We did a beautiful ride from our hotel up to Hawi yesterday - 55 miles of the Ironman route. The coastline is not flat - long shallow hills. The last 5 miles into Hawi are uphill and we had a headwind on it yesterday. It did make for a lovely 5 mile descent with a tailwind though. The winds here are weird. We had it blowing every which way on the way out and the way back. I'm glad I wasn't racing, both because of the wind and I like looking out at the scenery. I'm not very good at that when I'm hammering. It was pretty warm - about 80 degrees when we started right around 8 (after a lovely breakfast!) and 88 degrees when we finished. I was dreaming about the icy citrus water the hotel keeps at the valet station for runners.

CNN is here at our hotel this week filming for Fit Nation. I guess they are doing a triathlon series now. They were heading out for a swim as we were going to breakfast. They were leaving for their bike ride when we were coming in.

Veronica