WEDNESDAY:
The second part of my Hawaiian vacation was about to begin. The girls arrived and we headed in Kailua for lunch and groceries. We rented a killer house in Waikoloa Village.
That evening we went to the Marriott Waikoloa Luau.
I didn’t really know what to expect. I checked the menu before agreeing on it. It looked like I would have something to eat.
We enjoyed the sunset, drinks, dinner, and the show. It wasn’t really what I expected but then I wasn’t even sure what to expect.
The Ragnar packet pick up was at the same hotel. We squeaked in right as they were closing. It was nice to just have that done so we didn’t have to worry about it the next day.
THURSDAY:
We hit up the Waialea beach for some swimming and snorkeling. It was perfect.
We used the boogie boards like rafts!
We went into Kailua to have lunch. We went to a Mexican restaurant that Dan and I had been eyeing the week before. Talk about being on Hawaii time. 2 hours that we will never get back. I showed them around the pier and the Ironman swim start.
After a long afternoon it was time to hit the grocery store, get home to cook dinner, and get packed up for the relay.
FRIDAY: Day 1 of Ragnar Hawaii
After not getting an earlier start time, like I wanted—another long story, we were stuck with an 8:45 start. We made our way to Hilo. It was already sunny and hot.
Jen was our newest addition. Anne got herself knocked up and was out for Hawaii. Stephanie and Laura talked Jen into something she would probably regret getting talked into it!! 🙂
We were originally going to do 3-double legs, but they changed a bunch of legs around and there was 2 really long legs in our 3rd set of legs, so we opted to run 2 longer legs and 2 shorter legs like Del Sol.
With all the changes I ended up with the most amount of miles. Shit. How did that happen? I feel like that happens every.single.time!!! Enough complaining. I was off for a long run!!
Who is ready to start Ragnar Hawaii?!! Not me!!!
Me(runner 1); Laura (runner 6); Kat(runner 3); Jen(runner 5); Erica (runner4); Stephanie (runner2)
LEG 1: legs 1 and 2: 13.53 miles 11:06/mile 8:45 am
Well I really wanted to try and go out easy. It was going to be hot and miserable no matter what. Turned out to be hot, miserable, and slow. It was a hard leg. There was a lot of uphill. The van wasn’t meeting me until after the first exchange, which ended up being a huge mistake. I was so hot. I wanted to take me shirt off(who am I?) I had run out of Gatorade by the first exchange. I did come upon this guy who was washing his car and I had him spray me down. That was nice but it dried quick!!
Honestly, I wanted to quit so bad. I wanted to see the girls, have them pick me up, quit this madness, and just go to the beach!! I didn’t want to go on. I didn’t want to run anymore. I was in a pretty dark place for being at mile 6 of a 200 mile relay!!
Finally when I saw the girls at about 6.5/7 miles I got more water. They put more sunscreen on me. I definitely got a second wind. They stopped a few more times before the end of the leg.
Leg 1 DONE!! This leg pretty much confirmed that legacy for IMWC was out. No thank you!
We were all pretty miserable on our first legs. It was hot, windy, it rained, and there was huge elevation gain. We got a pretty good rhythm of stopping to support with cold water, ice, and sunscreen. Picture the pit crew of a Nascar race. We all took the welcomed break. Except one of Steph’s legs. She was trying to pass a gal. We barely got her bottle filled and ice down her sports bra before she was off again!
LEG 2: leg 13: 9.2 miles 9:31/mile 9:40pm
I thought this leg would be so much better. It was my night leg. In the dark. Always my favorite. Wrong!! The chart said it was all downhill. Which isn’t exactly easy. You pound on your quads. My toes were totally wrecked from IMWI already. That was not going to help on this leg either. We also had learned in the last 12 legs that the chart wasn’t exactly correct either.
I experienced everything during this leg. Headwind, tailwind, cross wind, mostly downhill, but there was some good uphill stretches too. The one cool thing was the moon was full and it was amazing.
But still a very hard leg. DONE!
LEG 3: leg 24: 7.87 miles 10:18/mile 7:21am
Another “downhill” leg. Now my quads were totally trashed from leg 2 and my toes may fall off at any second. I was going to start my third leg. It started off downhill and good. My legs were not happy but at least there was no wind. The sun had just rised and was out in full force. I knew I would need to bottle some of the “cool” 70 degree air because my next leg was going to be at least 90!
I got into a pretty good groove with a pretty good clip and then it started. Out of nowhere the wind went from 0 to 60 in a matter of seconds. I was so sad. The view was awesome though!
It ended rough and another shitty leg DONE!
LEG 4: leg 31; 4.4 miles 12:23/mile 1:45pm
This one was a doozy. This one started in the Energy Lab. Which was kind of cool. It started in sand. (WTF?) It was an uphill out and onto the Queen K. HOT, HOT, HOT. I didn’t even start with a shirt on!
I just kept telling myself to go SLOW…JUST GET IT DONE…SO CLOSE BUT SO FAR AWAY!
A gal from another ultra team came up to me and we started chatting. I wanted to walk so bad but I kept with her. She was running leg 31 and 32 and I felt bad for her! We chatted which was fun. We passed another ultra gal. At about mile 2 I saw the girls and got some more cold water. My new friend had kept going but I caught her. We ran and walked a bit more. She saw her team and I kept moving. She never caught back up to me. I definitely powered through. Run, walk, run…it wasn’t the death march that I thought it would be…but it was finally over. I handed off to Steph for the last time!!!
Just as fast as it started it was OVER!! We all killed our last legs and finished in 34 hours 36 minutes. It was good for 1st place in the open women’s ultra division. We were also 1st of all the ultra women’s teams. BAM. We got it done.
SUNDAY:
We had a great brunch and last hurrah before taking Erica to the airport.
Do we all look like we just ran a million miles?
We went down to the Old Kona Airport Beach. Not a great beach for relaxing. There wasn’t much sun either. We checked out the open air market on All’i drive. I had more ice cream at Kope Lani, my favorite ice cream shop! Hula Mocha Freeze FTW!!!
We were all tired, sore, and stiff. But it was nice to move around in the fresh air.
MONDAY:
Back to Hilo we went. We knew there was some waterfalls that we wanted to check out. It was worth the trip.
We first stopped at Hilo Shark’s Coffee. Most of us got milkshakes and some got coffee.
Rainbow Falls was awesome. The sun has to be facing the falls to see the rainbow. When we got there the sun wasn’t even out. But as we hung out for a bit it came out and so did the rainbow.
We hit up Pe’epe’e Falls and Wai’ale Falls.
Akaka Falls was our 4th and final stop. 400 feet down. Nice little hike too.
Another great day in paradise.
TUESDAY:
My last day. What a sad day that was. After 12 days in Hawaii, I was getting ready to leave! Jen left a couple of hours before we did, so we went back to the Energy Lab for one last dip!