Today we got another taste of the heat I will be dealing with next week with the first of Tri Travel's organized activities - the Energy Lab Run.
The Energy Lab is actually the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii, a research centre devoted to oceanic and environmental research (http://nelha.hawaii.gov/about/) and is notable for a couple of reasons. Firstly the ironman marathon does an out and back leg into the Energy Lab and secondly the geological features of the landscape there mean it is hotter than being out on the Queen K.
Our run today was supposedly an out and back course into the Energy Lab of up to 12km. The bus took us to a car park about 3km south of the turnoff and we would run from there, into the energy lab, down to the turnaround and then retrace our steps back to the bus. Being an out and back meant that we could turn around at any point and do a shorter run if we wanted.
On this trip I was joined by St Pete and the bus was full as we headed out of town to the starting point. After a quick group photo we set off, the slower ones (including me!) first with the faster guys leaving last.
Tri Travel had everything well organized. At around each 2.5km they had an aid station set up with water and electrolyte available plus at the end there were Power Bars to munch on. First we had to get to the end though!
We set out at a nice easy pace and my plan was to take it easy and steady. The important thing was to just keep the legs ticking over and get a feel for running in the heat. At the first aid station I was feeling pretty good and took a cup of electrolyte. I then grabbed a cup of water and tipped it over my head and carried on running.
Big mistake.
About 3 steps on I realized that 90% of the water had bounced straight off me and my head was now feeling pretty toasty. However I didn't want to stop so toughed it out to the next aid station, at the turn off into the Energy Lab. At this point I actually took my cap off and poured the water into the cap, completely drenching it and then taking a second cup of water and pouring that over me more deliberately, so that 90% of it actually hit me rather than missed.
This strategy was much better and lesson was learnt for the remaining aid stations.
The run to the turnaround took a bit longer than anticipated - instead of getting to the turnaround at 6km the Garmin claimed we were at 7.3km. Nothing like a 1300m discrepancy to induce a debate about the relative quality of GPS watches! However St Pete's Nike watch agreed with the longer distance and one of the other guys also showed over 7km on his Garmin as well so we weren't buying Shane's story that we had only done 6km!
Debate over it was time to start heading back and this involved a bit of a climb back to the Queen K highway. The climb itself wasn't so bad but the stifling heat was. It was completely still and the heat really made for a challenging test - and it was only 9.30am! I wasn't about to start speculating what it would be like later on in the day when I'm likely to be out there.
Turning onto the Queen K, though, was infinitely better - instantly we found a breeze again and even though it was a hot breeze it was still easier to deal with than the stillness. Apparently the topography of the Energy Lab is such that the breeze we could feel on the Queen K skims about 10 feet off the ground in the Lab, missing us completely and turning the bottom 10 feet into a greenhouse, and it therefore is legendary as a particularly tough and epic part of the course.
We finally got to the bus, just under 15km and around 95 minutes later. I was really happy with the session - nice steady pace all the way, no walking (stops only at aid stations) and easily could have continued. And those chocolate Power Bars at the end tasted really good!
Back to our accommodation and it was time for a quick shower and then out for another pick up for the group shopping trip. There we got to pick up supplies at Bike Works and then a grocery run at Safeway.
We then had a couple of hours spare so caught up with Coach Dave at Lava Java (I think he's got a permanent table with his name on it!) before getting ready for the TriTravel dinner at Humpy's. This was a great buffet meal with lots of fresh salad options, fish, chicken and meatballs as well as a pasta station. After my experience at Cairns I stayed well away from the pasta!
At the dinner we sat with a fellow Team Kiwi member, Richard, who had also gained his slot via the (general) lottery and so was fulfilling the dream of a lifetime. We also managed to rub shoulders with Pro, Tim van Berkel, who is racing Kona for the first time and came along to the dinner.
All in all a great day, albeit a very hot one!
Tomorrow we meet up early for a reconnaissance of the bike course and then a 50km ride back into town. Looking forward to it!
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