Day 1: Friday 4th October 2019 (and Thursday evening...!)
The Kona trip started with a rotten cold. I’d had a
tough 3-week training block, as temperatures were starting to dip down into
autumn. I’d created a lot of artificial heat in training, with saunas, hot
baths, 5-6 hour indoor turbo trainer sessions with the heat going full blast,
running with 3 coats on. Lots of sweat, lot of stress on the body, and just as
the training block was coming to an end, the body said “enough” and came down
with a cold. I had a week of tapering to shift it before travelling to Kona.
And, just about in time, I did manage to shift it, with the help of inordinate
amounts of garlic, ginger, chillis, lemsips, paracetamol, hot lemon water,
anything I could think of.
Flu buster
With all the heat training, I was also putting a lot of
stress on my boiler. As I was doing my last indoor turbo trainer session, the
boiler/thermostat packed in. I shrugged. There was nothing I could do about it
before the trip. I’d deal with it when I got back, and hope it wasn’t too cold…
Everything else was in place. All the travel
arrangements. All the bits and pieces I’d need. All the food I’d need for the
journey. All the new “tech” I’d bought – new phone and underwater camera and
accessories. I’d even set up an Instagram account for people to see a few of my
photos. Then all too soon the thinking and planning was over, departure day was
looming, and I had to pack. I had a 25kg suitcase allowance, a 23kg bike allowance,
and a 10kg hand luggage allowance. I followed my usual routine of piling
everything on the bed and then getting it into cases.
My physio had lent me a bike box (“Bike Box Alan”, in my
opinion the best bike box available), and I packed that first. I set it on the
bed so I wouldn’t have to kneel and stretch over it. This worked really well.
It took literally hours to dismantle the bike, secure it in place, pack things
around it, weigh it, realise it was overweight, re-pack, re-weigh, re-pack and
so on. Finally it weighed 23kg. Beyond the bike, a pump and my helmet, there
was nothing else in the bike box, despite there being loads of room. The rest
would have to squeeze into a suitcase and into hand luggage.
Eventually, after a 6-hour packing marathon, it was all
done. 23kg plus 25kg plus 12kg plus another few kilos in a duty-free bag (a
good trick to get some extra luggage is to carry a duty-free bag, as everyone
is allowed a duty-free bag in addition to hand luggage). I wouldn’t be getting
stung for any excess baggage charges. My luggage was heavier than me. I had to
stretch out my back when it was all done. Then I went to bed, for an early
start for the trip to Hawaii.
It looks so simple. It took so long...
I was ready to go. Plenty of people were already there
in Hawaii, I was seeing plenty of photographs and chat online about all the
goings-on, it looked fantastic, and I just wanted to be there. Forget the 2
days it would take to actually get there!
I'm not even a coffee drinker, but when you see pictures like these
on social media from people already there, you just want to be there too
I had to call in a friend to give me a hand down the
stairs with all of it. It turned out that the taxi driver had always wanted to
do a triathlon. The gist of my message was, “What’s stopping you?!” He agreed
he would sign up for a race in the new year, and asked me to put a reminder on
his phone as we were driving.
Check-in was busy but went fine. Hopefully I’d see the
bike again in Los Angeles… Getting onto the small plane for the first flight to
Dublin, I saw my bike being loaded. Great. I had been worried there might not
be room. I had chosen to take an earlier flight to Dublin, which I was glad about
when I arrived to USA immigration pre-clearance at Dublin airport. Crazy
queues.
The orange thing is the bike box...
Pre-clearance took ages. Once you’re in the queue, you can’t leave it, especially
as a solo traveller. So by the time I got to the front of the queue, I was
bursting for the toilet. I noticed a sign. No fruit, no vegetables, no nuts
allowed beyond this point. You weren’t allowed to bring any of those things
into the USA. Once I passed immigration pre-clearance, I was effectively in the
USA.
And guess what, my hand luggage was full of fruit and
nuts for the journey, perfectly packed into Tupperware boxes to protect it.
Should I just say nothing? I remembered travelling to New Zealand from Sydney
and seeing similar warnings. On arrival, a sniffer dog went mad at my hand
luggage. There was no food in it, but this particular bag had contained my
lunch every day for something like 6 months in Sydney.
Better not to risk it here then, and so I told the USA
immigration officer that I had a few bits of fruit and some nuts. “Put it on
the desk,” he said. I was already very shifty from trying not to wet myself. Now I had to declare what was basically illegal hazardous contraband. His face was quite a picture as I tipped out about 14
pieces of fruit and 10 bags of nuts. I hoped he would just laugh and wave me
through. I needed this stuff. A 12-hour flight to Los Angeles, a night at the
airport motel, and a 6-hour flight to Hawaii. I was going to be hungry. “You
gotta bin ‘em all, now…” He meant business. No arguments.
What a waste. Worse, on the far side of pre-clearance,
facilities were minimal so I couldn’t really replace any of it. I spent about
20 euros on a couple of sandwiches and pastries and then boarded for LA. I asked the cabin crew what chance there was of an upgrade (smile smile nod nod wink wink). Answer: no chance, sorry. But, to pass the time, I had
a great book: “Iron War”, about the 1989 Ironman world championship, when Dave
Scott and Mark Allen did the entire race side-by-side, neither giving an inch,
until the final mile or two, when Mark Allen finally broke away and took the
win. A great read. A great story. A great way to learn about the race and its
history. Maybe I’d meet the two protagonists in Kona and get them to sign the
book…
Great reading
Almost 400 pages later and I was in LA. In addition to
400 pages, I also consumed 3 in-flight meals, a load of water, walked loads of
laps of the cabin, did plenty of stretching, and watched zero in-flight TV. I had a very
understanding German-American lady beside me. So understanding was she, that
she actually asked for my second in-flight meal on my behalf. She also advised
me on the best way to get to my airport motel (via the free car-rental shuttle
bus).
With the jet-lag, early evening in LA felt like late at
night to me, and I was very tired. My bike arrived unscathed. Had it not
arrived, Aer Lingus’ liability for it would have ended with simply getting it
to LA on a following flight. Because my LA to Kona ticket was a separate
ticket, they would have had no liability for getting it to Hawaii, so if it
hadn’t arrived to LA, I’d have had to miss my Hawaii flight to wait for it. Or
try to get Steve and Natalie to pick it up and bring it with them a couple of
days later (two of my best friends, travelling out for a belated honeymoon to
watch me at the Ironman world championships, as you do…)
Sure enough, the shuttle bus got me to within a 5-minute
walk of the motel. It was right under the flight path, but I had my earplugs
and I went straight to bed. I’d be up early enough the next day for the final
flight to Kona…
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