After what had to be the longest trip ever, Amber and I made it to the promise land. We started out by getting up at 4:30am to catch our flight from Edmonton to Phoenix. There was a bit of a hold up with the ticket agent as she didn't know what she was doing but after about 30 minutes had everything figured out. That should have been a warning sign. We took off from Edmonton right on schedule without a hitch but when we arrived in Phoenix the pilot mentioned there was a lot of air traffic and we would have to remain in a holding pattern for a while. The only problem was that we didn't have much fuel so if we were there for more than an hour, we'd have to go to another airport. Luckily after half an hour circling we were able to land and fortunately catch our connecting flight to Kona.
The next flight was delayed for another 40 minutes while they tried to replace a burnt out light and noticed some other problems. The plane did look a little dumpy for a major American airline but we were so happy just to be on a flight to Hawaii, we didn't care. We were about an hour and a half into the flight just about to go over the Pacific when the captain mentioned he had some more bad news, the short-wave radio was not working and they couldn't go over water without it. We had to go back to Phoenix and get it fixed or get a new plane!
So back to Phoenix we went, tired, hungry, and not knowing when we would get to Hawaii. After another hour and a half in the Phoenix airport we boarded another plane and started out again. So far we'd been travelling 11 hours and my butt was really sore. This time we were off for good and 6 hours later we arrived in Kona! It was so nice to be there! All the crap of travelling for 20 hours was forgotten and we were happy to be in the promised land.
I met a fellow triathlete in the seat next to me, Paul, who was in the 50-54 age group from North Bay, Ontario and he qualified at Louisville. Way to go Paul. It was definitely tough out there. He was also an investment guy working with RBC.
Our condo in Hawaii was awesome, small but fully stocked with everything you need. We had a good night sleep and woke up bright and early at 6am (10am our time) and went to the pier to go for a swim. It was great hanging out on Ali'i drive, we ran into a bunch of pros and even stopped to talk with Sam Maglone and her coach (husband) Cliff English. Unfortunately she's not racing due to an achilles injury, I mentioned I had the same problem and she asked me what I did to rehab it. I told her go for A.R.T. as much as possible, that's the only thing that worked for me, thanks to my buddy Colin. Cool, Sam Maglone was asking my advice does it get any better.
Walking around town was a lot of fun, we saw Lisa Bentley, Peter Reid, Desiree Ficker and as I went to the store last night I saw Chris MacCormak look right at me as he ran by! Wow, how awesome is it being here!
We had a lot of fun doing non-triathlon related things as well. We rented some cruisers and they were great for getting around. We also rented some snorkel gear and it was so much fun swimming with the fish who were so tame that they didn't mind you swimming around with them. And the sea life here is so amazing! Every color of fish you can think of, Hawaii truly is a paradise!
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