Honu 70.3: the first time the distance was the point
Jay, Kona, 1.2 miles of ocean, 56 miles of lava, 13.1 in the heat. He had not wanted this race. He finished it.
2023-06-03
Jay had done triathlons before. 2005, 2006 — he did not like them. In 2014 he talked Michelle into the Honolulu Triathlon and, two months later, the Tin Man. They were not serious yet. The bug had not landed.
Honu was different. IRONMAN 70.3 Hawaii: 1.2 miles of ocean off Waikoloa, 56 miles on the bike toward Hawi and back with about 2,400 feet of climbing, then 13.1 miles of running in Big Island heat. He spent the week before the race asking himself why he had signed up. He had never really wanted this one.
The honest answer was the year before. Michelle had watched the 2021 Honolulu Marathon and said, for his 50th, they should go do it. He had never wanted a marathon either. The longest thing they had run was the Great Aloha Run, 8.2 miles from Aloha Tower. Twenty-six miles felt like a different sport. They trained anyway. Once that door opened, Honu was the next door.
Friends signed up too. That matters more than people admit. Suffering together is a logistics problem and a morale problem, and you want both solved.
He finished. We are not going to dress that up as a Kona qualifying story. It was a first 70.3 on a hard island, after a year of taking the work seriously. The lesson we keep: the race you are nervous about is often the one that was always going to be next, once you stopped pretending you were still the 2014 version of yourselves.
Full recap is on the channel. This page is so the day does not live only inside a YouTube thumbnail.