Aloha from the Big Island of Hawaii

Well today is our first day on the big island of Hawaii, after a long 27 hours of travel yesterday. Happily through we, bikes and bags all arrived in one piece. Probably half the people on the plane from LA to kona were compression clad ironmen and ironwomen. My plan of sleeping on the first flight and staying awake on the second was completely reversed as i found myself wide awake pretty much the whole way from london and had a marathon movie watching session instead. I think I managed to annoy the lady next to me with my incessant giggling throughout the A team.

After a long wait at the hire car place we crammed 3 bikes, 4 large bags, 4 carry on bags and 4 people into the dodge! caravan and found our apartment or condo as the Americana's call them. Which is beautiful - just off Alii drive, on the seafront. The surf is up at the moment, so waves are crashing up over the first sea wall, hope it settles down for next weekend.

Today has been a quite day. A treat of first day of holiday breakfast at Lava Java (the triathlete's cafe - Jo Lawn and Craig Alexander sat down at the table next to us, both looking very race fit. Simon's pretty much in Heaven, being a complete tri geek.) a stop at the farmers market for fresh fruit and veg. Then followed a confusing and drawn out trip to Safeway's and a lovely swim in the sea before lunch. My Cd 0.1's now built so going take it out for a short spin in a bit, to hopefully loosen off our legs from our day of forced inactivity yesterday. I'm very excited this will be the first ride with race wheels on :-)

I think that having been here before in 2008, i feel more relaxed knowing what to expect and how everyone is eyeing each other up. I don't think i am in the best shape i could be in having struggled with injury since Ironman UK. But despite this i am looking forward to racing and pulling off the best day i can.