RACING AGAIN

I ran my first race in Idaho last weekend. The Rim2Rim canyon run. 7.5 miles of pain. It's the hardest running race I've done. As I posted on Facebook, the race was like running Kaloko ( a very steep,winding road in Kona, combined with running the Hawaii 70.3 triathlon running course (a half marathon on a golf course, hot roads and gravel) then running down Kaloko followed by running back up it again. All fit into 7.5 miles. It felt a lot farther than that though.

Anyhow it was fun finally racing again. It's been a while since my last race and it's my first race on the mainland since college.

I am still trying to adapt to mainland living and no ocean in sight. The biggest trouble has been not being able to swim anymore. The only swimming here is at the YMCA, of which we are members, but they have such an odd schedule for lap swimming that I have only made it to the pool once since we've moved here.

Cycling is another issue. There are no shoulders on the roads here and traffic is fast (75 mph on the freeways and 65 or so on the back roads) so it doesn't feel safe to bike. Most people bike with the bike club but they DO NOT allow tri bikes and I don't like riding in groups anyhow, so I've restricted my cycling to using the bike trainer in the garage.

So mostly I've only been running, which is fine. I like running. My goal is to participate in an ultramarathon sometime in the next year.

On the bright side, we have been doing a lot of road trips since we've moved. I even got to check off a bucket list item (going to Yellowstone and seeing Old Faithful).

Here are a few photos of some of the places we've visited:

Yellowstone 

the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Madison river in yellowstone

road trip to Balanced Rock

Hidden Lakes.

Jerome County Fair

On the Snake River at Twin Falls Park

At the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Craters of the Moon National Monument

Craters of the Moon national Monument.

Oh, we are planning a speed trip cross-country at the end of October and running in as many states as possible, but more on that in my next post. 

Be safe.

BACK ON THE MAINLAND

(Derkes Lake around sunset)

Just a note to say we arrived safe and sound in Twin Falls, Idaho. Actually, we landed here about three weeks ago. However, our stuff ... all of our household items, including my computer just arrived. So we are officially moved off the island and on the mainland.

It's been a rough transition over the past three weeks. But what should I expect? Over the past 7 years I have only been out of Hawaii for 1 week. So there is going to be an adjustment period I suppose.

Anyhow, we made it. Our possessions arrived pretty much all intact and we have a roof over our heads. I have plenty of photos to post and maybe even a story or two to tell once things calm down and I actually get a chance to relax.

(Shoshone Falls)

(SNAKE RIVER CANYON)

Thanks for all your notes of encouragement and support, I'll post again soon.

MY 7-YEAR SUMMER IS ENDING

My perpetual summer has come to an end.

As of May 24th my family and I are moving back to the mainland. I got a new job and a new adventure awaiting me in Twin Falls, Idaho.

I've learned so many things while living here it doesn't seem real that it is all coming to an end. My greatest fear is that I will become that couch potato I once was. Hawaii is so much a part of who I am now that I can't imagine myself anywhere else. I have met so many wonderful people here. Made so many great friends. But it's time to move on. Since three of our kids and two grandkids live on the mainland, it's for the best. We'll be able to see them more often.

I can honestly say I am a different person now than when I arrived in the Aloha state 7 years ago. I guess the true test of character comes from challenges, and moving to a completely different climate, culture and economy will certainly be challenging for me.

I have always felt that Kona made me special, at least, made me feel special. It taught me how to swim, how to bike and how to run. It  taught me how to be strong, how to be encouraged by encouraging others. To be inspired by inspiring others. Without it, without being here, seems like I just might be leaving my identity behind. The person I have learned to become.

I've never swum anywhere but here - the ocean and the Kona pool. I've never done a triathlon anywhere but here. I've trained with some of the best athletes in the world here (I wonder how often Lance makes it to Idaho?). I've trained with some of the best people in the world here - Kona People.

But, just like moving here was scary and exciting and a giant mystery of what to expect, moving to a place I've never been is just another step on this adventure I'm on.

I don't know much about Twin Falls other than that it's on the Snake River Canyon. The pictures look pretty. There is no Masters swimming there, which is very disappointing to me. Hopefully there will be lots of good running trails and biking routes. Whatever the negatives are, the positives will outweigh them. Our son, Jon, lives in Portland (about 9 hours away) so we will be able to see him a lot. Rachael is in Georgia and Daniel is in North Carolina so it won't cost nearly as much to see them as it does now.

So, here's to a new adventure. Scary, exciting, mysterious! Just like doing my first Ironman.

I'd like to leave you with this song by Loudon Wainwright. It characterizes my 7-year summer more than anything I could ever say.

Oh no, I just realized I'll have to change the name of this blog next month. Maybe I can call it "The Spud Life," or "Beets Me." (They grow sugarbeets there).

