Field note · September 20, 2026 · 2026 · September, week 3 · 2 min read · by Jay
Two days ahead is enough
We used to fly to the mainland three or four days before a race. For Redding and again for Tri-Cities we landed Friday morning for a Sunday race, and that turned out to be the better way to do it.
This was race week for Tri-Cities, the third 70.3 we finished this year after Honu in May and Redding in August. What defined it wasn't the race, it was the travel, because we ran this race week the same way we'd run Redding five weeks earlier and it worked both times.
In the past, if we were going to the mainland for a race, we'd get there three or four days before the event. For Redding and then for Tri-Cities we took the overnight flight out of Honolulu on Thursday night, landed Friday morning, and raced Sunday, so two days in advance. That schedule is close to perfect: IRONMAN Village opens that day and athlete check-in starts that day, so you pick up your packet and get your equipment prepped and ready, bike check-in is Saturday, and the race is Sunday morning.
The flights are always a bit of a challenge coming from Honolulu. Going overnight to the mainland it's really hard to sleep on the plane, so you land and do the best you can to stay awake all day and go to bed at whatever normal bedtime is wherever you're at, and that Friday night is usually a really good night of sleep. Saturday night is typically a little shorter, because you're anxious for the race and the adrenaline is already up, and you're lucky to get an okay night anyway since you're usually getting up at about 3 in the morning to go down to transition, pump the tires, load the bento box with nutrition, and get ready for the swim.
The taper was the same both times, and the card on the right shows what that looks like: easy zone 2 on the trainer, light runs, a light swim, nothing that costs anything. The shakeout run on Saturday was 2.6 miles for both of us.
Sidebar: Michelle's bike felt gruelingly slow the whole 56 miles and she found out after she finished that her brake pads were rubbing on the wheel. If I'd tell a friend one thing from this week, it's to spin both wheels before you rack the bike and make sure nothing's touching, so you're not working that much harder for a slower ride.
The next big one is the 2026 Honolulu Marathon on December 13. We have one or two small races between now and then, and for the first time in a couple of years we don't have a triathlon on the schedule at all. We're thinking ahead to 2027 and researching different parts of the country, and different parts of the world, that we'd like to go visit and race in.