Zoomin' Zak Plunge & Plod Biathlon

Another beautiful, sunny Sunday in Kona can mean only one thing - another fun Peaman event! Today's race, named in honor of Peaman's late friend "Zoomin" Zak, was a 1/2 mile swim, followed by a 3.9 mile run, with the typical pea-wee short course.

Since Jason had to complete one of his last long runs before the Hilo marathon, it was up to me to represent at the race. But he was able to plan out his run so he could end at the pier and take lots of pictures. I have to admit, I wasn't looking forward to this race as much as the others. On the last Peaman swim, I managed to take in a ton of ocean water and got caught up in a rough pack in the swim. So I was still hoping to improve on my swimming time, but also to have a less panicked swim.

Before the race, I met one of our out-of-town customers who wanted to complete the run, but needed someone to tag off of for the swim. I was happy to help, but had to make sure her expectations of my swim time weren't too high. I also got some pre-race encouragement from Nori and Bobbi.

Then it was into the water. I purposefully stayed towards the back of the swim start and this one went MUCH smoother. A little jostling around, but overall much less water made it into my stomach than last time and I didn't have to doggy-paddle to catch my breath. Overall, the swim felt remarkably good. It was definitely tiring, but I felt like I was making good progress and going in a relatively straight line (this is sometimes a big challenge for me). I managed to make it out of the water just under 21 minutes, cutting almost another minute off my swim time for that distance. I think these workouts I'm doing are helping! Here are some shots of us coming out of the water:


And Peaman heading out on the run course:


After tagging my relay partner for the run, I threw on my shoes and shorts and started my run. I was pretty winded from the swim, but just kept telling myself to run steady and concentrate on catching each person in front of me. It worked pretty well and I came in at 31:10 from the run, for a total time of 53:17, beating my last time by over 2 minutes! But I still have plenty of room for improvement. Full results for the race are here.

Jason had camped out near the finish line and got finishing photos for many of the runners. You can check out our photo album here for many more photos, but below are some of the happy finishers:

After the race there were more awards and prizes, with the highlights being the awarding of the perpetual pea to the Nixon family and Marty Barger of Big Island Honda winning a slime gun.

Up next is the Run for Hops 5K/10K this Saturday at 7:30 a.m. Jason will be running the 5K and I'll be volunteering (and hopefully taking some photos). Spots are still available, so stop by the Big Island Running Company for an entry form. Also, volunteers are always needed, so please email either me at melissa@bigislandrunningcompany.com or John Simmerman at johns88usc@yahoo.com if you'd like to help out.