Thanks so much for following "The Kona Life" all these years. I'll start posting my new adventure once I get settled and come up with a new blog name. Take care my friends, Randy

THE TRUTH ABOUT DOGS, AGAIN ...

I was re-reading some of my old posts and came across this one. It still makes me laugh. I posted this in May 2009.

Before rumors fly rampant I thought I would give the real story.
A few days ago I went on a bike ride with professional triathlete Bree Wee.

Wee and I rode about 50 miles, mostly uphill it seemed. We were climbing the last 5 miles or so before we reached the turn around to head back. We were moving at a pretty good pace when we simultaneously decided to have a sprint race uphill. The extremely large sounding dog in the driveway we had just pedaled past had no influence whatsoever on this decision. I promise.

I think Wee just wanted to run me into the ground, but to her surprise I flew by her and left her at the mercy of the beast quickly gaining on us. We were easily hitting 30 miles per hour (well I was, Wee was struggling to keep up), uphill on one of the toughest parts of the Ironman course.

After all was said and done I can say I out sprinted a pro triathlete up hill on the bike. Well, that's my version and I'm sticking to it.

Now the rumor going around about our "sprint" goes like this ....

Bree and I were biking along at a pretty good clip when we passed a driveway on our side of the road. We heard a large dog begin to bark. No biggie, we were moving too fast for a dog to catch us. But to my surprise that barking (a large pitbull by the sound of it) was getting closer.

I picked up the pace a little but the barking got even closer. My heart began to race, not from the pace but because I was sure I could feel the breath from that vicious, cyclist-eating pitbull on my ankle. The barking was so close now I new I was going to feel its teeth sink into my flesh at any moment.

I was pounding the pedals so hard that I left Wee to fend for herself. See ya! I have this terrifying fear of barking dogs that overrides all sanity.

Closer and closer the barking got. Suddenly, a pickup truck pulls up beside me and slowly begins to pass by. The dog's barking is in my ear now. "OMG! It's a giant pitbull!" was my first thought. And then I see it. A border collie in the back of the pickup happily barking at the funny bikers.

Relieved and embarrassed, I sit up and slow down to let Bree catch up.

Both of us laughing, I weakly muttered "Boy, that was a good opportunity to sprint. I thought that dog was chasing us."

Bree: "So did I until I looked back and saw it was in the back of that pickup."

Me: "You know, dogs are excellent sprinters." Still trying to cover my tracks.

A little while later on our way back I was riding out on the road (that's what I like about riding to Hawi, not much traffic so you can ride on the road some) and Bree was riding on the shoulder when she looked over at me and said, "not taking any chances with this dog, huh?"
I said, "What do you mean?"

She points a little ahead of us at a little rat-looking dog running along the side of the road ignoring us.

BABIES, MARINES AND SHOWERS

It's been a busy few months. Rachael finally had her baby, Zoey Jane Permenter weighing in at 9 pounds and change.

Baby zoey.

Daniel is home from deployment and is on leave visiting us now. He'll be heading back to Camp LeJeune soon. He reinlisted so he'll be Marine for another 4 years.

Daniel arriving at Kona International Airport. First time he's been home in a while.

Aaron and Grace's baby is due in a few weeks. We just had a baby shower for them at Old A's last weekend. Don't ever throw a baby shower here in Hawaii. It's a lot of work and stress and food and stress. But the games were fun and they got a lot of baby stuff.

Grace opening her gifts while Rebecca plays baby bingo.

IN OTHER NEWS ....
Now that I'm on the road to recovery from all my ailments, I've been doing more and more training. Almost as if i were training for ... something. I had planned on racing honu (Ironman 70.3 Hawaii) in June but because things aren't looking so secure at work, I am looking around for jobs on the mainland and I'd hate to pay all that money to register for the race for nothing. You don't get refunds from Ironman, other than a token $75 if you withdraw way early.

So I'm training but with no plans of doing any triathlons in the foreseeable future.

However, my swim and bike times have been improving lately which I'm happy about since I haven't been training that much and my speed is better than when I was in shape 2 years ago. I just raced a 10 mile time trial on the bike last weekend and averaged 21.4 miles per hour. My best average before that when I was training for triathlons was only 20.5. Not bad for only 6 or so times on the bike in the past year and a half. It's still not fast fast though. The guy who won, Penn Henderson, averaged 30 mph. But he could and should be a pro.

Have a great rest of February. Hope it's not too cold where you are. Well, time for an ocean swim. Take care.

BACK ON THE BIKE

Hope everyone had a great New Year's Day and I hope you all have a great 2012.

The year isn't exactly starting out the way I wanted. I've been suffering from an achilles tendon problem every since the Thanksgiving Day race when I stressed my left tendon/calf area. The race was a 10K with the first half uphill and I ran it harder than I should have and yanked the tendon or muscle or something in there.

