Ironman World Championships 2014: Kona Day 3

Parvilla Cycle and Multisport are fortunate to have two outstanding athletes racing in Kona this year and they are going to be providing their daily updates right here on the Parvilla Cycles Blog!

Leslie DiMichele qualified at Lake Placid earlier this summer by crushing the ladies field and winning the overall age group title. Crissy Fuentes traveled to Lanzarote in late Spring and won her age group to punch the ticket to Kona for yet another year!

Day 3 - Oct 8th

Leslie

Hit the pool with my Smashfest Queen training group in the morning. I know I know, who swims in a pool when you have the ocean? But that's what we did and luckily Kona has a beautiful and free community pool.

The awesome Kona Aquatic Center

 After the swim we all headed to athlete check in before the crowds start later in the week. Typically this is a quick process but just as I was about to get my wrist band and pick up my free bag I got ushered away by some volunteers and earned myself a personal escort for the rest of the process, apparently I was getting drug tested. After finishing check in, I was brought to a room where I had to wait in line to have my blood taken. This all would have been fine, but when I heard I was being tested I assumed a urine sample so I started chugging water to  speed up the process, little did I know that it was actually a blood sample and I wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom without a personal escort until it was done. So an hour later I was finally allowed to pee alone. 

By the time this was all done I had less than two hours to get in a 90 minute bike ride on my Guru Cycles CR.901 before we hosted a couple friends for dinner. The ride was great and would be my last longish ride before the race. All good!

My Guru Cycles CR.901 and the Pacific Ocean!

That evening we had some friends over who we haven't seen since last year in kona. It was great to see them again and reminisce about old times swimming in Massachusetts. 

Crissy

I thought I had seen all types of training in my 5 times in Kona.... But this caught my attention this morning! Running down Alli drive in a wet suit!

A little bit of heat training!

At 7:00 AM this was the practice swim today, looks almost like race day! This is still my favorite part of being in Kona such a beautiful swim!

Of course, the traditional Kona banner... Training is done and I feel ready (and so is the Guru Cycles CR.901) and happy to be here!