My race report
85,000 athletes from 40 races around the world. Whittled down to 2300. And finally I was one of them 
?
Competing in the most iconic single day endurance event in the world.
With the weeks counting down before Kona I found myself feeling very flat and really quite depressed. My bike watts were showing I was struggling to push 100 watts (!!??!!) and having had grade one leg bone stress I had been unable to do any run training for months. The only running I had done had been winging it in races. Now here I was after killing my self for seven years day in day out to achieve my goal and I was finally going to Kona but with the apparent leg strength of a newt and absolutely no run training. This was not how it was supposed to go. Then I got my bike sorted out the week before and I was pushing some decent watts after all and I managed to get a One hour run under my belt outside on grass and then a One and half hour run on treadmill.
Ok so I was off to Kona now with my bike computer working, two runs done and what the hell, I was getting on a plane to Hawaii. Bring it on now.
As soon as I landed my mindset changed. It was fabulous, everyone was even more fabulous and the week before the race was amazing. I thought to myself I’m just going to bloody well enjoy this. I completed another run in the energy lab so now I had three runs under my belt. Whoopee.
I did the training swim from Dig Me beach, rode up and down the famous Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway and ran in the energy lab. I did the underpants run dressed as Wonder Woman and I even went to the welcome banquet which had traditional Hawaiian singers, dancers and Fire eaters. This place sure puts on a good show and I just threw myself into everything with the right spirit.
Race day dawned with my phone signalling me to open my eyes at 3.30 am. I had set it the previous night to ‘ring’ with a tune that wouldn’t go amiss in the saloon bar downtown at the OK Corral. It did the trick and I woke up laughing.
The usual race ablution’s pursued: shower, breakfast, get the shuttle bus to the race start, drop of ‘after race’ bag, get body marked with race numbers and then sit down and try to get all the butterflies in control under some sort of imaginary stomach net.
Boom. I almost had a heart attack when the cannon first went off. That’s the male pros under way. Then the women pros. Then the next bang was the male age groupers. Shit man. Now it’s me. I got up and joined the pink hatted procession onto the narrow steps down into the sea. I was now one of 600 of the best female age groupers in the world and my heart swelled with pride as I got into the sea and swam out to the deep water Swim start. No more butterflies. I was here and I was about to have one of the best days of my life.
We start out a little out at sea so you don’t have any ‘one minute to go’ , ‘30 seconds to go’ warnings. It was just BOOM. I pressed the button on my Garmin and off we all went.
The 2.4 Mile Swim was pretty uneventful and we reached the turnaround point 1.2 miles out to sea. It was a lovely boat. How kind of them to put this here for us lol. The sea is so clear you can see the fish and closer to land, the coral on the bottom of the ocean. The water is warm so it’s a non wetsuit swim.
Half way back in I was smacked in the face by a heel. Wtf! The chick in front of me had started to breaststroke. My face felt numb. I stopped and shouted ‘fucking breastroke?’ I then thought ‘has she just broken my nose? I’d paid some years ago for a small ridge to be scalpelled off my nosebridge, I didn’t want another lump put back there. Then I thought If it was broken it wouldn’t be numb it would be painful. I then remembered this is Kona mate, chill out lol. I’m here and I’m swimming in a mass swim start in the ironman world championships. Then I thought ‘like yeh here at Kona, wtf is someone breastroking for. As it happened she had just done a few breaststrokes to have a good look at where she was spotting for direction but really we all train to do this sighting in the pool in our freestyle stroke. There is absolutely no need to start to do breastroke knowing full well there are lots of people around you. Even then you shouldn’t kick out with full strength. I really wanted to punch her in the head. Dickhead.
I swam on keeping out of her way and exited the water in 1:11. I thought I’d been faster than my training swim but apparently not. I think you really have to get in with the pack. Swimming it all with no drafting, although more relaxing, is slower. Note to self, it’s mass swim in Western Australia, just suck it up and get in the fisticuff pack.
I ran through transition, picked my bike bag, sat down and popped my cycling shoes on. I threw my bag to the side and fastened my helmet as I ran to my bike.
I always enjoy overtaking all the people wobbling around trying to fasten their cycling shoes that started with them clipped in to the pedals already. This is fine if you can do it well but for 99% of the people I see doing it this way, they’re actually slower as they lose so much speed simply by being unable to pedal for a time.
The bike course in Kona is just like you’d done a Buzz Aldrin and stepped out of your spaceship onto the moon. The beautiful lava roads stretch before you in cracked tarmac and hills you wouldn’t know you were going up unless you were on a bike.
The first part is quite congested and cycling around town for a bit but the support here was absolutely amazing. I was buzzing with excitement.
Heading out of town I saw and heard my supporters Club. Out with me were Natasha and Glen and Chris. Natasha runs the kids homes and it is without doubt that I wouldn’t even be at Kona if it wasn’t for Tash. She runs the show when I’m out hop, skip and jumping all over the place all hours in training. I owe Tash everything for allowing me to follow my dream and her lovely boyf Glen in supporting Tash supports me. Then we have Wardy (Chris Ward). He’s the only shouter I know that can challenge Lordy for the loudest lungs. He has been on this road with me from the very start at Ironman Nice in 2010. He has stood in the pissing rain for hours, been subjected to freezing cold temperatures, he was there when I DNF’d at Lanzarote and helped me move hotels so I didn’t have to see everyone else running. He was there when my tyre blew up at South Africa and my heart was broken. But the worst ever was when I was in the medical tent for two hours after Ironman Regensberg and he had a very irate Irish man on the phone almost every 5 minutes demanding to speak to his daughter and he get her to the phone now. And he was also there when I qualified for Kona and was so excited when my name was called out that we both jumped up and shouted yes. I was so glad to have this fabulous little group of people here with me because I owe them everything and although it might just be me racing, the journey to get here was only possible because of them. It’s their Kona too.
