Peaman's Splish Splash and Super Bowl Shuffle Biathlon 2011

With the Super Bowl one week away, yesterday Peaman held his event honoring the game. Although I would have been a little more excited about the Super Bowl if the Bears had defeated the hated Packers, at least the Peaman event was a fun time - and I didn't notice a Packers jersey all day, thank goodness!

The distance for this event was a 1/2 mile swim and a 3.1 mile run. And unlike last month, the ocean was very cooperative yesterday - clear and relatively calm. Which is good, because these events just keep growing, so there is plenty of chop and commotion at the beginning of the swim anyway! As usual, the top island swimmers took off and blazed the swim course.

Chris Lieto, Bree Wee, Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen and the high school crew were some of the first out of the water and one to the run course. Chris managed to hold on to the lead and finish in 30:40, followed by Antonia Ferreira Da Silva Neto (31:03) and Matt Ward (32:25). Bree Wee finished in fourth and first for the ladies with a time of 33:04.

Second place female was Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen in 35:06, followed by Rani Tanimoto in 35:54. Full results from all the races are available here. As for me, I'm still slowed down by the swim, but cut 40 seconds off my last time at this distance to finish in 44:59.

In the Peawee event, Chris Prater took first in 11:16, with Kaiden Lieto in second at 12:45 and Kakoa Kolman and Kanaipono Eckart tied for third in 13:40. For the female Peawees, I think it was Ryanne and Taylor Doherty coming in together at 13:50.

Here are some photos that our guest photograph Kyle Hammond snapped of the event. Mahalo to him for pitching in while Jason worked the timing machine. More photos are available here.

Jon Kunitake

A crowd of runners pushing for the finish.

Charlie Camacho

Gerd Weber

Looks like a good race between Sam Brown and Papa Pea.

This month we returned the Perpetual Pea and it was passed along to Peaman's father Papa Pea. He'll be undergoing shoulder surgery soon and we wish him the best of luck and a speedy recovery!

Up next weekend is Team Mango's springtime triathlon (1/2 mile swim, hilly 15 mile bike and hilly 6 mile run) on February 6 at 8 a.m. at the pier. On the Hilo side, it's Big Dog's Lover's 5K run/walk on Sunday, February 6 at 7:30 a.m. The race starts at Coconut Island in Hilo and is free, although a canned good donation is requested for the Hawaii Island Food Basket.

Go Steelers!