Peaman's Kickoff Klassic Biathlon

This past Sunday there were two great events on the Big Island - Peaman's Kickoff Klassic Biathlon and the Big Island Road Runners' Annual Hilo Bay 5k/10k in Hilo. So Jason and I split up the races, with Jason heading to Hilo, while I stayed here for the Peaman event. Luckily, my mom was in town and was able to serve as photographer, so we do have pictures of the Peaman event, including more here. Thanks, Mom!

This week's Peaman event celebrated the start of football season, so everyone was encouraged to sport their favorite team's colors. I pulled out the orange shorts in support of da Bears. The biathlon distances were a 3/4 mile swim followed by a 3.9 mile run. This was definitely the longest distance so far. There was another 3/4 mile swim, but it was followed by a 3.1 mile run. There has also been a 3.9 mile run, but it came after a 1/2 mile swim. Putting the long distances together made for a tough course!

After Peaman gave instructions, everyone gathered in the water for the kickoff (seriously, a football was punted into the water to signal the start).



Pretty soon after that, the keiki started their race, too.

The water definitely wasn't as choppy as last time, so it wasn't too hard to get into a good rhythm. Unfortunately, my goggles didn't want to cooperate today, so I had to stop three times to adjust them! Needless to say, my time on the swim was not the greatest. And I think all that stopping threw me off because I completely forgot to split my watch when I came out of the water, so I have no idea how long the swim took me. Of course, I also forgot to stop my watch at the end of the run, too, so I had to wait until the results came out in the paper to find out what my time was!

While I was out messing with my goggles, plenty was going on at the pier. The first keiki came out of the water.

And the start of the keiki dash began...

and ended.

Then the really fast crowd for the full swim started coming out of the water.

As usual, Luis De La Torre was the men's champion in the full Pea distance event, coming in at 42:43. Dale Fediuk was second in 47:27 and Tai Scarbrough was third in 49:50. For the ladies, Lisa Vernier was first in 55:12; Sharlene Gee was second in 56:22; and Alisa Predergrast was third in 58:00. (I finished in 1:01:26 after a pretty good run).


For the relay pairs, Leahi Camacho teamed with Jeremy Moore for the victory in 45:04. Sonny Hapsgood's two relays were second and third, with Ziggy Bartholomy in at 46:54 and Zack Wigzell at 50:47.

In the peawee distances, Kanaipono Eckhart and Audrey Nixon were the winners for the boys and girls with times of 14:02 and 18:12, respectively. Second places were Dylan Schmarr (18:59) and Lauren Jones (19:02), and third places were Alana Kola (19:19) and Alicia Hicks (19:30).

Full results for the races are here. Also, I'd like to make a special shout out to some first time Peaman participants - Peter Ballerini (first time doing the swim), Scott Wiitala, and Jeremy Moore and his kids! Congratulations and we hope to see you out there again.

After the race, there was the typical abundance of prizes for participants, assisted by several keiki, including Lauren and Evan Jones.


The Perpetual Pea was also passed along to the Big Island Honda Crew for all their help with Peaman's toy box!

And the day wouldn't be complete without some fun costumes and a swimming dog:


Over in Hilo, the Kona runners also had success, with Ray Whitford winning the 5k overall and Jason winning the 10k. I've also heard that Lisa Bryant finished first in her age group over there. Congrats to all of them! Once we get results to that race, I'll make sure to post them.

Next weekend is a weekend off of racing on the Big Island. Good luck to everyone running the Maui Marathon (or half marathon, 5k or Front Street Mile) this weekend! I'll be over there (not running), but will try to make it out to cheer.