The ride was good and I rode conservatively knowing I had no run training in my legs. The Queen K is a long road leading up to the very north of the island. It looks flat in a car but I can assure you my legs told me it wasn’t. Towards the top end of the island before we ride into the sea is a town called Hawi.. (Pronounced Haw-vee). Which sits at a higher elevation.
The climb to Hawi was absolutely fine. Around the turnaround point and then the descent in the cross winds. These are the famous Trade Winds which batter Kona and are markedly worse for a week in the change of the seasons every year. If they moved the race forwards by a week, the chances of having a horrifically windy race day like they did some years ago would be drastically reduced. The cross winds this year weren’t too bad. For this part a few people went flying past me as I was talking to myself to calm myself down and stay as relaxed as you can cycling at a rather inconvenient angle and trying to keep my weight on my elbows and keep the front wheel on the ground. After the cross winds comes the head wind and this was in full force for about the last 50 kms.
About 20kms before the end, fighting into headwind I had no idea two girls had climbed up my ass and were drafting off me until a motorbike guy came alongside me and did both of them. He showed them the blue card and pointed straight at me. Hah.
Coming in I got off the bike and running through transition almost doubled over like an old woman with a conker in her shoe, a girl patted me on the back as she came alongside and said ‘thanks for that, you pulled me in trying to keep up with you. That was tough in the headwind’ I smiled and said ‘thanks, just a marathon to go now’ we laughed.
My bike time was 6:07 which again is quite a slow time but the headwind was tough and it felt like we had been battered all the way back.
The run out and back along the famous Ali’i drive was such fun with all the support until we turned to go up Palani Drive. I had no idea how steep Palani is until you run up it. It’s like that wall at the end of Ninja Warrior or it felt like it. I was forced into walking. Then out along the Queen K highway again this time on foot. Out to the energy lab. The Queen K highway was absolutely cooking now, I felt like I was running in a pressure cooker.
After what seemed like forever I finally turned into the Energy Lab and started the run down the hill. The Energy Lab is a private part of the island where they do solar powered experiments and harness that big ball of heat in the sky. This is supposed to be the hottest part of the race but they had all these big wind machines erected and blasting full speed for us, lots of big red inflatable people dancing weirdly in the wind machines. It was like running through the strangest night Club. I was absolutely astounded and thought to myself, this really is the best race in the whole world. It was surreal. The volunteers in this section were unbelievable, greeting every runner like they’d just won a million pounds. How do they do that? Where do they get this endless energy from? Then I spotted Jo Carritt on the other side of the road running her way up and out of the huge solar powered scientific Energy Lab. It was Jo who’d spotted me and shouted me and clapped. Until then I’d been in Linda Land.
The best thing about these races is when you ‘share’ little moments with other people you know. It’s always a bit special to think we are in the middle of a pretty awesome race both of us doing our own thing but for a moment our journeys are connected and in a way this encouragement and acknowledgement from someone with the status of Jo Carritt who spent 7 years as a professional in the sport of ironman, made me feel a little bit special and appreciative of this ‘moment’.
Indeed when I started this sport and joined Tri London, for my very first swim in the Cally pool at 6am, it was Jo who met me in the changing rooms and when I sadly realised I’d forgotten my goggles, off she went and returned with a pair for me to borrow.
Now here I was in my little race running 4 km behind her. I don’t feel like a fraud anymore. I think it’s right for me to be here. I’m no longer Linda not really good enough Blakely. I made the cut and I’m doing alright. It may not be the quickest time but I’m not embarrassing myself.
As I ran out of the energy lab it’s 10 I’m back to town and the finish line. I could now afford to say to myself ‘it’s in the bag Blakely’. I started to think back over my journey here. I knew no matter what that I would be crossing that finish line now. I thought of all the words of encouragement my coach has given me over the two years I’ve been with him and some of the arguments we’ve had when I’ve gone off piste. I went to Darren Jenkins as a solid 11 and half hour finisher and under his direction we’ve managed to get an hour and half off that. He is without doubt incredible inspiration for me (with the journey he’s had) and I am very proud to fly flag for Team Nevagivin.
Even though running back along the Queen K, I was really slowing up with lack of run fitness ( I produced the slowest run I’ve ever done for about 5 years) j was so happy with my thoughts and almost a little bit sad it would soon be over but as I approached Town I was very excited for the finish line and loving every final minute as it passed. I turned the last corner by Uncle Billy’s, picked up my Northern Ireland flag from my number one supporter Wardy and ran onto the magic carpet, surrounded by floodlights and people cheering and clapping. I ran down it with my flag held high and the biggest grin on my face just drinking it all in. As I passed the finish line I closed my eyes (which was pretty stupid for the finish photograph) but I wanted to remember this moment for the rest of my life. The moment I thought about every day without fail for years.
Looking back now I can honestly say that I enjoyed every single moment of the race. I just wish I’d been run fit for it and done it justice but I know it’s just the start and I’ll be back here to race properly. This time was for fun, to enjoy it and get the medal.
Swim time 1:11
Bike time 6:07
Run time 4:11
Overalltime 11.36:40
Countries with the most athletes at Kona (top 5)
5 Canada 114
4 GB 150
3 Germany 217
2 Australia 234
1 USA 741