When we were on the bus from the plane to the airport, I saw someone carrying wheels (he had carried them onto the plane), and figured he was doing IM China, so I introduced myself and asked him if he was doing the EST package. He said he wasn't, and that he had a contact in Haikou (the capital of Hainan Province) that was picking him up, and if the people who were supposed to pick us up had left (I had called them to tell them we would be late but I thought we were only going to be an hour late so we were running late from being late) that he would probably be able to give us a ride. I felt really relieved and grateful hearing that. But fortunately, once we got to the airport in Haikou, there were Ironman signs everywhere - and sure enough, there were some people holding an 'Ironman China' sign. So we got our bags, and Coach, another woman named Amy and I packed our things into the EST truck and drove the 20-30 minutes to the hotel. Amy was really nice - I talked with her most of the way to the hotel, and it turns out that she did IM China last year too, and so she was able to tell me some of the ins-and-outs of the race. It was great being able to make a friend so quickly, especially one who had lots of information!
Although it was late when we got back to the hotel, Coach and I decided to put our bikes together then so we didn't have to do it the next morning. So we did that, unpacked, and decided what our schedule was going to be like tomorrow.
Friday's schedule consisted of registration, getting my bike checked, visiting the Ironman village, going to town to get groceries (which Coach opted out of and decided to get a sports massage instead, which, I must admit, was probably the smarter choice :) ), going for a chill bike ride, and then the Carb Banquet. Before even going to registration though, I checked out the list of athletes in the hotel lobby, and discovered that I was the only one in my age group (Amy excitedly pointed that out to me), which would probably mean that I was going to get a spot to Kona as long as I finished the race. So this was really surprising for me and Coach, and that definitely made our day much more exciting.
At registration, I met some really nice Korean people that Coach happened to know, one of which was last year's runner up for IM China (a pro triathlete from Korea), so that was awesome to be able to be introduced to him by Coach! After registration, I went into town while Coach stayed and relaxed (I think his stomach was still really bothering him from the Chinese food, as was mine, but I was hoping that the stomach ache would go away soon). I saw Amy on the bus, and also met a few more friends on the bus who didn't want to stay in town for the whole day (the bus going in was planning to spend three hours there and then take everyone back). But since there were 5 of us who just wanted to go shopping, we all went together and 4 of us took a taxi home together (the other man wanted to stay and walk around). That taxi ride home was amazing, by the way, because the front seat was broken so the guy in front was stuck sitting at a really funny angle and we could not stop laughing for a good few minutes. It doesn't sound funny but I assure you it was amazing.
When I got back, we rode around Hainan for about 80 minutes, which was really fun. There were so many animals around! It was very beautiful, and very interesting. And after the ride, we went to the hotel pool for a bit to swim - that was AMAZING too. SUCH a beautiful pool, AND the hotel is right on the beach. I honestly can't imagine much more of a beautiful place.
(Above are pictures from the bike; below are pictures from the pool and the pool-area (beach) at the hotel.)
After a quick swim, Coach went to get his massage, and I went to pack up my gear bags, and at 6pm we went down to the Banquet. It was a great, great dinner - great people, great food, and we learned a lot about the spread of athletes present at the race. Amongst many other amazing athletes (some of whom weren't racing but were officiating in some way) was Chris McCormack, the 2006 runner up at Kona and 2007 Kona champion (!!!). Awesomeness at its best. Also at the Banquet, we participated in a few ritual-type-things: first, we were all given a ribbon which we were to tie onto an Orange tree in front of the Banquet stage, and when tying we were supposed to make a wish (I don't really believe in this stuff, but I was caught up in the spirit, and wished that I would qualify for and be able to go to Kona). So that was fun. After that, there was a second ritual, which consisted of lighting a pink lotus-flower candle (there was one at each table) and then having one or two people take the lit candle over to the pool outside of the hotel lobby and lay them in the water where they would float. We asked one the man's daughter who was at the table is she wanted to do it, and she looked a little shy, so I said we should do it together - so we did, but we had issues, and the candle blew out. So when we got the the pool I tried to mooch a light off of another candle, but instead I put that candle out as well..!! Oops. It's ok - I mean, it was windy, and I saw others blown out too so it wasn't the worst thing in the world.
