Ironman training swim

Saturday morning, 5th of October, rolled around. Alarm was set to 6 in the morning, quick breakfast and to the town we went. At 8 o'clock the start is given for Ironman training swim - race where the Hawaii Ironman swimming leg is open for public to race at. The only difference was that the finish was moved to a beach next to the pier, during the actual race swimming start and finish is as the same location in the bay. Online registration died before the deadline was reached so we needed to get the registration done in the morning. After filling 3 different sheets, paying the entrance fee and agreeing with pages full of small printed text we got our numbers. Mine was a beautiful round one - 220. It was like a real race with proper lifeguards on duty and timing chip and all. Just like open water swims go there was briefing before the race. Even some pro triathletes were present, doing their warm up for the main race I guess :)

Ironman start spot

Briefing done the start was given. About 200 swimmers started out to 2.4 mile (3900 meter) swim race. As the water is warm in the ocean there were no wetsuits used, but one could do the race using fins (although I did not see many people using this option). Somehow I ended up in the middle of 2 big groups at the start so first I got to just swim in my own pace. Soon enough this fun was over and I was getting squeezed into people while having to literally jump over some swimmers, at the same time trying to figure out the direction where to swim. At one point I found a set of legs to swim after :) For a little while I was quite satisfied with the finding, but soon enough I got tired of those feet jumping from one place to the other - at one point they were in front of me and another second they moved 2 meters to my right and so on. I have never really understood swimming at someones feet, it takes too much effort from me to deal with such distraction. While checking my direction I noticed that there is a whole big group in front of the legs I tried to follow, but they all were going crooked. As the pace wasn't that fast I decided to take a shortcut and make my own way to the next buoy :) And what do you know - once at the buoy I had made my way to the front of the pack! Rest of the race was a whole lot more interesting as we swam together with one tall guy who had colorful swim pants on :) Side by side we moved together to the finish line.

Swimming back was in one way easier as there wasn't so much struggle with other people, but on the other hand all the directions were missing as the buoys were not visible (and we had to aim for the beach now). Luckily there were some paddlers who made sure we don't fall into the opposite direction so we got to swim next to them and did not need to look for the direction ourselves.

All in all it was a very nice race. My pace was good - just fast enough to keep the tempo up and not too fast to make me exhausted. Weather was nice, it was sunny and the waves were not too big. My race time was 1 hour 1 minute and 52 seconds which made me quite happy :) Now I have something to compare myself with once the main race day rolls around.

Certified Ironman Training Swim finisher :)

Rest of the day was quite a slow one :) Race was tiring :) Tried to go to see turtles by the marina, but the park closed at 16:30 and we just got there too late. As it turned out the parks will be closed for some time now as US government did not accept the budget so government organizations get closed down for a while. Oh well, there is still time for us to do the sightseeing so no worries!

Exploring The Big Island of Hawaii

Friday the 4th of October was the tour day. We aimed for the Cook monument located at Kealakekua Bay where he died during a quarrel with the locals year 1779. What we did not know was that it is quite difficult to get to the monument itself. No access via car and the only way possible is narrow and steep foot path. Since we have have one leaping companion with us then the hike was out of the question. Instead we explored the sights from a nearby bay - could barely see the monument :) At the bay there were about 30 triathletes training, they took the path to the monument through the water - they swam :) And as far as we could tell they had come there by bikes. Hopefully they did not need to bike all the way up the steep hills to get home.

Kealakekua bay - Cook monument in the distance

By wondering around the winding roads here we made our way to the painted church. Roads off the highway are quite narrow and winding which makes the driving around quite slow. It seems to us that the locals just drive very slow around here in general, I guess that's what happens when you mostly drive on those narrow paths. And as there are so many athletes running and biking on the roads it is understandable I guess, but just difficult to get used to :)

Painted church up on the mountain

Locals know to say that this is one of the coolest years in a long time for the Ironman. And yes, today as well the temperature is just 29C in the shade :) As it is raining on and off then luckily it does not get much over 30. Rain does not make the air any cooler though, it is just nice to get sprinkled on. Weather forecast is promising warmer weather in a week where temperatures will get above 30C. Humidity is currently around 75% and any breeze that we find is greeted with much delight.

