Ironman and the Finegolds

Leslie and I thought it would be fun to go see the Kona Ironman contest. It is the big granddaddy of the modern long-distance triathlon, started 30 years ago with this as its tagline: Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life!

Twelve guys completed the race that first year. This year, the competition drew 1800 very fit and, from my perspective, crazy men and women. Everybody earns his or her place through qualifying at one of 27 races throughout the globe. We figured it would be a visual feast just being around so many folks with bulging muscles. And, indeed, the contrast with our usual Kona experience was striking.

For instance, we always like to snorkel at Kahalu’u in Kona, which we affectionately call the “ugly-people” beach. This is opposed to the beautiful-people beaches up the coast in Kohala where the rich work on their tans. At Kahalu’u the too-fat mingle with the too-white (later in the day, too-red). Believe me, one rarely sees a well-defined muscle on this beach. I consider myself a proud part of the ugly folks! And, of course, I don't really mean that they/we are really ugly. Just not exactly model-types. Here are a couple of typical beachgoers:

But, the place took on a whole new look the day before Ironman! For instance, coming out of the water was this guy:

As I looked around, I realized sprinkled between the usual riff-raff of the beach were these completely out-of-place fit people. For these folk, a little leisure today. Tomorrow would come self-torture.

As I was ogling the triathletes in my midst, and readying myself for snorkeling, a girl of about 4 came within inches and demanded:

What are you doing? Putting on my reef-walkers
What are they for? So, I don’t hurt myself when I walk on the rocks.
Do you need help? No, I can do it. Thanks.
Where are you from? Hilo – on the other side of the island.

And so forth

But I am no slouch in the interrogation department, so I began my interview:

Where are your folks? There (Pointing behind I saw her mom and dad. Yes, they were keeping a steady eye on their sociable daughter and gave me the do-you-want-rescue look. Like a major league baseball pitcher, I shook off their signal.)
What is your mom’s name? Lynda
What is your dad’s name? Ted
Where do you live? I don’t know. (Later she dashed back and forth to her parents and came back with the report: Washington)
What is your name? Ba-rock-ley. Barockley? NO!! BA ROCK LEY. (I couldn’t repeat it to her satisfaction.) The second part of my name is Rose Finegold.

Leslie had joined us for the interrogation and we were firing questions back and forth. She often said of my answers: You’re funny. Yes, my repertoire with Barockley Rose Finegold was quite witty, I thought.

The most important information we gleaned was that her mom was in the triathlon. A backward glance and, yes, Lynda was quite buff (and Ted looked pretty damn fit himself). Barockley told us she was also a runner and even faster than her mom, but only on grass. I nodded indulgently.

Ted came to take his daughter (he shared her name with us: Berkeley) for a swim. After she came out of the water, she all but ignored us. Our moment in the spotlight was over. We were in the past, thrown away like yesterday's paper. Our beach neighbors were next in line for the Berkeley treatment. And, so it went in a series of meet-and-greets with various strangers.

Here is a picture of Berkeley having a heart-to-heart with another stranger in the ocean. At least, I think she was a stranger.

And here she is being her inquisitive self:

I tell you – this kid is going to be a great success. I watched her parents watching her almost as much as I watched her. And, you can tell they are great parents. They gave her a lot of room to be her irrepressible self, while always ready to intervene. (Ted asked several times if we wanted “rescue”.) They also have a much quieter son, who spent time amusing himself playing in the sand while his sister gathered up people like they were shells on the beach. A really cool family. We chatted a bit with Lynda who encouraged us to cheer her on the next day. We said we would. I am sure she didn't take our pledge too seriously.

Anyway, race day we were down at the Kailua pier at dawn to watch the frenetic swim event. Here is a photo of the start of the amateur group. (The pros start 15 minutes earlier)

The photo reminds me of the scene in Titanic with all the bodies flailing in the ocean. But, of course, they aren’t dying here. But, by the end of the day, I am sure more than a few thought they might just die.

After the swim, they jump on their bikes and go up the coast and back. Anyone who has ever spent time on that coast knows how windy it is. Brutal for bicyclists. Leslie – who does ride – really felt sorry for them. I can’t even imagine it.

Around noon, the first of the cyclists returned. We planted ourselves at the “hot corner” where you could see the cyclists come in and then transition to the marathon and run out. Before heading up the coast, they run up Alii drive and back to the hot corner – about 10 miles. So, after a little bit, it was a three-ring circus – bicyclist coming in, marathoners heading out, tired marathoners coming back (with 16 miles to go). And, then, another ring is added: the marathoners coming to the finish. Here is a picture of the corner:

It isn’t a great picture but if you click on it to enlarge you can see a bicylist coming in on the right, several marathoners heading out in the back (two to the left of the blue M sign, and one at the far right), and another marathoner on the left rounding the corner for the next 16 miles.