(These pictures were taken during the day, but the Banquet was as the sun was setting so it was more beautiful!)
After that, we pretty much retired to our room and just chilled and watched tv and read until we fell asleep. During the night, however, there were terrential downpours and thunderstorms, which continued on until the morning. I had planned to wake up early to go for a swim and check out this ridiculous current that everyone was talking about (apparently at about 2 meters per second, which, if that means nothing to you, means that it is RIDICULOUSLY fast - faster than I can sprint), and I saw that plan through. However, it was off and on thundering and lightning on the way there, and while once we got there it wasn't so bad, about 5 minutes after I got into the water the T-storms started to get worst (lightning too of course). I hadn't yet gone all the way to the second buoy where the current was supposed to get pretty strong, but where I swam until the waters didn't seem that bad at all as long as you angled yourself in a certain way, so I decided to head out of the water (because as all of you know I'm sure, being in a body of water in a lightning storm is not the best place to be - it kind of creeped me out), and so I didn't get much of a good practice-swim in.
Still pouring, the bunch of us who had gone out there boarded the bus to go back to the hotel. At this point it was about 10am, and the transition area was open from 10-4 for us to drop off all of our gear bags and our bikes. I wanted to get that out of the way so I could relax in the afternoon, so even though it was pouring rain still, I decided to go now (especially since if the rain cleared, it would take much more time to get a bus because most people did in fact wait for the rain to clear) so I could beat the mob. So I took care of all that, and got back to the hotel just in time for the pre-race meeting at 12p. At the meeting we were told of the rate of the current (about 2m / sec) and that the swim course was thus tweaked a bit to account for the extra swimming we would have to do with the current.
After sucking up all of the information needed to guide us through the next day, I went to the race office to ask them about the Kona spot, because I found out that acceptance of the Kona slots took place 9-10am Monday morning, which was a time that I would not be there because I had a 7:30am flight back to Busan in the morning (crazy, I know, but I had to be back for school). So I went to see the race officials, and they told me that I could make a written statement saying that I wanted to reserve my spot as I was not going to be able to be present at the actual slot-allotment. So before doing that, I had to call my parents to see what they thought about it - and they were actually really not on board with the idea (for completely understandable reasons, I don't want to make them look like the bad guys here...although I am trying my best to make them see the other side of the equation), which really took the wind out of my sails. However, I did not know what the date of the race was when I talked to them (that was one of their concerns because my sister's wedding was in the same month - a completely legitimate concern). So after talking to them, I was really bummed from how against it they seemed, so I decided I had to go see when Kona 2009 took place. If it was too close to my sister's wedding then I wasn't even going to bother trying to reserve my spot, because no matter how important Kona is, it can't compare with important family occassions. However, I VERY SURPRISINGLY found out that this year, Kona is on the 10th of October (about a week earlier than I thought it would be...I was really thinking that I was going to completely luck out in the sense that it would be relatively easy for me to qualify but the date was just not going to work, which really bummed me out because getting the chance to go to the World Championships was SO CLOSE...but again, this turned out to not be a problem), which would give me two whole weeks because my sister's wedding (as well as more time considering if I went to Kona it would mean that I wouldn't be going back to Korea, at least in the fall, because I can't take a month off from school in October, so I would have all of September with her as well!). So things were looking pretty awesome. So I decided to just make the statement and if my parents still were against me going after they knew the date, then I would deal with that then - my window of opportunity was less than 16 hours so I had to act fast. I took care of that (which was much more complicated than it sounds for reasons which I will not go into here, but which ended up taking about 3 hours of my day), and at around 6pm we arrived back at the hotel.
Coach and I were still not completely recovered from lunch in Shanghai, so he asked me how I felt about going to a Korean restaurant. Of course, I LOVED that idea. So he got information of a good restaurant's whereabouts, and we took a cab about 30 minutes to a Korean restaurant in town. IT WAS AMAZING. They even spoke Korean there! I felt like I was home. We ate so well, and after that we both felt much better, and our stomachs were much happier!
After eating pre-race Korean, we went back to the hotel, and I tried my best to sleep, for the long-awaited day was soon upon us.
To be continued in the next post...
1 comment:
Kudos on your race. I know you've been working toward the World Championships for quite some time
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