Race reports · 2025 · by Michelle
Dick Evans 2025: my first lap of the island
My first lap of the island with a number on, in August, in traffic, with eight hours inside my own head. Jay was done a couple of hours before I was.
This was two months before IRONMAN California and the longest ride of that build for both of us, and for me it was more than that, as it was my first time around the island with a number on. I signed up two nights before the race. I was nervous about this one, and not the useful kind of nervous, because it's 112 miles around Oahu in August, with real traffic and real wind, and a lot of hours to spend inside my own head. I'm an introvert with anxiety (that's me in a nutshell), and eight hours alone on a bike is either the best possible thing for that or the worst, and I honestly wasn't sure which until I was in it, and it turned out to be some of both.
My time was 7:57:33, which is a full day on the bike, and I mean a full day, most of it alone on a road bike, which Jay will tell you is not the same as being alone on a tri bike. On a road bike by yourself, in wind, it's hard to make headway, while the tri bike puts you low and lets you ride alone, but this race is a road race, so it was the road bike. Jay's third lap was 5:55:53, fourteen minutes faster than 2024 and his first time under six hours, so he was done a couple of hours before I was. He says he almost made it to the top of Kunia Road with the peloton this time before they dropped him, which for him is the whole race, and I'd expected that, but it was still a long two hours.
The ride was for one thing, which was doing the full-distance bike leg on its own, eight weeks before it had to be done with a swim in front of it and a marathon behind it. That's the bridge, and I built mine in August, in traffic, one lap around the island!