really competitive swimmers. You may think I’m being a wimp, but I found out later that one of the male racers got punched in the mouth by a fellow swimmer and lost some teeth during the swim. He won the award for the worst race injury. Needless to say, the swim was my biggest worry!
The horn went off and it was time to swim. What a rush to swim out with hundreds of swimmers- it was comforting in some ways to have all those swimmers around me (the crowd never really thinned out much) but also like swimming through a traffic jam. I accidentally swam right into and sometimes lightly kicked or slapped other swimmers, and I got the same. As clear as the water was, somehow I just didn’t see some of the swimmers in time to keep from running into them. So, there was that bit of negotiating to deal with. But it wasn’t too bad and I was able to get into somewhat of a flow, although I felt the need to look up every minute or so because the course was so complicated and I was worried about veering off course and running straight into a line of male swimmers going in the opposite direction. Not a comforting thought.
I had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction with the goggles: the right lens wasn’t keeping the water out very well, which was irritating, but luckily not too big of a deal. The water didn’t seem to bother my contacts and I could still see through my left eye. I just had to dump the water out a few times.
The swim seemed rather long (first time doing a mile in open water) but it eventually came to an end and I was running off the beach to the transition area to pull on some socks, shoes and helmet and head out for the bike ride. Which was a little bit of a “hurry up and wait” sort of situation because of the “no pass” zone for the first half mile, where I was stuck behind a girl riding a Walmart mountain bike. Needless to say her pace was a bit slow. But that’s OK, the Queen K highway came soon enough and it was time to make up for my slower swim.
I really cranked hard on the bike and passed tons of people. It was fun passing the road bike people on my hybrid using my bike bell. People got a kick out of the bell. I passed a lot of people on the hills and was making good progress. At the second “no pass” zone, I threw out my water bottle and got a fresh bottle of water, which gave me more zing. However ¾ of the way into the bike ride, I was getting the sinking feeling that maybe I had pushed a bit too hard on the bike and was starting to cramp a little bit in my thigh muscles. Uh oh. Oh well, I was having fun and at this point no amount of slowing was going to make the run any easier. I was just going to have to gut it out.
Well, as soon as I parked the bike and started running, I hit a wall of heat. My legs were heavy and I felt out of breath. The first thoughts in my mind were “oh man, all those people I passed on the bike are going to pass me now” and “oh my god, there’s six miles of this?”
The first part of the run was over volcanic rock, which emanated heat like an oven and was treacherous- I could definitely see rolling an ankle on that stuff. Then it was to barely shaded sidewalk. It was comforting to see that actually, almost everyone looked like they were jogging painfully slowly like I was, and a lot of people were actually walking- something I was going to try avoid doing. I thought about how lucky I was to be running in Hawaii and how this incredible heat and difficult run were nothing compared to radiation and chemotherapy. That worked for a while.
Then I hit popsicle stick land.
The double loop? It was across newly laid asphalt with no shade and a hill. OK, the hill was puny, but at this point, it seemed like a mountain. I did walk small portions of the hill both times because I walked faster than running, and I was starting to worry about passing out from heat exhaustion, but I kept running (albeit very slowly) both loops. I successfully retrieved and returned the popsicle stick, and was able to run back towards the Hilton.
We ran through the Hilton’s grounds, which were stunning, and then came to the final leg, through a mile and a half of very narrow path of volcanic rock and then a final stretch on the sand. At this point I had to dig very deep and think about all the people who were supporting me and all the cancer survivors I had met who had shared their stories and support. I knew I had to finish and would finish, no matter how hard. That’s what the survivors have taught me, that you just have to do it.
Well, to make a long story short, I was very happy to see the beach and the finish line. I crossed over and gave a big hug to Mary Anne, our honoree and Steve, my boyfriend. I was now a triathlete and Team in Training alumnus!
More pictures from the Hawaii trip and the triathlon can be found at:
http://flickr.com/photos/91056719@N00/sets/72157604468842382/
Final Thoughts:
It’s been an intense 5 months training and fundraising. I came really close to $10K (raised over $7K!). I have really enjoyed the opportunity to get back in touch with many friends and family. I will truly miss my team and the sense of purpose my life has had. I am hoping that I can continue to stay very active and to continue making contributions to the world in many different capacities. Thank you again for your help and support. May your life also continue to be blessed with adventure, accomplishment, happiness and the capacity to share them.
