Belated Race Report - Hawaii Ironman 70.3 - Part 1: The Swim

The bad news is, I will not be competing in the Hawaii Ironman World Championship this year. The good news is that I will be there as a spectator, and it's only an 18 minute flight to get there. My final weeks of preparation for the hawaii 70.3 were less that optimal, but one thing I knew was that I could swim close to the front. A second thing I knew was that I could finish the race. Looking back on my 2009 Hawaii 70.3, I did both things I'd set out to do. I positioned myself strategically behind the cluster of white capped pros at the far bouy of the start line. when the cannon sounded I was on my way, turning over quickly to stay ahead of the massive 1200 person melee that followed. I got to the first turn in good position in the thinner group at the front, directly on the feet of craig alexander. This was a comfortable spot for me to be in and I would have been happy to tuck in and sit there for the duration of the 1.2 mile swim leg, but in a moment of distraction, I spotted the familiar bars of a k-swiss logo peeking out from beneath a speed suit, and thinking I'd found the feet of chris lieto, jumped ship from alexander's wake. Moments later I looked up again only to find that this k-swiss imposter was not chris lieto, and was not providing me the speedy tow-in to T1 that I had been looking for. Dissapointed, I swam around the lieto look-alike and sized up the gap that I'd lost to the neatly organized lead pack of swimmers. It was only about 5 meters, but that is a lot of ground to cover on your own when you're dealing with the best in the world. Glancing to my left I spotted a soletary swimmer, by his red swim trunks and smooth efficient stroke, I identified him as none other than triathlon super swimmer Benjamin Sanson. I drifted over and picked up his draft for a minute, hoping that he would pull me back up to the leaders as he built into a mega-swim split, but there would be no such luck this time. Sanson was just out for a leisurely dip and I was forced to abandon his draft and swim ahead on my own. I looked ahead once more to evaluate the distance to the lead pack. Close to 10 meters at this point, a monumental distance to close given the field on whom I was closing. I powered through the next 200 meters or so to see if I could make any noticeable gains. The work to get there would only be worth it if I got there in time to recover on the way to T1, it didn't look good, so I abandoned my pursuit and cruised it in for the last 500 meters to the beach

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[Daniel Pastan]

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