We had initially planned to leave after watching at the hot corner for a short time, but now we had a horse in the race: Lynda Finegold. We wanted to see Berkeley’s mom in action. (We bought a program so we could scan through the 1800 names to find her number. She was #1347.) Of course, we had no idea if she totally sucked. She could have dropped out; she could just be really, really slow. But we watched closely as the bicyclists streamed by. And, there she was – coming in pretty early for an amateur woman! We screamed for her as loud as we could, but rock music was playing from the announcer booth, so we doubted she could hear us.

She started on the marathon course a little bit before 2:00 pm. We had planned to leave by 3:00 at the latest as we had a date for cocktails with Bud at 5:00 in Hilo. It is a 2-hour drive home. Unless Lynda was some sort of amateur running phenom, she wouldn’t be back until around 3:30. But I really wanted her to know we were out there rooting her on. We decided to hang in there and hoped that she was a decent marathoner.

We walked to a spot closer to our car on Palani, the grueling hill that the runners must climb at the “hot corner.” Many, many marathoners walked up that hill. And, Lynda was not an exception – she looked really beat. It was around 3:20. I think she was a little startled and confused to hear us yelling: “Go, Lynda!! You can do it!” To give her some context, we also yelled: “We met at the beach!” At that point – knowing she had fans – she started running again with a pretty good smile on her face. We felt confident that her time was going to be at least 10 seconds faster because of our effort. Here she is back on the run:

After she passed, we jumped in the car and hightailed it to Hilo.

The next day we anxiously checked the results to see how our girl did. We were thrilled to discover that she made the leaderboard (the top ten) for her age group. The official results below:

Women 35 - 39 Leaders
Place Numb Lname Fname Age City Pro Cnt Rep Swim Tr1 Bike Tr2 Run Time

1 1386 Mader, Wendy 35 Fort Collins CO USA 55:15 2:46 5:36:16 2:17 3:17:19 9:53:51
2 1373 Lear-Kaul, Kelly 36 Littleton CO USA 1:03:46 3:04 5:40:12 3:00 3:27:23 10:17:24
3 1351 Lie, Kristin 37 Oslo NOR 1:18:45 3:14 5:39:12 3:00 3:21:18 10:25:26
4 1377 Rudolf, Michaela 36 Pyhra AUT 1:17:06 3:19 5:40:04 2:56 3:30:45 10:34:07
5 1328 Steigerwald, Chrissy 39 Colorado Spr CO USA 1:04:03 3:45 5:48:52 5:15 3:38:33 10:40:26
6 1336 Ciaverella, Ann 38 Happy Valley OR USA 1:08:20 2:50 5:57:34 2:32 3:32:05 10:43:19
7 1375 Morris, Maggs 36 Kailua HI USA 1:04:59 2:41 5:47:07 3:22 3:46:39 10:44:47
8 1372 Kunze, Anja 36 Frankfurt GER 1:06:50 3:12 5:42:25 3:38 3:56:45 10:52:49
9 1347 Finegold, Lynda 37 Wenatchee WA USA 1:09:43 3:37 5:38:21 6:46 3:57:27 10:55:52
10 1358 Schmidt, Betina 37 Viborg DNK 1:09:07 3:59 6:02:54 4:28 3:36:45 10:57:11

We are so proud of her! Way to go Lynda! (Considering that I don't even know the woman, my sense of pride in her accomplishment is a bit odd - but really heartfelt!) I fully expect Berkeley will be out there in about 20 years. Maybe we will come back and root her on.

Pictures on Paddington Bear Day*

* Google decided to commemorate the date the first Paddington Bear book was released even though it is Columbus Day (observed). How PC...

A fisherboy at Coconut Island

Going to the dump. In Hilo, there is no city garbage pick-up. You have to take it. This was our first load (with a lot more in the back seat of the car). I did our second dump run today.

Lucky again

For those who read my France blog, I wrote one about our luck called Bonne chance! It was the story of how things went wrong on the day we left for France with lucky results. Well, we hit the jackpot again! Right before we left for our short Kona vacation, our toilet supply line burst, flooding are bathroom. But, I was at home and heard the running water. I stopped it before the water hit the hardwood. If the supply line had waited 12 hours later, when we were gone, it would have been a catastrophic flood - inundating the home, ruining the floor, flooding the basement and generally making our return home horrible. So, aren't we totally lucky!

More on Kona later, but here are the pictures of the day (as promised):

Robin taking down this dead orange tree

Hawaiian guy with his dog on Coconut Island

The new blog concept

Well, now that we have put the house together, I have to move on to other things with the blog. When I am not obsessively following the election, I am usually working on house projects. Until I get inspired to write about one of these projects (or something else), I think I am just going to give you two photos most days: one related to a work around the house and the other just showing our life on the Big Island.

