The Ironman Cometh and He Forgot His Pants!

The Ironman Underwear Race

    Many of you out in the blogosphere may be wondering what has happened to your loyal correspondent.  Did he go on a prolonged vacation somewhere boring, somewhere that there are no tropical fish?  Did he move and leave no forwarding address?  Did he (shudder) croak?

Señor Crab says, "Watch out for the rocks!"

    The sad truth is that I had a squamous cell cancer removed from my left cheek, waited the obligatory two weeks before returning to the water and after a single snorkeling experience at the pier.  On that swim I saw an Elegant Hermit Crab hiding between the stones of the pier a few feet below the surface.  That crab would be my last good sighting for the next week.

   The following day I messed up my right knee.  It is likely that I twisted it while gardening down in our jungle, attempting to prune the starfruit tree, while balancing on a pile of stacked rocks.  Stacked rocks are tragically common here in West Hawaii and , I believe we can say with some surety, should be trod upon with caution.

The Award for Best underwear Costume Goes to this Pooch

    The pain came on hours later, as I was sitting on the couch with my sweetie, listening to the Huskies on the radio.   As my beloved Huskies pulled off a nail biter down in Tucson, my knee became progressively more painful.  By the next morning whatever anesthesia I had administered the night before had worn off and I was barely able to get out of bed.  Not only could I not walk, I was unable to drive safely.  I proved this by
driving, of course, and noting that I really wasn't able to get my foot quickly from the accelerator to the brake.  At that point it seemed like the humane thing would be to take away my TV remote and shoot me in the head.

    This deplorable situation persisted for almost a week until my caring physician at Kaiser Permanente saw her way clear to inject the offending joint with the soup de jour, which lucky enough included solumedrol. 
By the next morning I was well on my way to assisted ambulation.  Even more important in this land of non-existant public transportation, I was driving.  Huzzah!

    Thus on Saturday morning I drove the Redoubtable SKG up the church, where I left her under a stifling tent to price items for the rummage sale for three hours.  I made my way back down Palani and hobbled

The Official BVDs of the Ironman World Champioships

from the parking lot to the pier.

    This wasn't just any Saturday in football season, it was the start of Ironman week, arguably the happiest week in  Kailua Kona.  As my cane and I made our way along the malecon, I was passed by a fit young lady wearing a backpack emblazoned with the logo of the Wisconsin Badgers.  "Your team has a big day today." I blurted out before she could make her escape.  She turned around and gave me a quizzical look.   "The Badgers are playing Michigan on TV."  I explained.  "Its the game of the week."

     "I am from Espain." she replied.  "I ran a race in Wisconsin."  Ahh! My first Ironman.  And she was cute as a bug.  "Bienvenidos a Kona!"

Samurai Shorts

 Following that encounter, me and my cane worked our way to the beach in front of the King Kam.  Mr. Cane stayed behind on the rock wall while I gingerly waded in to the water.  I suspected that I was outside the treatment plan, but to quote my dear friend Mike Van Ronzelen, "You can't stay home all the time."  As far as I am concerned, that applies equally to staying out of the water.  My wading progressed rapidly to a little breast stroking without the kicking.   After one such peregrination,  I met a competitor from Belgium

Even Cannibals Wear Underwear

who that morning  had made the swim in 68 minutes.  I thought that was fast, but he said the fastest person that morning was a lady who swam the 2.4 miles in 48 minutes.  That would have been a record time if she had done it on race day.  

On my way out of the water I met an Ironman and his toddler daughter lounging in the shallows.  They hail from New York, which is almost like another country.

   Things progressed nicely and three days ago on a blisteringly hot afternoon Sandra and I went swimming from the King Kam beach.  For this part of my aquatic rehabilitation, I wore a fin on my good leg and

Jellyfish Wear Underwear?

attempted to let the bad leg trail along uselessly.  The water was quite still and we made it across the inlet, about ten yards past the entrance to Paul Allen's lagoon.  Although there was tons of plankton, we saw only usual suspects.  Never the less, I was so happy to be out snorkeling.

    For the last two days we have done our bit in Ironman registration.  Sandra and I both met several score of wonderful competitors from all over the triathlon running world.  This experience is sort of like Disneyland's  "Its a small , small world!"  with really fit characters and minus the cloying music.  Being the kind soul that I am, I will not provide you with a link to that insipid tune.

Spidey and Mary Jane Watson

    On the second morning, as we arrived for work (if you can call it that) we caught an Ironman tradition, the Underwear race.   This event started five years ago with just a handful of participants.  Now it is an official part of the Ironman program, like the Parade of Nations and the Keiki Dip and Dash.  There is an entrance fee and the proceeds go to charity.  The Underwear Race was lots of fun,with some great costumes.  Perhaps a bit like the Bay to Breakers race in
San Francisco.  In this instance the observer, should he or she be so inclined, gets a pretty good look at some well conditioned derrieres. 

   As we arrived at registration, I admonished one of the organizers to the tune that she wasn't wearing her underwear.  "I am wearing my underwear," she responded, "You just can't see it!"  And that was probably a good thing.

jeff

Sandra's Favorite Swiss Time Piece