Friday 3th October
Wake at 5am again and get to the airport at 6.30am, we check in with Hawaiian Air, Nick manages to get our bike boxes through without the extras charges of $100.00 so pretty happy with that, the airlines here in the US seem a lot more sympathy and understanding to us lowly poor athletes than in the UK. We board the plane at 8.30am - Hawaii here we come. Flight lasts for about 5 hours, we have a 2 hour break at Honolulu airport before catching our final flight into Kona. It seems like we have been travelling for an eternity now and getting a little tired of plane trips, but this is only a 40 minute flight so goes by in a flash! Arrive at Kona Airport which is really quaint, the baggage collection area is situated in an open air hut like building and I must say is far more efficient than anything we have in the UK, even the flight departure & arrival times are just written on a board...no computers its quite refreshing. Weather is overcast but about 28 degrees, it great, I can already feel my hamstring loosening up.
No stresses about getting to our condo, the Endurance Sports guys are there to meet us. Greg (who looks like a surfer dood!) is a long distance duathlete and from what we can gather is pretty good. We get to our condo, it’s great, it’s got a bedroom, bathroom, living area and kitchen plus a balcony which we can see the ocean from. Looks like all the other condo units are taken or going to be taken up by other athletes. 
After settling in, unpacking the cases and building the bikes (Nick not me) we take a walk into town which is just less than a mile, we are confronted with lots of athletes running along the highway and true to form every time I get to these international race locations I suddenly feel incredibly unfit !! We end up at a coffee house called ‘Lava Java’ which apparently is the favourite haunt for all of the IM athletes, we grab a coffee and a snack and sit and watch the world go by (well run by...again lots of people running, just can’t get away from it!!). Heading back to the condo we notice how early it gets dark here, by 6pm it was almost pitch black and worked out that I would be finishing the race in the dark!
On getting back to the condo we decide to go for a short run, everything feels remarkable good considering that my glute & hamstring were giving me a bit of grief during the flights, such a relief !!!
We get back from the run, we shower, eat and are in bed again by 9pm, jet lag is kicking in big time now! We are -11 hours GMT.
Wake at 5am again and get to the airport at 6.30am, we check in with Hawaiian Air, Nick manages to get our bike boxes through without the extras charges of $100.00 so pretty happy with that, the airlines here in the US seem a lot more sympathy and understanding to us lowly poor athletes than in the UK. We board the plane at 8.30am - Hawaii here we come. Flight lasts for about 5 hours, we have a 2 hour break at Honolulu airport before catching our final flight into Kona. It seems like we have been travelling for an eternity now and getting a little tired of plane trips, but this is only a 40 minute flight so goes by in a flash! Arrive at Kona Airport which is really quaint, the baggage collection area is situated in an open air hut like building and I must say is far more efficient than anything we have in the UK, even the flight departure & arrival times are just written on a board...no computers its quite refreshing. Weather is overcast but about 28 degrees, it great, I can already feel my hamstring loosening up.
No stresses about getting to our condo, the Endurance Sports guys are there to meet us. Greg (who looks like a surfer dood!) is a long distance duathlete and from what we can gather is pretty good. We get to our condo, it’s great, it’s got a bedroom, bathroom, living area and kitchen plus a balcony which we can see the ocean from. Looks like all the other condo units are taken or going to be taken up by other athletes. 
After settling in, unpacking the cases and building the bikes (Nick not me) we take a walk into town which is just less than a mile, we are confronted with lots of athletes running along the highway and true to form every time I get to these international race locations I suddenly feel incredibly unfit !! We end up at a coffee house called ‘Lava Java’ which apparently is the favourite haunt for all of the IM athletes, we grab a coffee and a snack and sit and watch the world go by (well run by...again lots of people running, just can’t get away from it!!). Heading back to the condo we notice how early it gets dark here, by 6pm it was almost pitch black and worked out that I would be finishing the race in the dark!
On getting back to the condo we decide to go for a short run, everything feels remarkable good considering that my glute & hamstring were giving me a bit of grief during the flights, such a relief !!!
We get back from the run, we shower, eat and are in bed again by 9pm, jet lag is kicking in big time now! We are -11 hours GMT.
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