Lavaman Race Report - Iceberg & Swedberg

Cheryl and I did the Lavaman Triathlon on Sunday on the Big Island in Hawaii. This was Cheryl's 2nd crack at the race and my first race ever on the islands. Good golly....I can't imagine a more beautiful place to race.

We rolled into transition with plenty of time to spare. There were quite a few pros wandering around - including Chris McCormack who would be be eventual men's winner and Lisa Mensink, an Olympian from Canada who won the women's race.

The swim is shaped like a very narrow "M". 900 athletes, 5 waves, 3 minutes apart. Cheryl and I were in the last wave of women 40 and older. It didn't take long to start catching swimmers from earlier waves and we both realized there really isn't any way to get around to the outside - so we swam through little gaps and kept our heads up looking for errant swimmers who were off-course on another segment of the "M" heading right for us. One of my favorite moments of the race was swimming under a kayak that was in the path of some very clear water. I'm positive it was faster than going around and felt very adventurous for a 44 year old mom. I was happy with my swim - Cheryl took a minute off her swim time from last year so she was happy too....

It's been windy here for the few days leading up to the race - lawn-chairs-blowing-into-the-ocean kind of windy! That morning, though, thankfully - the wind eased up and it was present but not daunting most of the ride - it didn't start to blow chairs until the last few miles for us.The bike course is on the Queen K highway, which is the course of the World Championships. It's BARREN. I'm not sure how Brian and Nancy got through it for 112 miles. Never have I seen more monotonous and dark, hot terrain. (and the heat is much worse in October, I'm told) I saw Cheryl shortly after the turnaround as she was passing some poor unsuspecting young men....ha

I'm not sure what happened to me on the bike - but somewhere along the way my hamstrings or sitbones or something got very tight. I noticed that something was up when i stood to stretch at the turnaround, but didn't want to think about it again until I got off my bike and then couldn't walk or run for a few moments. I ended up bent over at the waist and bent at the knees shuffling to my rack. Quite dignified. I appreciated the few moans of pity I heard...maybe that was me moaning in self-pity now that i think about it. There was no way i could reach the ground to pick up my running shoes, so I stuck my toes in them and found a nice older couple who were volunteering in transition that put them on my feet and tied them for me. Again...dignified. :) I started running shortly after I exited transition and ended up having a fine run after i've fought an injury all winter. Hawaii sunshine doing wonders, I suppose.

Cheryl bested her time from last year with conditions that were much windier, so kudos to her!! I envy her ability to train in Maui through the fall and winter. It pays off - every time i meet up with her to train she is stronger and faster (and tanner and cuter). She'll be coming back home in a couple of weeks and will have to slog it out with the rest of us for awhile.

A FUN meeting happened at the end of the day for us - we had a great conversation with the 5th place male finisher, Luis de la Torre. Some mainlanders may not know of him, but he's pretty much the finest triathlete on the Big Island as far as I can tell. He's consistently been the fastest Hawaiian finisher at the Kona Ironman (9:28 in 2008) and can race well at every distance. At 40, he's a mighty impressive athlete and a very nice guy. Cheryl had given me an earful of Luis information and we googlestalked him before the race. I had no doubt who he was when I saw him exit the bathroom and about tackled him to get this picture. I told him it would make Cheryl extremely jealous - which it did..... serves her right.

We went back later to check on the results and managed to tackle him again and got a picture with her. It's shameless, really....but was too polite to send us packing. We're concocting a terrific plan to have him coach for Raise the Bar this summer. How fun would THAT be??!!! If you're into that idea, go ahead and shoot him an email!

Luis@luisdelatorre.com His email is clearly posted on his webpage - so i'm sure he won't mind the correspondence!

That's it from Lavaman.....

You never know who you're gonna meet

I don't think I can recall hearing of Grant Wistrom - he's a former Seattle Seahawk and 3-time Super Bowl participant(is that what you call people who have been to the Super Bowl 3 times?). Cheryl Iseberg and I ended up on barstools next to he and his wife, Melissa, in Maui on Tuesday. It was evident when they walked in the restaurant that there was something unique about them. Melissa in a t-shirt, shorts, and sandy blonde hair tucked behind her ears was the picture of a nice healthy mom. If she'd told us she was a professional triathlete, we wouldn't have doubted it. She had the limbs of a serious endurance athlete. She laughed, though, when we suggested she take up the sport.

Grant was a gentleman and FUN - smiled easily and told us about their life in Missouri (and sometimes Maui) with their son Wyatt and daughter Charlie (Charlie is also the name of the bartender's dog which has apparently caused confusion on more than one occasion when he and Wistroms end up on the same beach).

Grant is about as far from triathlete as you can get. His biceps are bigger than my head....he's 6'5"...probably 280. What kind of bike do you put a body like that on? I can imagine the sink factor when his body hits the water - and putting a off-the-rack wetsuit on that guy is going to be near impossible.

But sport is sport and I'm always hungry to learn what any athlete (especially a very accomplished former professional athlete) can teach me about my own sport. His humility wouldn't allow him to divulge his 3 trips to the Super Bowl, or how he could energize a locker room during halftime - but Melissa's obvious delight in her husband allowed her to do just that.

I am not going to apply some of the things I learned. In fact, as a decent God-fearing woman, I'm trying hard to forget some of them - like the naked hand stands in the Seahawks Locker Room to loosen up the team. But when I asked Grant what he would pass along to our 17-year old son who's trying excel at cycling, Grant never hesitated.

"I talk at schools all the time", he said, "tell your boy to be the hardest working cyclist on his team. Tell him to train longer and harder than anyone else. Tell him not to get discouraged."

Those are solid and simple lessons for all of us.

First Lady Finally in Sleeves

Michelle Obama's first month as the First Lady have been filled with enormous and unexpected criticism of her sleevelessness. The constant barage of pressure from the White House Long-Sleeve Proticol Committee and the National Center for Bicep and Armpit Coverage has left the fashion-conscious First Lady looking for the perfect accessory to quell the critics.

The RTB Fashion and Uniform Committee received an emergency alert from Washington and were able to FedEx the perfect solution over to Mrs. Obama - a RTB Long-Sleeve Thermal Jacket manufactured by Voler Custom Apparel.

"I just love my RTB Thermal Jacket made by Voler!", reported the First lady to her staff. "It's designed for cold weather diplomatting and is also a great all-around piece for White House luncheons on the lawn. The tailored cut is aerodynamic and reduces wind flap when we are boarding AirForce 1! Made from IsoWind, a wind-proof, breathable, tri-laminate fabric with a light fleece inner surface, it's just super for those cool evenings at home when the husband is out working late....as opposed to me....who is often late working out! I didn't get these arms by accident!!"

You can see RTB Thermal Jackets and other armpit covering items on the good-looking and snappily-dressing RTB athletes in the Pacific Northwest.