MICHAEL LOVATO | Professional Triathlete

Post-Underpants Run, I was feeling relaxed and ready to rumble. I had confidence in my build-up, and I knew I was ready to improve upon my 2007 Ironman. I had decided to implement a few new nutritional tricks to my routine, based on my, um, evacuation problems in the last three Ironmans I have done. This time around, my goal was to minimize time lost to porto-stops and poopy pants.

My nerves woke me up at 10:30PM, 1:30AM, 2:30AM, and finally at 3:30AM. Other than those brief and expected interruptions, my sleep was sound and restful. There are certainly some advantages to being part bear.

Why the Underpants Run? Why a report on the Underpants Run? Why not talk about the race first? Well, to me, the race really starts to place its pressure on folks ’round about Thursday of race week. It’s an impressive phenomenon, the Hawaii Ironman pressure cooker.

Different folks face, and therefore handle, the pressure in different ways. Some take a running leap-off-the-cliff start, by preparing, preparing, and over-preparing in the several weeks pre-race. They tackle more than they think their competitors are tackling, and they flog, flog, and flog themselves until they are injured or sick, and cannot even get to the line ready to rumble.

Today marks the first day of October, and it marks the tenth consecutive year that Amanda and I have spent much of the month in Kona, Hawaii. We just arrived, and we are very excited to be here. Driving into town we both imagined how great it would be to have a second home here. What a great place!

Day 2 in Paradise!

Before I move on to today’s report, I have to point out the two highlights from yesterday. Highlight number one happened when I was enjoying my first ocean swim of the trip. There weren’t too many…

Hawaii

I have arrived in Hawaii! The trip yesterday was very easy. I was actually surprised at how smoothly things seemed to be going. I woke up nice and early to finish packing, while Amanda was out doing her early…