(Karen and I wading through a tidal pool by the harbor.)

Anyhow that was what, 6 weeks or so ago and every time I think it's getting better it starts hurting again. OK, I probably push it too hard like this past weekend. I've only run about 2 hours over the past 6 weeks since I hurt it but I had gone a while without it hurting and thought I was ready to run so Karen and I did a 5 mile hilly trail run in our vibrams last Friday. Then Aaron and I did a 30 minute road run (not in vibrams) on Saturday. Then on Sunday Karen and I were doing a slow cross country run (basically flat course over grass, gravel, sand, and a little pavement in our vibrams.

With in a couple of steps after we hit the pavement (about a half-mile into our run) I felt a twinge in my left calf/achilles tendon area. It didn't really hurt but I knew what it was and now if I step wrong (whatever that is) I can feel a significantly more amount of pain. Most of the time though there is no pain.

Anyhow I decided not to run this week until Thursday or Friday and then only on trails. So far I haven't been injured while trail running, probably because I run more flat-footed on my injured side and take shorter strides.

I was supposed to start my triathlon training this week. I have a schedule made out with distances to get me to my long, swim, bike, run goals by June but I guess I'll have to improvise on the running for now.

It's just funny almost that the thing I want to do the most - run - I've been doing the least for the past year.

Now for the good news ...
After being off the bike for 15 months (since the Ironman World Championship 2010) I did my first road ride today. It was only an hourlong but it felt a lot better than I thought it would. No ankle pain at all which plagued me nearly all of my training for Ironman. It felt like I had a broken ankle with every pedal stroke. Just the thought of getting back on the bike over the past year would send waves of nausea thinking of all those hours and hundreds of miles pedaling in pain while training for Ironman. But to my surprise it felt good. I'll try to post a video of my first ride back later. I even passed someone - on an uphill. That's how excited I was to be out there.

Since I can't run this week I decided to try biking every day instead. I'll see how that goes.

Here are some photos of the first sunset of 2012 in Kona. Have a great year everyone.

RUNNING OUT THE YEAR - OR NOT

I posted earlier that I've been getting into barefoot/minimal running, which means a lot less padding on my feet and a more natural way of running. It's supposed to cut down on injuries and hopefully correct a lot of bad running habits. I've been working the past few months on my running form and running with a lot less cushion seems to be helping. I've also been studying a lot of videos of some very good runners.

I've only been running at base pace -- basically keeping the heart rate low and working on form. With all its benefits of running slow and having better form this has caused a problem for me. I've ran in two races and ran at a 5k race pace twice for practice. The problem is, I can't control this competitive nature in me so i ran both races at a 2 to 3 minute per mile faster pace which caused me to strain a calf muscle in my last race and strain my other calf muscle in practice when I was running a 5k race pace at the end of a 9 mile run. (I really need to learn to run for what I've trained for, which has just been fast enough to work on form and a little endurance, not race pace. My legs just aren't ready for the fast stuff yet.)


My newest pair of running shoes that I'm getting for Christmas. Right Santa?

So now I'm trying to take the rest of the year off from running to heal up. The problem with that is there's the 5k jingle bells run next weekend that we do as a family every year. Hopefully since I'll be pushing Rebecca in her wheelchair and running with Karen I'll keep it slow. This last calf strain is taking a long time to heal, and I keep reinjuring it every couple of days by just stepping wrong.

I've been really working my calf muscles to break up the scar tissue from all the old (and current) injuries as well as doing a lot of strength training and stretching. Hopefully, it will all pay off once I start training seriously.

My goal is to get up to ultramarathon running distances next year as well as qualify for Ironman again.

Hope every one has a great Christmas and an awesome and fit new year. See ya out there!

BAREFOOT RUNNING

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been trying out barefoot running. Although it's not true barefoot, I've been running in home-made huarache sandals. the shoes the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico run in. And they run hundreds of miles at a time over treacherous landscape.

I've been reading a lot about barefoot running and running in general, including the book "Born To Run" by Christopher McDougall. His book is about the Tarahumara Indians andhe is an advocate for barefoot/minimal running. I've also been following Anton Krupicka's blog "Riding The Wind" . He's an exceptional ultramarathoner who lives in Colorado. Check out some of the videos of him running on Youtube. His form is awesome. No wasted motion.

Anyhow, I've been really working on my running form and barefoot/sandal running on trails seems to be helping me get to where I need to be.


These are some huarache sandals I made. The work pretty good for getting my running form in balance. Slow and easy and build up the mileage, that's the trick. I'm up to 4 miles with the sandals on trails and an additional 2 miles on the road in shoes so far.

JUST A NOTE

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything on here. Facebook is so much more convenient for making quick notes on daily life.

