Race Report: 2009 Lavaman Keauhou Triathlon

On September 13, 2009, I was fortunate to be a part of a relay team competing in the inaugural Lavaman Keauhou Triathlon. The relay team I was on was put together by local bike gurus BikeWorks, who was also a sponsor of the race. Let me start off by saying that it was an awesome event--tons of aloha, and the race was really well-run. It was an olympic distance triathlon. For those not familiar with the format, that means it was a 1.5 km swim, a 40km bike, and a 10k run.

It started out with the swim. Here are a couple of pictures of the calm before the storm, all of the swimmers getting set to do their thing:

Once the swim was off, our swimmer, Nick Garrett, got down to business. He absolutely killed the swim in a blazing 19:55. To put that in perspective, he was almost 1:30 ahead of anyone else in the field, which included two pro triathletes.

I don't have any pictures of the actual T1 (the transition from swim to bike) because I had already left to get setup in T2 (the transition from the bike to the run), but here's a picture I took of T1 before the race:

Once Nick got out of the water the [figurative] baton was passed to Kevin Murar, our cyclist, who again set a blistering pace on the bike. I don't have any pics of him because I was getting setup for the run, but they probably wouldn't have come out very well anyway because Kevin was flying.

Here's a picture I took of T2 before any of the cyclists had arrived:

Once Kevin sped into T2, it was my turn. I won't try to describe the stunning run course because local pro triathlete Bree Wee did a far better job than I could ever do in her blog. By the time I got out on the course it was about 8:20 and on its way to hot. It was a challenging course, covering a variety of terrains, from road to lava path, to golf course, and it had some absolutely spectacular views. My teammates gave me a big cushion headed into the run, and that's a good thing because I really used it. I warned them ahead of time that I was out of shape, and I made good on that proclamation running a pokey 43:35. Still, with teammates' help we were able to post a total time of 2:05:50, good for a comfortable win in the relay division. Full results are available here.

My camera was mysteriously dead post-race, but here's a shot of the finish line that I took in the morning while it was being set up:

The post-race party was fitting for a race as great as Lavaman. There was a bountiful lunch spread, a band, and tasty brews from Kona Brewing Company. It was a top-notch event from start to finish.

Much mahalo to everyone who worked so hard to make the inaugural Lavaman Keauhou the success that it was!