(This post was titled “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” until I realized that I was far too dramatic. I have health and love; I’m in Hawaii; I finished what I started. It was a good day after all!)

Today I learned:

* The sun is hot here, all day long. Like really hot. Blistering hot. Hotter than spf50, applied 3 times, hot. And I’ve got the tan err, burn, lines to prove it!

* Hapuna Beach is beautiful – the waves are bodacious, the currents are strong and the sun rises in your retinas. Clearly, chasing Honu’s and not buoys was not effective!

* The winds of Kona really are insane – in fact, the hardest I’ve experienced. (Insert here: more repeats on Iona while climbing Cypress would be perfect training!)

* Relying on a (bike) computer to dictate how “well” you are doing isn’t always worth it. You can lose your (bike) computer and you’ve gotta simply follow heart beats;)

* Sometimes giving up because “I’m not blissed out” is simply not good enough. The bliss was no where to be found at mile50 on the bike, but my conscience wouldn’t let me post a blog that said i DNF’d for no good reason. *darn ego*

* Better yet, giving yourself 56miles of excuses on the bike as to why you shouldn’t start the run is really not the best use of mental energy. *Noted* However, your body will do crazy things if you tell it to – somehow 13miles of the run popped out – totally unexpected! And while it was not fast, it was also not painful and stomach-issue-free! That’s worth celebrating!

* Most importantly, I finished what I started. End of story.

* Meeting rad bloggers offline makes them even radder! Bree was beaming with smiles, Rachel was hot to trot in lulu & Jason just finished FIVE back-to-back Ironmans!

* So it wasn’t the day I was hoping for. I wanted to race the chiquitas in my age group and fight for a slot. Instead, i merely participated and had a good game of “don’t give up” going on in my head. I think that was just the dose of “suck it up” i needed! Setting goals is a beautiful thing. achieving them is equally awesome. Not achieving them keeps my heart and mind in check – next up: Vancouver Half Ironman, baby! After all, these types of races make the good races so much sweeter!

To all of you who followed my not-so-great day and sent messages along the way…Mahalo!

It’s time to sooth the lobster burn and get ready to cross #22 off the bucket list tomorrow:)