Today's update is brought to you by turtles. Yes, I know we had the excitement of seeing them from the shoreline yesterday. But today was different, and infinitely better.
Today a turtle came and joined my swim, making it the best swim ever - I'm easily entertained.
It was another early start to the day, alarm off at 5.30 to have a leisurely breakfast of eggs, prepared by the one and only St Pete, and then an easy stroll down to the pier in time for a 7.00am swim. The pier was noticeably busier today and for the first time an Ironman information gazebo was up with water and electrolyte on offer for anyone to have before or after their swim.
My instructions were to do an easy 30 minutes in the water and then a 60 minute ride out to the airport and back. I jumped into the water and again had a nice cruisy swim out along the buoy line enjoying the fish life below. At around 700m I turned around and started heading back in, this time making sure I stayed REALLY wide of the buoys - wasn't keen on getting head butted two days in a row!
About halfway back I saw him. An adult Hawksbill Sea Turtle came cruising the other way and stopped me in my tracks. I turned to watch him and at the same time noticed a guy on a paddle board slowly making his way toward me with a GoPro trained on a swimmer alongside him. I alerted them to the turtle and the chick swimming also stopped and we spent around 30 seconds checking out the turtle before he decided he had had enough of us and scooted away.
Swim over we headed back to the condo and I headed out on the bike for my first proper experience of the Queen K and the lava fields.
As I was heading out of town, up Palani Rd I caught up to a group of guys and followed them onto the Queen K. They were doing around the same speed as I wanted to do, fractionally slower, but we were humming along at around 34km/hr and so it wasn't worth trying to get past them - this was supposed to be an easy spin after all! So I sat on the back and stayed with them until a couple of kilometers past the airport when the time was showing 34 minutes and time for me to turn around.
At that point I stopped to take a couple of photos and take in the landscape. It was hot and very exposed but the road conditions were fantastic - super smooth bitumen, wide shoulders so plenty of room to ride without annoying cars and trucks and rolling terrain
The ride back, then, was solo and gave me a perfect preview of what to expect on race day. Although the grasses didn't seem to be moving there were plenty of side winds to stop me from getting bored and the heat made me so glad to be wearing my Specialized Evade helmet rather than the old Giro aero helmet I had. I don't know how anyone with a full aero helmet copes in these conditions - they must cook!
It was good to get back and I was happy with how it all went.
Training over for the day and it was time for a walk and an ocean paddle 
and then a yummy lunch of Oneo Salad and grilled fish at Lava on the Rocks before heading back to the pier where we spent a couple of hours on the front lawn of the King Kam hotel having a swim (watching more fish!) and having a generally relaxing time.
Tomorrow the Tri Travel activities start - with a run at the Energy Lab. Oh yeah baby!
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