Peaman's Red, White and Blue Biathlon

Since our last blog post, we've had several interesting events take place.  On July 4, the Salute to the Veteran's 5k was held in Hilo.  Results are available on Wayne "Big Dog" Joseph's blog. 

Then on July 7, the annual King's Swim was held at the Kona Pier.  This 1.2 mile swim starts at the pier, goes to the 1.2 mile marker which is the Body Glove boat, makes the turn around the boat and heads back to finish on King Kamehameha beach side of the pier.  Results are available here. This is a fantastic event, with lots of great awards and raffle prizes, plus a great post-race spread.  I finished the King's Swim for the second year in a row, knocking a whopping 10 seconds off my time from last year! 

King's Swim (Photo by Paola Soto)

Paola Soto took tons of photos of the events, so I've attached a couple here.  Thanks Paola! More can be found on the King's Swim's Facebook page.

Lead Men (Photo by Paola Soto)

1st Place Woman Leahi Camacho (Photo by Paola Soto)

The oldest competitor - a true inspiration (Photo by Paola Soto)

Then this past weekend, we all gathered on Sunday for Peaman's red, white and blue biathlon. Unfortunately, Jason and I have taken over the timing for the races, so we aren't able to take nearly as many photos (truthfully, I took two!).  I borrowed a couple, though from Kawika Singson, who got some great underwater shots. Thanks, Kawika!

Photo by Kawika Singson

Photo by Kawika Singson

Photo by Kawika Singson

The usual suspects took control of this race early, with Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen coming out of the water first, with Bree Wee hot on her heels.  Bree caught Karlyn on the run for a 1-2 finish for the pair.  Finishing third was new local racer James Resor. Jon Jokiel took fourth place and (friendly) rivals Chris Prater and Mike DeCarli battled for the next two spots with Chris taking the upper hand in this one.  Full results are available here. After a so-so swim (20 mins.), I finished in 49:14.

The top three Peawees at this race were Kanaipono Eckhart in 12:11, Jackie Payne in 12:17 and Zackary Shepard in 12:21 - a pretty tight race for those kids!

One of my two photos - certainly not the greatest!

Up this weekend is a race that's great for the aina - Team Mango's Trashcan Triathlon!  This race is a 1/2 mile swim, 10 mile bike and 3 mile run.  But the twist is that you can deduct seconds and sometimes minutes off your time for each piece of trash you collect on the course.   So come out and get some exercise while also helping keep Alii Drive Clean! The race starts at 7 a.m. Sunday, July 22 at the Kailua Pier.