Sun sets at 18 every single day and then ultimate darkness arrives

It is all about the Ironman...

All the mornings start here with a workout. Wherever you go or wherever you look you see people running or swimming or biking… all the hours one can imagine and all the fitness levels one can think of. It is great. It motivates and it sets the mood for upcoming biggest event in the year for triathletes. So all our mornings start with some sort of exercise as well. Either a run or a general conditioning workout. Jane has decided to grow bulky stomach muscles so she makes us all do at least 30 minute general conditioning sets each morning :) My abs and arms are aching for second day in a row :)

This tree blooms here constantly - everywhere you look there are blossoms, seems like every growing plant here blooms

On Saturday, the 5th, there will be an open swim race to go through the whole swim leg of the Ironman - 3.8 kilometers just as on the race day. For this we went to try out the ocean swim on Thursday, 3rd of October. Race start takes place from a tiny bay in the city center, nice sandy pool by the pier. So we hopped in where all the triathletes will be racing for the Ironman event in about one weeks time. Waves are strong here - you can't take even one minute to loose your alert, you will be swiped off the feet immediately :) First the wave hits you towards the shore and then in a little bit of time all the water sucks you back into the ocean. Kinda fun when you are prepared for the tumble :) So you stand there with your knees slightly bent and you look like you will tackle the next wave hitting you, but all you are really doing is trying to keep yourself standing.

If you have seen me trying to get in the water ever you will know of how long it takes. Well, here, getting into the ocean is almost like getting into the bath - it is just warm… and salty. It is wonderful as the salt makes sure you float. Although the warm temperature of the water makes you kinda lazy and at some point you don't feel like moving your arms around anymore :)

Water is very very clear, filled with colorful fish and corals. I guess this is what it is like to swim in an aquarium, in a nice big sized aquarium. It was so interesting to stare at the bottom of the ocean during the swim that occasionally I forgot to take a breath… and quite often I just stopped to study another fish. some of the fish are bright yellow, the other ones have stripes, some are light blue and some are orange. There are batches of them moving around, others just stay at the bottom and suck the corals for food. It is truly a nice view. And then the sharks. Apparently there are some around here. Luckily I did not meet any during this swim. We were joking that when doing the open water swim then one should make sure to stay inside the group so the sharks don't get to you :)

Vacation mood type lunch ;)

And guess what we did in the evening on Thursday :) ?? Yes, we celebrated Indrek's birthday. 3rd night in a row it was celebration time :D True vacation I must say :)

Welcome to Kona!

Getting of the plane it was nice and sunny... and a bit warm :) The Big Island is about 4 times bigger than Saaremaa, it is the biggest island in US.  On this island, peak called Mauna Kea is the world's tallest mountain when measured from its sea floor base. The Big Island is quite different from Maui, mostly you see lava rock everywhere which makes it look quite dead. I haven't yet found any long sandy beaches as in Maui, when you find a sandy beach then it is barely 50m in length (although on wiki page there is a picture of one, must go there :) ). But just like in Maui it mostly rains on one side of the island :)

Hawaii Ironman takes place on the 12th of October, prior to this date there are various other activities and races and parades to look forward to. 3 Estonians will be competing at the Ironman World Championships this year: Marko Albert (pro), Indrek Teppo (M35) and Indrek Klampe (M40). In total there will be quite many supporters here from Estonia to cheer them on.

I arrived on the 1st of October - in the evening we celebrated Maarja's birthday with a nice barbecue dinner at their place. Due to jet lag it was a bit difficult to stay awake until 11, but we all made it thanks to the refreshments offered ;) I was warned that most likely the next morning I'm up by 5am no matter what, the time difference and the heat just make it impossible to get a good night's sleep. But I slept soundly till 6:30 :). The day consisted of a morning run and giving a swim lesson at the pool. Others wanted me to teach them how to swim butterfly, so we spent about 20 minutes after the workout doing the drills and getting from one end to the other swimming fly :)

