The Road to Kona

Its hard to believe I am back on the Big Island for my third go round with this race. When I started tris in 1999 if you would have told me I would be doing my 11th Ironman at the Ironman World Championship on October 10, 2009, I would have laughed and said "yeah, right!"

Funny how things change and some times you to take to something and see how far you can go. Thats what Ironman was for me intially. I just wanted the challenge of seeing if I could conquer my fear with swimming and I wanted to "earn" my first tattoo. Yup thats right, one of the reasons I signed up for my first Ironman was because my husband said there was no way his wife was going to get one.......the only way was if I finished an Ironman. Now when he said that he knew how hard swimming was for me and I know he never thought I would signed up for one. Well, I am not one that takes too kindly to being told I cannot do something so at that point I said "fine...I will just do one!"

And so Ironman Florida in 2000 was my intro to Ironman. At that time I never thought I would continue to do them let alone even fathom the thought of ever qualifying for the Super Bowl of tris. After 5 more Ironmans I qualified for my first trip to the Big Island with one of the best race expereinces I have ever had, Ironman Canada 2003. That race was just awesome and everything fell into place. With a 4th Place AG finish and 5 spots for Worlds I gladly accepted and was mentally set to race again in 8 weeks. My first expereince here in Kona was spectacular! I had no expectations, I just came and had fun and purposely staying aware of all that was going one....high fiving folks, thanking volunteers and having a grand ole time. The finish was surreal and I soaked in all in. I thought OK now I have seen it all and can take a break from IM and for the next 3 1/2 years I did just that.

Fast forward to 2007, I really had no intention of coming back out and doing Ironman as it is sooooo time consuming! For some reason, I cannot recall, I got sucked into signing up for Ironman Arizona (April). I trained fairly well for the race but not as focused as I had been before. The race went well and all I wanted from the day was a strong perfromance. Lo and behold the day turned out well and I managed to finish 4th AG ( again) and to my surprise realized I had gotten one of the 4 spots for Kona! I was actually pretty excited as I thought maybe I can REALLY focus on training and see what I can do in Hawaii. So my 2nd trip here to the Island was filled with great expectations to see how I could stack up against the best in the world. Only problem was it turned out to be one of the most painful race expereinces ever ( check out the blog archive Dec 2008 if you have any interest in reading about that day) and I said, NO MORE IRONMAN.

But....I could not end on that note. I had unfinished business and I did not want to go out that way. So when Ironman Arizona announced they were moving the race to Novemeber 2008, I had to go back to the start line and settle the score inside my own head. Needless to saying IM Az turned out very well. I set a new PR (10:47) and again! finished 4th AG. I would have been totally happy and content if they only had 3 qualifying spot for Kona but as it was they had 4......so how could I turn it down? Could the third time be the charm??

Thats bring me to this week...race week. I honestly had high hopes in training for Kona this year. Unfortunately life does not always go as planned. Its been a rough go with training this summer (minimal running) so its hard knowing I am here not where I was so hoping to be training wise. Its tough when in your head you are wired as a "competitor" but yet know that come race day you can only a "partcipant". But its all good...I plan to approach race day like I did back in 2003. No expectations. I am happy that I am here. I feel blessed and honored for the opportunity to race along side the best in the world. I have no clue what the day is going to serve up but regardless of what is thrown my way I am going to try hard to keep a smile on my face, keep making forward progress and just soak it all in.

I am so thankful for all the kind words so many folks have shared and will do my best come race day. In the mean time, I still have 4 more days to get things in order and enjoy the vacation! Will be posting more on the past few days and the days to come.

In the mean time will keep the race week Tweets alive ;-)

~Jennifer