Guy Crawford Reports in on the Hawaii 70.3 and whether to try and match Lance Armstrong on the bike

Kate (Bevilaqua) and I love coming to the big Island to race and train, Although this time the wind made it really hard for me to enjoy the Queen K.

For the week leading into the Hawaii 70.3 Kate and I based ourselves in Kona. Our last long ride to the bottom of Hawi was crazy the cross winds made it really hard to keep your line on the road and then later in the week the wind seemed to increase. OH NO!!

Come race day the forecast was wind, wind and then a little more wind… With Lance Armstrong on the start line the media seemed a tad heavier than usual (which was cool).

THE RACE

Once the gun sounded and the initial white wash of the start settled down I found myself on Lance’s feet and continued to swim in the top 5. The swim was as I expected it to be (a big group) and 8 of us exited the water within 15 sec’s of each other.

Now here was where I had to make a decision ride for as long as I could with the likes of Lance, Greg, Chris and the GCM AKA Maiki or ride my race. I decided to ride my race (In hind sight maybe I should have tried to ride a bit harder in the beginning) however decisions made and I was feeling really good riding at a comfortably hard pace.

Riding up Hawi was crazy the wind felt like it was pushing my front wheel out from under me. Congratulations to all that got through that ride, it was intense.

At the Turn I had lost some serious time to Lance and quite a bit to the other 3 in front. I decided to ride hard down Hawi, the wind played with my head a few times, but I rode through it for the most part and was stoked with the way I descended. You have to keep thoughts like ‘If I fall off at this speed, I’m probably going to die’ out of your head.

Onto the run and by this point the field was totally split apart, I ran out of transition and onto the golf course where the spongy grass started sapping the energy from my body… YAY… for the first 34 miles I didn’t see a soul, except for the awesome aid station volunteers. Then once out on the first real road section I spotted Maiki and Chris still 68mins up the road. I kept my pace and tried to run strong through the windy sections and fast with the tail wind.

Leading into the last 2 miles I could see the gap to Chris and Maiki was coming down quickly, 3mins , 2mins, 90sec and then 1min… I was running people down (that doesn’t usually happen) In the end I ran out of real estate and was 64 sec’s off the podium.

Happy with my day, mixing it up with some of the best in the sport. The guys in front are all legends in triathlon.

Big congratulations to everyone who battled the wind (Pele) and finished in those conditions.

Now it’s time to recover and then start our build for IM CDA in 3 weeks time.