It is just so hot here, if I'd have to compare it to something I have witnessed before then I'd have to say it is hot like in Vietnam. During the day we spent about an hour at the little pools by the condominium - with level 30 protection sun lotion on I managed to get a bit burned :) Lying in the sun is quite a challenge as it is just so very hot. Walking barefoot on the pool deck is out of the question, even though it is light colored surface, you simply burn your feet. For cooling yourself down you get to jump in the pool where the water temperature is about 28 degrees :) so not much difference of the outside air temperature - cooling down effect lasts for about 4 minutes after getting out of the water. What a nice place for doing nothing all day long :D

Pools right next to our apartment

At our condominium we have little green friends with beautiful round toes - meet bright green gecko's! There are some other kinds as well that even change color as they wish, but those are a bit more rare. The green ones are everywhere, on the deck and inside the room. In the evening they gather around the lights and keep throwing their tongues out for catching flies. This morning I was lying on the deck and one just ran across my toes and later came to stare at me while I was reading. As I write this I can see 3 of them around me :)

Our companions - bright green geckos

Birthday rally continued on the 2nd of October - in the evening we had people over for celebrating Aho's birthday :) Most houses and condominiums have nice big terraces to sit around all night. It does get a tiny bit cooler once it gets dark, but not much at all. Either way it is nice to sit outside with the jungle sounds all around you - crickets mostly. There is also one drawback about the nights - absolutely huge roaches appear. And they fly :-S Scariest thing ever. Geckos do eat them, but the roached are just huge, almost as big as the geckos themselves :)

28.09 - Getting to Kona

Almost packed for the trip :)

Good morning Kopli! It is four in the morning on 30th of September 2013! … it means something like you are awake at the worst possible hour. So it seems. Good thing about 4 in the morning is that it took only 17 minutes to get to the airport :)

This was the only positive thing though. On the request by the Estonian team already in Hawaii I packed the club flag into my backpack. It resulted on the flag poles sticking out of my bag for perhaps 50cm or so. I wasn't very worried as I was planning on getting the whole thing saran-wrapped at the airport. But what do you know, baggage wrapping did not open till my boarding time. Oh well, got it checked in. Lady at the desk did not even bother to secure them anyhow, barely even looked at the bag and shrugged "well as long as the poles don't fall out". No they don't if no one grabs on to them. Luckily I found the poles still in place during the immigration baggage check in Washington DC, although I forgot to count them so I'm not sure if all of them are present :)

Now a question to you - if you do check-in over the Internet, do you use a mobile boarding pass or you actually take the trouble of printing the boarding pass out? Recently I have just started to use the mobile version and am very found of it. Until this time. Tallinn Airport security check does not recognize mobile boarding pass. Was showing them the QR code image sent by Lufthansa that I had downloaded to my phone, the poor guy tries to read it by just looking at it and goes "there is one of those big square missing in the center!" Really :O ??? Can I get my eyes upgraded to be able to tell that just by looking at the scribbely dots? Then he walks over to the scanner and shakes my phone underneath it (like you do when you try to scan a bar code), that didn't work of course. He looked at me weird when I tried to tell him to hold the phone still so the image can be recognized. Nope, no go. He made me to open the e-mail, which was fine as there was wireless. Uh oh. Finally he let me pass the security check.

I had fully forgotten of how painful it is to fly for 20+ hours in a row. First flight went quick, Tallinn-Frankfurt. Had quite a long layover in Frankfurt. Those long breaks at the airports are the killers. Boarding and immigration in Frankfurt was nicely organized and this time they did not do this horrible interrogation where they ask all sorts of personal questions from you trying to make sure one doesn't plan on marrying anyone while there with the goal of staying in US for the rest of the life. Phew. Flight to Washington DC seemed horribly long. Just awfully long and never seemed to end.

When I was flying across Atlantic during college years (oh it was so so long ago :) ) then there was no luxury of choosing your own movie to watch. They would start a movie and all had to watch the same one at the time it was showing. Nowadays there is the luxury of your own private TV and movies selection. Oh the joy. And there are actually many good movies to see. Time does not pass any quicker though unfortunately.