Joe, John and the Dolphin Bay Hotel - thanks

As I mentioned in my last blog, we bought more furniture from a couple soon leaving the island. We were supposed to pick it up Friday morning. To that end, we borrowed a truck from Casey but it needed to be returned that evening for her commute home. But, Friday morning Leslie woke up with a really bad back. She isn’t sure from what – the move that day with Robert, a long day in the garden, sitting in an awkward position because she has a bum knee – but she couldn’t really move at all.

A thank you to our friends

As our settling in period comes to a close, I want to say a few words about our friends on the island who have given us an extraordinary welcome.

First, there is Casey and Bill. Casey has been keeping an eye on our house during the period it was empty, which has been an enormous comfort to us over the months. And, then, they supplied us with some essentials for our first week: a mattress, covers, tables and chairs. Without those, we would have been sleeping and eating on the floor. Not the worst thing in the world, but we sure had a nicer housewarming because of it. I could go but suffice it to say, they - particurlarly Casey - have been our saviours. Mahalo!

Casey and Bill last year

Shopping is almost over...

Pictured below is our house shopping over the last couple of days. We now have most of the things we need and so this sort of post will come to a natural conclusion. But, I feel a responsibility to finish up with a fully stocked house. That comes Friday, as we just made a deal to buy the rest of the furniture we need and will pick it up then. ($700) So, my last picture-of-things-we-bought post will end after we complete that move.

Some photos

Leslie and I holding a bunch of orchids that we were taking to our friend, Casey, who invited us over for a delicious meal at her home in Volcano last night. $5 for all those orchids! What a deal!

Our hero, Robert

We were making progress on our house - buying a few things here, friends giving us a lot of things there. But, two days ago we hit the mother load: we purchased the lion's share of the household of our new best friend, Robert! He is leaving the island so his entire household's contents were for sale. We really liked his taste in everything, so we made a long list of all the furniture we were interested in that he had for sale: a queen bed, three dressers, two end tables, a futon, a table and chairs, a desk and desk chairs, a bookshelf, an area rug, a lounge chair, a coffee table and more. Leslie handed him the list and asked: "How much for it all?" He came back with the quote of $300! Wow! Did I mention that most everything was in good shape? Driving our typical hard bargain, we countered with $600. At that point, he agreed but threw in everything but the kitchen sink - his tools, ladders, lawn mower, chemicals, lamps, etc. etc.

The Sally shop comes through

Leslie found a cheap-ass old exercise bike (and a few other items pictured below) at the Hilo "Sally shop" ($18). She was thrilled and took it for it's first spin yesterday. Beyond the smell of burning rubber, worked like a charm. And, here I said bad things about the shop in my last post. I am so sorry, please forgive me!

Our first trip to Kona

There is one Costco on the island but it is 100 miles away in Kona. We made our pilgrimage there yesterday to stock up. Now, unlike Walmart, I am not embarrassed to shop at Costco. As corporations go, they are fairly good – though not perfect by any means. Read this if you are interested in what is both right and wrong with the company: http://www.bohemian.com/bohemian/04.30.08/feature-0818.html
Anyway, we bought a lot of food, drink and sundries there yesterday. Here are the non-food purchases (total:$127.30):

Here's to Cindy and Joe!

I have to give a shout out to Cindy and Joe – our fabulous former tenants – who sold us a bunch of their stuff when they moved back to their home in Texas. See above photo. They didn't sell us the computer (or Leslie) - but they did sell us everything else pictured and more! The little trash cans they left have doubled as both end tables and step stools (see the coffee on the trash can next to Leslie.) Invaluable!

The Rainbow Isle

Lots of rainbows all the time here! Like this. This is actually a double rainbow but the upper rainbow is hard to see...

Let’s Help the USA: Go shopping!

Yes, we are in another crisis and, while Bush hasn’t yet repeated his exhortation to “go shopping” to solve this particular crisis – I will! Come on, Americans – let’s do what we do best and hit the stores. But, this time, please don’t do it with credit. That isn't going so well.

We are here doing our part in Hawaii. We have been so busy shopping that I haven’t had time to really write this blog. And, I must confess – oh, please forgive us for we have sinned – that we bought most new stuff at Walmart. Hey, did you know that they have every day low prices? We were seduced by their evil empire. Below is our Walmart junk. Click on the picture for a screen sized view if you want to see what it all is in more detail. (Total bill: $165)

Poor Rosie

We are now in Hilo. Let the blog begin!

We brought Rosie with us. I don’t want to go into the complications of the “direct release” program for dogs but, suffice it to say, it is a complicated and expensive way to avoid quarantine. If anyone ever wants to bring an animal here – we can help you! Just ask! But, just know that the cost of bringing her about equaled our two plane fares together. And, unfortunately, it might be torture for your beloved animal – as it was for Rosie.