Road to Kona
The Kailua Coast is home to the world’s most spectacular endurance race, the Ford Ironman world championship. The race itself is grueling and intimidating. An iron man race consists of a 2.4 mile swim. This one is in the shark infested waters of the ocean. Next comes an intense 112 mile bike ride, and lastly the athletes will run a 26.2 mile marathon. All must be completed in 17 hours. Sounds impressive huh? Well imagine that in order to even be eligible to compete in this mind boggling event, you must have not only done it before, but also finished in the top 5 of your age group. Now that’s impressive.
There is another option to attend in this event. A lottery is occurred there and select 200 lucky people who would be participate in the race.
One contributing factor that makes this race so difficult is the heat. On an average day with a normal temperature of about 85 degrees the actual temperature could rise to be easily over a hundred degrees due to the lava flow of the nearby active volcano reflects off of the sun. Dehydration is prevalent and it requires literally thousands of volunteers to put on a race like this one. Top athletes actually arrive weeks or even months in advance in order to acclimate themselves to the dreadful temperatures.
It takes a full year of training to become prepared for such an event. Amateur athletes must compete in several iron man events before even dreaming of qualifying for Kona. Even then they must be the best in their game. Recreational hobbyist need not apply. The elite athletes that win these events sleep eat and breathe the sport of triathlon. They compete not for the cash prize (only around a hundred thousand dollars) but for the emotional one. I say that just finishing this race is worth more than a cash prize.
The elites, the top real professional racers who will win the race most probably finish his race around 2 to 3 o’clock. After 6 o’clock outside gets darker so the top age athletes will start to pour in between 5 to 6 o’clock. But the outside run course is heavily lit for the runners. Then the middle aged runners will reach their last line. One thing has to remember that all these people had already done this type of races before. And also have finished their own races by getting the top places in their own division. At mid night the clock will strike. That means the race is over then. People always appreciate them to attend this type of crazy events. This is now a very common event in American paradise.
I’m Judy Phan, a blogger plus a multi-faceted article writer. I generally do reviews about cpap machines for sale (nasal mask) but I likewise write about fashion and beauty, home and family, and health related issues.
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