Ironman Recap!

Well, Ironman has come and gone and Kona is finally back to normal.  It's amazing how quickly everyone clears out.  It's also amazing how many people pack into Kona for the week of Ironman and how crazy the atmosphere is.  We're lucky enough to be involved in the industry and to see a big sales boost from the event, but that also means we personally get wiped out! So although I took many pictures over the course of the week, I didn't really get a chance to share them until way after the event. And here is my quick rundown of some of the events that went on during that crazy time, with links to results where available!

On the Saturday before the race, there were two swim events on the Kona side.  The ever-popular Kukio Blue Water Swim took place north of town, while Ironman debuted the Ho'ala 2.4 mile swim race on the Ironman course.  Unfortunately we didn't get to participate or attend either event, but you can find the results from the Kukio Blue Water Swim here and the results from the Ho'ala swim here.

The next morning was the annual PATH 5k/10k Run/Walk on Alii Drive.  After helping at registration in the morning, I was able to get a few photos before heading off to work.  Full results from the 5k are available here. 10k results are available here.

Some notable finishers were Luis De La Torre, the first Big Island runner in the 10k:

Bree Wee - first female Big Island finisher:

Rani Tanimoto pushing Cole:

Big Island Running Company employee Maggie McCleery:

Cary Aurand winning an age group award in the 5K:

And Brian Pruitt taking home his age group award as well:

We also managed to snap a couple of photos of the Big Island Ironman athletes before their race:

The next exciting event of the week was the Underpants Run on Thursday morning.  Our special limited edition Run Big undies made quite the appearance!

Along with plenty of other crazy sights!

Finally Saturday morning arrived, nice and clear.  We watched the swim start from behind Kona Inn:

Then it was off to breakfast before catching a little bit of the bike course:

Kristina Sawaya

Cowman

While all the athletes headed out to Hawi, we opened the store for all their supporters back in town. Later in the day, we had the chance to head out to Alii Drive and see some of our local athletes out on the run course:

Mike DeCarli

Sam Brown

Jim Moore

Not a local, but we saw Hines Ward

Jason Heady

Chitwin San Tun with the best photo of the day!

From there we actually had work to do on the run course, so didn't get to see many people cross the finish line.  Although we were able to catch up with some of them on the Queen K, including following some of the last finishers.  But all of our local athletes finished and did great!  Results from the race are available at ironmanlive.com.

It was a fun experience as usual, but we're glad to be getting back to normal!