Hawaii has a way of forcing you to live by the sunrise and the sunset, and sure enough, it's easy to wake up in Hawaii. If it was only this easy to get up everywhere. Just ran down to the pier and took these photos.Now back cranking on some e-mail correspondence and talking on the phone, while putting my biking clothes on to head out onto the Queen K.
My friend and champion triathlete Wendy Ingraham was at the pier this a.m., and so was Normann Stadler. In the photo below, I caught up with Normann for his thoughts on the big surf. As you can see, Normann is still being followed by the German television station, the only question is, what is the cameraman pointing the camera at? Normann's washboard?
The Germans tend to get to Kona early, perhaps its the long flight, or perhaps its a culture of dedication, or perhaps it's just the weather in Germany. In this photo, the German Tour group is all wearing the blinding bright orange shirts. Will there ever be an orange shirt run?
The Pier is going to be completely transformed from what even Hollywood producers have admitted is a massive task. To take the pier and Ali'i drive and make it a spectator-friendly, athlete-smooth finish line involves significant effort. This morning the crew from Ironman were reviewing the plan on the wall near the pier.
Yesterday, when biking, I noticed that there is a lot more traffic on the Queen K - every year more people move to Kona -- and there are many, many big trucks. There are two kinds of Kona residents - those that love us, and those that hate us. For the most part, the people in Kona welcome us. So my advice to Kona athletes:
-bike early and not during rush hour
-ride single file
-if you see something strange in the road, stop to move it
-do not go through stop lights
-if you hear a truck passing you, move to the far right of the bike lane
I'm heading out to the Queen Q now with my camera - will be back with a report... stay tuned... and remember to bookmark this link....
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