Immigration in Washington DC was a lot better than last time when I flew through Atlanta. In Atlanta there was a huge hall, seemed like the size of football field, filled with packed lines of people that barely moved. I was standing in line for almost 2 hours. This time it took a bit over 30 minutes, few interrogation questions about my work and what I do in US and off I was. It was a great relief to find my bag in one piece with the flag poles sticking out just as I had packed them!

Every time I arrive at US I get this nice homey feeling. The smiling people, Wendy's (not that I ever ate there, but the sign is just so so countrysidey :) ), bagels, souvenir shops, drinking fountains and small talk with fellow passengers. I do miss this culture at times so much. A&W signs make me want a root beer float, I can't wait for the first Domino's peperoni pizza with cheesy bread, the bagels with flavoured cream cheese, free refills of natural flavoured ice tea at any eating place, questions about the kind of dressing you would like with your side salad, late night shows from TV and the commercials even. The malls, the movie theaters where you don't have assigned seats, the papers with gazillion separate sections, those huuuge Barnes and Noble book stores… aaah. It is great to be here!

And on to the next flight I went. 5+ hours in a packed plane to San Francisco. By this time my legs were sore, swollen and muscles were cramping up, butt was sore making it difficult to sit still, back was killing me, eyes were so dry that it hurt to blink, ears were hurting from the earphones and constant pressure changes... I was hungry and tired and all I could think about was at some point laying horizontally :) I dreamed of a shower and then of a breakfast. On this flight there was no luxury of a private TV, the movie went on and you better watch it as otherwise you die of boredom. I think I pretty much passed out for the last hour of the flight. I don't know how I managed this as my body refused to be in a sitting position any longer.

Thanks to the flag poles sticking out of my luggage I ended up staring at the luggage belt for 45 minutes in despair that they had managed to loose my bag. I was so tired and all I could think about was the shower waiting for me at the hotel. Finally I stumbled over to the luggage service where they announced that the bag has been scanned in the luggage area so it should be coming shortly. But it wasn't there on the belt! I started to walk around between the other luggage belts and by accident noticed my bag standing by the door of over sized luggage :) Yay!

It was 21:17 when I closed my eyes. My phone informed me that I'd get 8 hours and 8 minutes of sleep - it was clearly lying, my sleep lasted for no more than 2 minutes before the alarm went off.

On the way to the airport I happened to sit next to one elderly lady at the shuttle: "There is this one last thing I want to do before I die! You see I'm 88 years old and I'm flying to South Carolina to visit my daughter. I got my cane and off I go." She has this big smile on her face. Little bit of time passes and she continues with a cheerful voice "Just this last Friday I went to visit my brother-in-law at the hospital. So while I visited him, he died!" The lady is chuckling. "Well he was very sick. And I thought I can't make this trip now, but luckily they are able to postpone the funeral until I'm back." All I could sigh was "Oh good, I'm glad you are able to go and visit your daughter". "Oh yes" she continues "and you know what is great, they will push me right past all the security lines in my wheelchair. I specifically asked for a wheelchair!" :)

Art exhibition at San Francisco airport - early morning art doze done!

It was a great surprise to find free wireless at San Francisco airport. Art exhibition was another nice feature in this early morning adventure. Flag poles of course were not liked by the baggage loading person during check-in, had to explain the poles to the manager after which they thoroughly wrapped my whole bag into plastic :)

Bye bye California!

Flight to Kona was already a piece of cake compared to yesterdays marathon. Noticed some athletes in Skinfit and High5 clothing :) and then lots of elderly people just taking a week of to make a quick trip to Hawaii.

Welcome Kona!

Thank you Jane and Aho for greeting me at the airport!

Aah, and one more idea for 4am activities - in the office at 4:30 :)

It is alive!!

Mart uuris sissekannete kohta ja siit nad tulevad :) … blogi saagu ellu äratatud!

At the start of my current trip I was thinking about starting blogging about my travels again. The memories just get more color when they get written down during the travels. I was quite surprised to find that there are 2.5 years of travel stories missing! The gap has been really quite long, what was I thinking of skipping the writings on all those trips? I dug out the old e-mails with flights booking details and came to the following list of missing travel stories:

In November 2011 I travelled to USA, first stop was Ironman Florida, second stop was to visit my college best friend in Minnesota and then Boston-NYC-Washington DC journey with Foo Fighters concert in Boston.

