Green Sand Beach
What do you do after a big race to avoid the post-race blues? Plan something fun! And have a future goal already on the horizon.
After crossing the finish line, I headed for the finishers’ area, helped along by two volunteers. On our way we bumped into the amazing Coeur girls, the same two who had run me up the hill on Ali’i and given me that boost right when I needed it. We were all excited to see each other again so we stopped to chat and the first two volunteers handed me off to them. And then there volunteering in the finishers’ area was Russ from Chicago who helped me to get my medal and finisher’s shirt, have my photo taken and then get out of there. The smell of the food made me want to throw up. I drank some water but that was all I could manage.
I found Kyle in the lobby of the King K hotel. More big hugs, the scene and emotions there now so different from 12 hours earlier. Support crews exhausted from a long day of spectating. Athletes drained of all the pre-race nervous energy but filled with a post-race buzz or just broken down by the challenges of the day. We sat out by the pool for a bit, waiting until I could get my bike, incessant blow-by-blow race stories pouring out. I wanted to know about the pro race too. What happened? Who won? What were the stories? Were we buying one of those Halo headset thingies?! (We weren’t. Even if Tim O’Donnell had podiumed it was too late because the Expo had been packed up early that day.) I tried to get my bike but the lines to get out of transition were crazy so we decided to come back later. Time to get cleaned up.
I wasn’t hungry but I needed to eat. I managed some nachos and a beer at Humpy’s. This is a great spot with a deck on the second floor overlooking Ali’i Drive and the ocean. Since we’re on the all-important subject of food, here are some of our other Kona faves:
- Huggo’s: an amazing location right on the ocean with good food served all day.
- Huggo’s on the Rocks: the scene of Bob Babbit’s “Breakfast with Bob” interviews, more casual than neighboring Huggo’s, perfect for a drink and live music.
- Kona Brewing Company: great beer, good food and a cool place to hang out. We went twice for a quick bite and ended up staying for hours chatting to other customers!
- 808 Grindz Café: great local breakfast spot, hidden away in a strip mall just off Kuakini.
We watched the finishers still coming in from Humpy’s before joining the crowds at the finish chute for the magical final hour. We squeezed into a gap and hit the boards and cheered as the last finishers arrived. It is an amazing sight to see these athletes who have been out there so long, still fighting to make it to the line despite their bodies often looking like they gave up hours earlier. There was drama when the final female finisher fell in the chute, right by us. She was already bloodied from a previous fall or crash and as she was helped back to her feet we saw her face was now completely covered in blood. She had lost her glasses in the fall too but she valiantly pushed on to the finish line to hear Mike Reilly call her name and those immortal words: You are an Ironman!
We had planned a classic Endurance Explorers recovery hike for Sunday but I wasn’t in the mood. I was all out of sorts, my body felt broken, everything hurt and I couldn’t do anything remotely fast, including thinking. We already had a full day of adventure planned for Monday and I just wanted to lie on the beach and paddle in the ocean, like regular people do on vacation. We drove out to the beautiful beach at Waikoloa ready to see how long we could sit still for. The answer: 20 minutes! After messing around in the water for a while, Kyle swimming around looking at fish, me just happily floating there, we headed back onto the beach, nabbed some sun loungers and set-to the serious business of relaxing. But it was really, really windy! This damn island! We were being whipped with sand to the point where it was painful. This being Hawai’i, not my native UK, we didn’t have a windbreaker to shield us from the elements, or anything else for that matter, so we packed up and left. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out the windbreaker link for a classic “British day at the beach” scene. British people love to go to the beach even when it’s at least 10 degrees too cold, the sun isn’t out, there’s a gale force wind blowing and the water is barely above freezing. No, I don’t know why either.)
We took our ridiculous Mustang on a driving tour instead, up to Hawi and on to neighboring Kapaau where we stopped for lunch and checked out the statue of King Kamehameha. Then we drove from there to Waimea along the 250. It looked like a perfect road for riding. Great pavement, hardly any traffic and a climb of several thousand feet through the forest. As we passed the elevation signs I was trying to calculate the gradient to see if it was in my 4-6% sweet spot. We agreed to come back and ride it one day. It would make a great loop with the climb to Hawi. Always planning more trips and adventures! We completed the loop back to Kona on the inland road and spent the evening drinking beer and watching the world go by from the lanai of our condo, pondering the idea of buying property on the island.
Cute but impractical!
Monday was a day of adventure! Lots of things to see and do! First stop was supposed to be the green sand beach but we had to make a little detour first to check out a house that had caught our eye online. I’m not entirely sure what got into us. It was in the middle of nowhere and totally impractical as either an investment or a future retirement location. I blame the list of trees on the property listing. Who wouldn’t want to own a house with 6 orange trees, 2 lemon trees, 6 avocado trees, 11 lime trees, 3 tangerine trees, 2 cherry trees, 4 mango trees, 37 banana trees, 45 papaya trees, 100 pineapple trees plus all sorts of other trees producing things that would be great in a fruit salad?! It sounded so romantic! Never mind that this city girl can’t even keep a pot plant alive and we live in a condo without a yard because the idea of yardwork is tedious to both of us. We could pay someone to tend to the fruit farm, surely?! After coaxing the Mustang up a dirt road, traipsing through a muddy field to get a peek at the house and then checking out the dilapidated property next door which was for sale too, we finally asked ourselves what on earth we were doing there. We’re really not in a position to be taking on projects like these right now. Time to get on with the sight-seeing!