1 Comment
Ema’s Lavaman ’08 Race Results (The Numbers):
4/6/08 Sunday 7:35am start (race number 136)
25th in my age group (30-34 Females) out of 58
394th out of 637 overall
Total time: 3:18:01
Swim: 33rd in age group (450th overall) at 39 minutes 44 seconds, 2:29 average per 100 yards
Transition 1: 8th in age group at 2 minutes 17 seconds
Bike: 20th in age group (390th overall) at 1 hour 28 minutes, at a pace of 16.8 miles per hour
Transition 2: 7th in age group at 54 seconds
Run: 28th in age group (383rd overall) at 1 hour 6 minutes, at a pace of 10:46 minutes per mile
Ema’s Lavaman Race Report:
Pulling into the Kailua Kona airport on Friday afternoon was a small feat in and of itself. Me and Steve had managed to arrive around the same time we had originally intended, despite having one leg of our trip operated by the now bankrupt Aloha airlines. It took four hours of phone calls, but in the end, we were able to make it because United was making arrangements for its passengers who had had joint United/Aloha flights. We were incredibly lucky. I know there were others who had to spend even longer making arrangements, paid significant amounts of money extra, and had to arrive at very inconvenient times to make it to the race.
We landed at a small, outdoor airport and deplaned on a staircase. It felt a little like that 80s show “Fantasy Island”- de plane de plane! The airport was built partly with lava rock and was mostly a series of gazebos and palm trees with plenty of fresh island air wafting through. Very cool.
First we made a run to Costco to get some food for race morning (the coaches and mentors gave us a heads up that there would be no breakfast places open the morning of) and got some beer and snacks to keep us from running up too big of a tab at the Hilton Waikoloa. Then, after grabbing a bit of loco moco (hamburger topped with an egg and sauce on rice), we headed to the hotel.
All I can say is, wow! The grounds of the Hilton Waikoloa were stunning: as we pulled up into the semi-open air hotel lounge, a tram pulled up and a boat passed by in a moat. After checking in, we got in the tram and headed to our room, where we could see most of the grounds: an extensive network of moats, pools, waterfalls, bridges, a lagoon connected to the ocean filled with wildlife and hotel guests, lawn chairs, a dolphin lagoon with live dolphins, restaurants, wild birds, trials, and more. The hotel had graciously given Team in Training members an affordable rate for their stay. Go Hilton Waikoloa.
On Saturday, Steve headed out to snorkel in the lagoon while I put pedals on my bike and changed my bike’s front tire’s tube two times. The tube had burst in the shipment process, then the replacement tube was so old it burst upon being pumped up. The final tube was borrowed from a generous teammate who it turned out had paid an extra five grand to get to Kona on time to race. That’s some serious dedication! This guy had trained the hardest and was one of our top fundraisers, but always had a smile and a great attitude. He was an inspiration to the team.
After a quick swim on the race course in the ocean bay, we headed back. The water was warm (no wetsuits needed) and clear. I saw several tropical fish and a turtle despite the fact that there were probably a hundred people in the water at the time. Several people cut their feet on coral, unfortunately, but were not down for the count. Nothing a bit of duck tape can’t fix, apparently.
That afternoon we checked in to the race and sat through about a super boring, hour-long presentation by the race organizers about the course. It turns out the swim was going to be some sort of complicated “M” shaped course of 1.5 km (“Orange buoys on the?” “Left!” “Yellow buoys on the?” “Right!”), followed by a 40 km ride on the Queen K highway which had two very strict “no pass” zones (some race participants were a little peeved by that) and ending with a 10 km run that had a double loop that involved picking up and dropping off a popsicle stick. I’m not joking. Luckily, our whimsical coaches had prepared us with similar tasks during some of our fun workouts like the ride-and-tie relay and the scavenger hunt. I felt a bit encouraged by that.
Straight after the meeting, it was time for the Team in Training pre-race dinner. All 300 Team in Training participants and their families from around the country came to eat and hear from the coaches, organizers and most importantly our honoree speaker, an honoree participant from the Los Angeles team. His story is amazing. He went through chemo-therapy once, then again after getting cancer from the first chemo-therapy (3 years!), then his heart needed to be transplanted last year. He was racing the next day. The man is amazingly brave and tough. But despite all he’s been through, he is grateful for the treatment he got because he survived, which before the research of the last twenty or so years, his chances would have been zero. It was very inspiring and made me feel good about all the fundraising.
Soon enough, Sunday morning came around and it was time to head out for the race. After getting all my stuff together, I opened my door and was heartened to see a welcome message from the mentors to give us some heart as we headed out to the races. There was a little finishing tape that said “TNT Finisher!! Go Team!!” and a mat that said “Here stands a triathlete. Here stands a hero.” Could a person ask for better teammates?
So, this was it! The race was about to begin. Standing on the beach with six hundred participants, I definitely was starting to feel a bit nervous. I had never done the full distances of the swim, bike and run altogether. Was I going to be able to do it, and more importantly, without a lot of pain and suffering? The team got together and did a final “Go Team!” cheer and we were off to the starting line.