Several things have happened since the last time I posted. First off, we lost our beloved Bear a few months ago. After 14 years of protecting our family, old age caught up to him. At least it was quick. He went blind a few months before, but seemed to adjust ok. Then one morning he began having what appeared to be chest pains and couldn't move so we took him to the vet who said he had a tumor pushing on his heart.

At his age she didn't think he could survive surgery so we had to put him down so he wouldn't suffer any longer.

Enough of the sad news ...

IU'm just about completely healed and I've been up and running for a few months now. My ankle (actually it's the peroneal tendon beside my ankle) is about 80 percent back to normal. I've even been trail running a few times. I've also started doing a little "barefoot running" using Huarache running sandals I've made at home.

I've been reading "Born to Run" by Christopher Mcdougall. It's a true story about the Tarahumara indians in Mexoco - the running people. They can run hundreds of trail miles nonstop and in sandals no less. It's quite an inspiring story.

We've also discovered chia seeds - the super food. We've been consuming for a bout a week now. I'll try to give a report on it after about a month. The Tarahumara use chia seeds as their source of energy for running all day.

I've decided to try to qualify for Ironman again next year. I'm not too excited about getting back on the bike, however. I haven't been on the bike on the road since Ironman last year. All I think about when I think about riding is how much my ankle would hurt. I know it's getting better but I just have no desire to climb back on, yet. I'm hoping once I actually get out there on the bike I'll like it just like I used to.

My swim times are getting much faster and that's on just swimming less than 6,000 yards a week. I'm excited to see how I'll do once I begin training seriously. I've also been working on my running form. As I said I've began running barefooted which is supposed to help you run correctly. I've also been working on running more energy-efficient.

Well, that's about all I have time for right now. So get off the couch and do something. Be safe out there.

SUM, SUM, SUMMAH TIME IN HAWAII

Wow, it's been a month since I've posted anything here. That's the longest I've gone since I started this blog about 3 years ago. Well, here's a quick update on what's been happening on our tiny big island.

Rebecca had a great 5k race at the Kona Marathon last month. She beat her best time by about 10 minutes.

Rebecca working her way up Alii Drive during the race. She did a great job. Alii isn't flat at all and has a severe slope which makes doing a race in a wheelchair even harder.

Even though I'm still unable to run or bike too much I managed to do two ocean swim races in the past two weeks. The Hapuna Roughwater Swim and the King's Swim. As out of shape (and overweight) that I am these days I was pleasantly surprised at my time for the Hapuna swim, which is 1 mile. I did it in 26 minutes. The King's swim is 1.2 miles which I did last year in 31:36 and placed about 7th in my age group. This year the ocean was pretty rough with huge swells and a pretty strong current. I swam it in 33 minutes this year and placed 2nd in my age group. That's my 2nd-ever swimming award.

That's me coming out of the water and running to the finish line at the King's Swim last weekend. Thanks Carl Koomoa for the photo. That swim skin I'm wearing belonged to World Champion Ironman triathlete Chris McCormack and is the one he wore last year when he won the Ironman World Championship here in Kona. Karen won it from him in a contest he had while he was here. I thought I would see if it would help me swim faster -- no such luck, though.

Oh, the week before we were swimming this same course (Kailua Bay) for Masters and ran into three sharks. there's been quiet a few shark sightings here lately.

Not much else going on. I've been running a little but Monday I tweaked my knee some how and now I can barely walk. Old age sucks ...

On a sad note, our dog, Bear, who we have had for about 14 years (we got him when he was only 6 weeks old) has gone completely blind - old age sucks. We've been trying to help him adapt but it's been a struggle for him. He's learning to walk next to walls and feel his way around through the house. We're learning not to leave things where he can trip over them and not to leave doors open to bedrooms and bathrooms where he can get stuck and disoriented.


Bear in his younger days. Actually, this was taken just a couple of years ago.

TRAINING DAYS

These days training is reserved for Rebecca, not me. I'm still on the injury list. Rebecca has a 5k race coming up in less than 2 weeks so she has been hitting the track a lot. This week she'll train every day then back off next week, resting up for the June 26 race. Here's a few photos of Rebecca racing around Old A today.





OTHER STUFF
This morning at 6 a.m. was supposed to be Masters swimming at the pool but someone forgot to tell the lifeguards I guess and no one opened up the pool. So we decided to go over to the pier and do an ocean swim. It was my first ocean swim in months. Just as I arrived at the King's Buoy a huge pod of dolphins swam under me. It was a great welcome back.

While at the pier this morning I noticed the King Kam hotel is still doing repairs from the tsunami back in March. They have also placed white sand all along the grounds where the canoes are stored.



In the pre-sunrise light this morning the white sand reminded me of snow rather than sand. After jumping in the ocean that early it felt like snow weather as well. It was pretty cold until we got out past the 6th buoy.

Well, that's about it for now. Take care.