Stop two was a recovery hike to the green sand beach. It was a couple of miles on a dirt track to get there, with a howling headwind blowing sand in our faces most of the way, followed by a scramble down the rocks to the beach. We had hoped to swim at the beach but it was too rough. We jumped a few waves then headed back to the car, now “recovery running” since the wind was behind us. It’s like walking downhill, we’ve tried it several times on hikes, but our legs just start running. There’s free speed to be had!
Ah, exercise endorphins. The remaining hours in the car would be bearable now. On we drove, on the excruciatingly slow Highway 11, round the southern end of the island to the black sand beach. Still not swimming or sunbathing conditions there (it’s windy on this island!), we took a quick look, along with all the other triathletes and their families, and were about to go on our way when we bumped into Lauren from Chicago and her family. I had known her name for a while but hadn’t met her in person until race morning. We had seen each other out on the course all day but not at the finish, despite finishing only four minutes apart, so it was fun to catch-up and share race day stories!
Next stop: the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park Visitor Center. We love these places! There are always cool displays, interesting books and maps, amazing pictures and all sorts of other stuff that we like but really don’t need. We did well: a frugal $4 on magnets, stickers and postcards. (We had actually already spent our “stuff-we-don’t-need-but-we-love-and-it-will-remind-us-of-this-trip” budget on brightly colored art from The Cindy Coats Gallery. The artist is a lovely lady. Check it out if you’re ever in Kona.)
There are a few hiking trails in the park but we bypassed those as we were on a mission for our final stop of the day: lava viewing. Kyle and I had both been to Hawai’i before but neither of us had seen the lava flowing. It was top of our list for this trip. There are several ways you can see it:
· take an expensive boat trip and see it flowing into the ocean;
· hike for 5 miles to get to it, then hike back out again; or
· rent a dodgy mountain bike, ride on a dirt road for four miles, then hike a bit, then ride back.
Clearly option 3 seemed like a great idea to us. We got to ride bikes and see lava, cool! The downside of this option is that the bike rental place is a long way from Kona. Over three hours drive via Highway 11. Breaking it up with stops along the way helped and we were excited when we arrived there an hour or so before sunset. The bike rental was a bargain at $20 and included all sorts of essentials such as lights, water, ponchos and emergency phone numbers in case we needed rescuing. We took off grinning like kids along the dirt road through the lava fields. Xterra training for 2018 had begun: trail running in the morning, mountain biking in the afternoon! Along the way we saw some shack-like houses built on the windswept lava. Very odd. Not sure why you would build anything there.
At the end of the road, we locked up the bikes and asked the EMT stationed there which way to go. It was left along a trail to view the lava spilling into the ocean. Why are all those people going right across the lava then?! He sighed and told us we shouldn’t go that way because it was dangerous, rocky and the flowing lava was at least a mile away. So off we went to the right, following all the other triathletes clambering across the lava, eager to get to wherever it was before the sun set. There must be something worth seeing if all these people were going that way. There was. After 30 minutes or so of picking our way through the crevices and rocks of the crunchy, solidified lava, stopping only to battle with the ridiculous freebie poncho in the howling wind when it started raining, we found people just standing around.
It was crazy. There was lava just oozing out of the ground! The only signs of it from afar were specks of red but closer up we could see it moving and feel the intense heat. Ooooh. It was weird. It was moving so slowly it was almost like nothing was happening. But it was definitely moving! We wandered around a bit and saw some bigger patches. Then we hung out at triathlete central soaking up the warmth for a while waiting for it to get dark. It was even more spectacular once it got dark. The hot molten lava was just creeping across the solid lava already there. Coming up from somewhere below. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was like watching waves or flames only somehow more mesmerizing. Kyle had to drag me away, literally. I didn’t want to leave. I could have stared at it all night. It was so cool! Totally worth the journey to see it. We still wanted to see the lava flowing into the ocean though, the bikes had to be returned and we had to drive back to the other side of the island. It was nearly 7pm. We had to go!
We hadn’t really thought about how we were going to navigate our way back across this obstacle field in the pitch black. Fortunately the headlamps helped and we headed for the lights of the EMT’s truck. Those lights never seemed to get closer though and the trek back felt like it took forever. My whole body was reminding me that I did an Ironman two days ago. I was terrified of stepping right into an Emma-sized hole. I wasn’t nearly as quick or nimble as my partner-in-crime. Sherpa duties are tiring but at least you have fresh legs for post-race adventures! We passed a lot of people headed out as we were headed back, stumbling out there in the dark. We didn’t feel so stupid after all.
Back at the truck, we followed the trail to the left for one final spectacle: the lava flowing into the ocean. Big anti-climax! We saw some red in the distance and that was it. Happy we had trekked out to see it flowing up close, we raced back on the mountain bikes in the dark. Kyle tore off with energy still to burn but my legs were well and truly done. I couldn’t hang on to his wheel however hard I tried. This was meant to be a recovery workout!
Our last stop before heading back across the island was at Café Pesto in Hilo for a late dinner. It was a great find. How did we ever live without google?!
On Tuesday it was time to say goodbye to the big island. We packed our bikes up into our Rüster hen houses, savored one last brunch on the ocean and headed for the airport. As the plane took off we peered out of the window, looking for the roads we had ridden and driven and the places we had been. Contemplating when we’d next be back and where we might buy a condo. Then we turned our attention to Maui. Was that it over there, rising out of the ocean? Time to start thinking about next season. Our goal is to be there next October for Xterra Worlds.