The race organizers had a person on a jet ski show us the course- which even they were a little confused about. Then the professionals lined up and the starting horn went off! Boy they were fast. Then the amateur males lined up and were off five minutes later. I was in the third and final wave, which was all women amateurs. I crawled carefully over some coral right in the shallows (didn’t want to get a big cut at the start) but got as far back in the wave as possible so I could avoid being kicked, slapped and swam over by the really competitive swimmers. You may think I’m being a wimp, but I found out later that one of the male racers got punched in the mouth by a fellow swimmer and lost some teeth during the swim. He won the award for the worst race injury. Needless to say, the swim was my biggest worry!
The horn went off and it was time to swim. What a rush to swim out with hundreds of swimmers- it was comforting in some ways to have all those swimmers around me (the crowd never really thinned out much) but also like swimming through a traffic jam. I accidentally swam right into and sometimes lightly kicked or slapped other swimmers, and I got the same. As clear as the water was, somehow I just didn’t see some of the swimmers in time to keep from running into them. So, there was that bit of negotiating to deal with. But it wasn’t too bad and I was able to get into somewhat of a flow, although I felt the need to look up every minute or so because the course was so complicated and I was worried about veering off course and running straight into a line of male swimmers going in the opposite direction. Not a comforting thought.
I had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction with the goggles: the right lens wasn’t keeping the water out very well, which was irritating, but luckily not too big of a deal. The water didn’t seem to bother my contacts and I could still see through my left eye. I just had to dump the water out a few times.
The swim seemed rather long (first time doing a mile in open water) but it eventually came to an end and I was running off the beach to the transition area to pull on some socks, shoes and helmet and head out for the bike ride. Which was a little bit of a “hurry up and wait” sort of situation because of the “no pass” zone for the first half mile, where I was stuck behind a girl riding a Walmart mountain bike. Needless to say her pace was a bit slow. But that’s OK, the Queen K highway came soon enough and it was time to make up for my slower swim.
I really cranked hard on the bike and passed tons of people. It was fun passing the road bike people on my hybrid using my bike bell. People got a kick out of the bell. I passed a lot of people on the hills and was making good progress. At the second “no pass” zone, I threw out my water bottle and got a fresh bottle of water, which gave me more zing. However ¾ of the way into the bike ride, I was getting the sinking feeling that maybe I had pushed a bit too hard on the bike and was starting to cramp a little bit in my thigh muscles. Uh oh. Oh well, I was having fun and at this point no amount of slowing was going to make the run any easier. I was just going to have to gut it out.
Well, as soon as I parked the bike and started running, I hit a wall of heat. My legs were heavy and I felt out of breath. The first thoughts in my mind were “oh man, all those people I passed on the bike are going to pass me now” and “oh my god, there’s six miles of this?”
The first part of the run was over volcanic rock, which emanated heat like an oven and was treacherous- I could definitely see rolling an ankle on that stuff. Then it was to barely shaded sidewalk. It was comforting to see that actually, almost everyone looked like they were jogging painfully slowly like I was, and a lot of people were actually walking- something I was going to try avoid doing. I thought about how lucky I was to be running in Hawaii and how this incredible heat and difficult run were nothing compared to radiation and chemotherapy. That worked for a while.
Then I hit popsicle stick land.
The double loop? It was across newly laid asphalt with no shade and a hill. OK, the hill was puny, but at this point, it seemed like a mountain. I did walk small portions of the hill both times because I walked faster than running, and I was starting to worry about passing out from heat exhaustion, but I kept running (albeit very slowly) both loops. I successfully retrieved and returned the popsicle stick, and was able to run back towards the Hilton.
We ran through the Hilton’s grounds, which were stunning, and then came to the final leg, through a mile and a half of very narrow path of volcanic rock and then a final stretch on the sand. At this point I had to dig very deep and think about all the people who were supporting me and all the cancer survivors I had met who had shared their stories and support. I knew I had to finish and would finish, no matter how hard. That’s what the survivors have taught me, that you just have to do it.
Well, to make a long story short, I was very happy to see the beach and the finish line. I crossed over and gave a big hug to Mary Anne, our honoree and Steve, my boyfriend. I was now a triathlete and Team in Training alumnus!
More pictures from the Hawaii trip and the triathlon can be found at:
http://flickr.com/photos/91056719@N00/sets/72157604468842382/
Final Thoughts:
It’s been an intense 5 months training and fundraising. I came really close to $10K (raised over $7K!). I have really enjoyed the opportunity to get back in touch with many friends and family. I will truly miss my team and the sense of purpose my life has had. I am hoping that I can continue to stay very active and to continue making contributions to the world in many different capacities. Thank you again for your help and support. May your life also continue to be blessed with adventure, accomplishment, happiness and the capacity to share them.