29 hours and 4 Planes

After 29 hours in 4 different planes we finally arrived in Kona, Hawaii. I don't even want to add the time spend in the airports, just mentioning one hick up where we were sitting inside the plane from London to Los Angeles for 45 minutes due to a "baggage" problem.

Luckily all that is behind us and I can now start focusing on next Saturday and try to adapt as soon as possible to the time difference. Above is one of the airport buildings in Kona.

When you hear the people talk about Lava fields and you see it on TV you imagine something but to see it in real life is something else. Although today was a "cool" day according to the people and being overcast it was still very humid. Dejone keep saying to me, "ek kry warm" which translates to " I'm getting warm".

I guess it must be something to adapt to for her as she can't remember when we visited Mauritius when she was 4 years and this is her first Island holiday where it is hot and humid. It is warm but luckily I've been to places like Bangkok, Egypt, Namibia desert and Mauritius which is also very hot. But to race in these conditions is going to be something else, no air con holiday.

Kim took this picture of me at Honolulu airport while we waited for our flight to Kona. It's funny but with South Africa being 12 hours ahead of Hawaii and nine ahead of LA I am feeling it the most between 11am and 2pm, which is the around midnight in SA.

I did an easy 40 minute run late this afternoon and i can sure feel it in my legs. My heart rate was a bit higher than normal but I could luckily keep a 4:43 min/km pace with my heart rate at 137 average. Hopefully this will improve during the next week. It was so special to run on the famous Alii drive.

Last night we spend the evening with Dana and Nina and it was awesome. Dana prepared some Mexican food and they made it so special. We chatted till very late and it was so interesting to stay with someone instead of sitting in a hotel. The information and interaction is something you can't buy. I forgot to take picture of the dog-t that I got from Nina for Eddy my new dog, looks so cool.

Here we are enjoying the night with them. Dana has got this cool smoker which he prepares the meat in and you use pellets, something I don't know and it was interesting seeing the smoker prepares the food and the taste is really nice.

This is outside their house this morning, it so cool having your countries flag outside your house. Something we as South Africans can definitely start doing if we say we are proud to be South Africans.


After my run I opened my bike bag VERY carefully and hoped for the best. Luckily Matilda is all in "one piece" and nothing is damaged or broken. Don't know if it was my super double bubble wrapping or did the airport personnel read the 'FRAGILE" and "handle with care" stickers.

I assembled the bike and will take it for a ride tomorrow to see if all the moving parts are fine.

Also a special thank you to Shane and Tiffany from Tri Travel. They met us at the airport loaded all our bag and took us to our condo. After we offloaded the bags they took us to the super market to get some supplies. On our way to the condo Shane also shared a lot of info with us and particular about the course. He raced Kona three times and has been doing the tour guides for nine years so I guess it's safe to take advice from him.

Didn't even realize it's the first of October and here are my training totals for September.

Swim: 32.5 km

Bike: 981 km
Run: 202.3 km

Gym: 6 sessions

Totals: 66h32, 1215.8 km, 46866 kcal