March 2012 was second time for me in Torremolinos at the triathlon spring training camp. I continued on to Italy, spent a week in Rome.

Early fall, end of August 2012, visited Austria, Vienna for the first time. Main reason for the visit was Sigur Ros concert, once the time got closer it turned out that one of my best friends is moving to Vienna for couple of months, timing wise she arrived one day before I did :) So we got to discover Vienna together.

2012 September spent 2 weeks in Basque Country visiting Bilbao, San Sebastian and surrounding little towns. Even drove all the way towards the French border and spent one day in France :)

Just before Christmas 2012 I flew to Vienna to help my friend move back home. This meant driving with her all the way from Vienna to Tallinn through Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. What I remember from there? Heavy snow storm and driving 60km/h from Poland to Latvia - it was absolute hell, seeing trucks in ditches and sliding sideways towards you on icy roads, being stranded on little roads in the middle of nowhere with zero visibility for an hour because the traffic was just not moving (and the roads were too narrow to pass other cars). It was just horror squared. Never ever again :)

March 2013 yet another week in Spain Torremolinos with triathletes at the spring training camp.

June 2013 I made two trips. First one was to Denmark Copenhagen for a long weekend for Suede concert. Second trip was by car to Opener Festival in Poland Gdynia :) Great fun! Got to see The Queens of the Stone Age, Blur, Kings of Leon, Skunk Anansie and many other great artists live.

My current travel plan covers journey where my first destination is Kona Hawaii, then Virginia Minnesota and the last stop will be Boston.
Stay tuned :)

Bullfighting and burning sun

Right next to the sports center there is a round building - the bull fighting arena. Already a week before the big event the whole city was pinned with posters of a bull fight to take place on Sunday evening. So we decided to check it out as well. I've been warned by so many people that it is quite gross and not pleasant at all.

My interest with seeing a bullfight was just to get the experience. Afterall it is part of the culture in Spain. And I refused to believe that it is something so discusting that I'd leave after the first 10 minutes :)

Before the event I tried to read up on the history, meaning and customs associated with killing those poor animals at the arena in front of all those people. Apparently this is a huge sport around here in Southern Spain, top matadors earn as much as top football players. There is a long ritual that gets carried out throughout the process, each trumpet sound that comes has a meaning, each movement the matador or other toreros perform have a story. During each performance a certain set of actions are carried out, slightly differing of what matador de toros decides - he is the one who runs the show.

So on Sunday evening we set off to the bull fighting show. The place was suprisingly crowded, I'd guess about 30% were tourists checking out the big event. There were going to be six bull fights today performed by 3 matadores, each fighting 2 bulls throughout the evening.

Shortly, killing the bull is traced to ancient sacrifice ritual. Nowadays, death of the bull is dedicated usually to the president or to the crowd. Matador and his assistants wave colorful capes in front of the bull making it charge. At some point men with horses enter the arena, this is done to spike the bull to relieve the blood pressure so that the animal doesn't get a heart attack while racing around the place. It sounds really bad, but it really wasn't too horrible. Then the show continues with small spikes put to the bulls back and is ended with a final leathal sword hit killing the bull at about 15 minutes into the show. Now the crowd can petition the president to award the matador an ear of the bull by waving white hankerchiefs. If his performance was exceptional he will award two ears.



The show was good. Even us, first timers, could distinguish between a skillful matador and not so skillful one. Perforamnces were quite artistic and I'd even say graceful. It was a bit bloody and the killing was fierce but it was quick and clean. There were some American tourists behind us crying their eyes out even before the bull was let into the arena - they left after the first fight.

Now I know what the bull fight looks like :) I'm not sure I'd attend it a second time, but it was definitely worth it to see it once.

The sun and burning - for the second day in a row I have not seen any clouds. My nose is going to fall off soon (using one of the girls words) from all this sun exposure. During those 2 weeks we've been here there has been only one day with no sun at all and we have not seen any rain yet. It's been quite perfect weather so far.

Tonight we are all going out to dinner together as half of the people are leaving the training camp on Sunday - paella night is coming up!