Kona deconstructed

Every year I come to Kona for the Ironman (this is year seven for me – still but a paltry number compared to many of the tri journalists and athletes who have been coming to the Big Island since the early ’80s), I experience two visceral reactions: 1. It’s hot and 2. Where did all this traffic come from?

Yes, Kona has grown big time since the race first was held here in 1981, but add several thousand athletes and their friends and families to the mix and it’s gridlock city. And don’t even think about trying to drive along Ali’i if you want to travel at anything quicker than a slow walking pace.

Those of you who have been to Kona know what I’m talking about. But for those of you who don’t, let me try to create a mental picture of the town for you.

Kailua-Kona is essentially built on a hillside that slopes from the top of the forested and mist-shrouded Hualailai volcano, which spectacularly rises above the town, down to the Pacific. At sea level, many of the shops and restaurants are clustered along Ali’i Drive, which winds along the oceanfront to Keauhou, about six miles south. All along Ali’i you’ll find hotels, condos and rental houses interspersed with patches of dense tropical jungle, cow pastures and barren lava rock.

The center of the Ironman universe is the King Kamehameha Hotel – a rather unfortunate 1960s holdover badly in need of an aesthetic update. Framing the other end of Kona proper is the Royal Kona, a decent place to stay but one that is similarly in need of a capital investment to pull it from the era of Hawaii 5-0 to the present.

In between these two landmarks are small shops, coffee houses, restaurants, the majestic Kona Inn, lava rock and small sandy beaches and, of course, Dig Me beach, where the Ironman begins and where every morning, beginning well before 7 a.m., thousands of athletes climb down the rock sea wall to the small patch of sand adjacent to the Kailua Pier and underneath the ancient banyan tree, before heading out into the bay for their morning workouts.

The Ironman folks have orange buoys set out, and kayakers patrol the swimmers, making sure no one gets into trouble and ensuring athletes and boats co-exist peacefully in the working harbor. The first few strokes off Dig Me are always crowded, so you have to keep your head up to avoid collisions, but once you get out past the first couple of buoys the ocean opens up, and you have a good deal more elbow room.

Once out of the water, you can grab a free Gatorade from the booth set up on the pier and walk south along crowded Ali’I to Lava Java – by far the most popular coffee spot in Kona – notwithstanding Starbucks’ great location halfway up Palani Rd. between the King Kam and the Queen K Highway (which leads to the new big-box stores just above the quaint town).

Yeah, the Kona experience may have changed over the past two decades, but if you’re floating in Kailua Bay at 7 a.m. on the third Saturday of every October, nothing has changed. The course is just as unforgiving, the climb to Hawi no less severe and the run down to the energy lab equally as punishing and rewarding as it was when Valerie Silk first moved the race from Oahu to the Big Island.

And that’s what keeps people coming back and what makes a ticket to the Hawaii Ironman the most sought-after commodity in the sport. And for good reason. Sure, the race is top-notch, but you’d expect that from a world championship. What really separates this race from anything else in the sport is that, like nowhere else, the Hawaii Ironman peels back the layers and, by process of elimination, relentlessly drains every emotion from your body until you know exactly what lies at the core. For that, 140.6 miles of heat, lava and wind is but a small price to pay.

Mahalo for reading.

CE

Comments

[Doris Sawyer]

So far, 30 minutes after start, I have seen only one still picture of the swimmers.

You need to have more motion pictures, if even for a minute or two of the racing itself.

During this time there is alot of
coverage by unknown commentators,
but again very little race news.