Another day, another cruise ship.

Every day for the last week or so, there has been a different cruise ship anchored off Kona in the morning. There are a number of smaller ferry type boats (think Auckland-Devonport sort of size) that ply their way to and fro shuttling passengers. The passengers come ashore at the Kona Pier, and so mix it up with the ironman athletes. You really couldn't get a greater disparity in body types. Just about all of the cruise ship passengers are packing enough body reserves to survive an artic winter, whereas the typical ironman athlete would last about 5 minutes before succumbing to hypothermia. Its also quite amusing watching the two groups largely ignore each other; they live in such different worlds.

I've just got back from a 45 minute swim, with a few 200 m intervals thrown in to keep me sharp. I felt very relaxed and powerful in the water this morning (I didn't mention fast - I'm not compared to the vast majority of athletes here) and 45 minutes was over before I know it. An equivalent swim in pool felt like a lifetime a few weeks ago.

On the way back to my car, I came across the team van for Normann Stadler and his entourage. Normann won here in 2004 and 2006. In the photo, he is the longer-haired bloke in front. He is known for being an absolute animal on the bike, and typically builds up a lead that is not lost until around half way through the marathon. His 4 hr 18 min for the bike leg of 180 km in 2006 is the current record. That's an average speed of around 42 kmh. I'm likely to average around 32-33 kmh, and take 5 hr 30 to 5 hr 40. Normann's downfall is that he's not quite fast enough on the run anymore, with people like Chris McKormack, Craig Alexander and Cam Brown all able to post run times in the 2:40s as opposed to Normann's time of around 3 hours.

Here's Normann's home page if you are interested:

http://www.normann-stadler.info/stadler_en.php?site=home_en&menue=home