When we walked onto the street of Alii Drive, the feeling was incredible! Athletes from all over the world were getting ready for the 2.4 mile swim. They were with their families and sponsors taking pictures an hour before the race. Thousands of people crowded the small Kona town to watch the great race.
Byron and I found us a spot on the wall next to some local boys that were sleeping on a bunch of padded mattresses and pillows they had brought from home. Apparently they spent the night on the wall to save a good spot for themselves on the wall. Tourists weren't happy about their claim on the wall as the local boys were knocked out cold and were pretty pissy when they woke up to find haole's on their mattresses with their shoes on (everyone knows that you take your shoes off in Hawaii) and they didn't even ask to intrude! Anyway, Byron and I were allowed up their with them.
The Swimmers (Note the car floating in the ocean!)
Onlookers at Sunrise:
Beginning of the Race:
The beginning of the race was amazing!
But the end was even more incredible! I don't have pics of the end or even the middle of the race because the excitement was SO great, that we didn't even bother taking pictures. We cheered each athlete toward the finish line as each one of them were filled with great joy and a huge sense of accomplishment that some athletes were filled with so much emotion that they wept as they ran toward the finish line.
This was so Amazing! I still can't believe we were just up in Alaska watching the dog mushers, and now we just watched Iron Man in Hawaii in the same year!
