Trash Talking, Kona style

It can be tough to talk smack when you're not a fast racer, but that's all part of the Bro Code. You HAVE to talk some smack, right? I knew Steve would have a much faster time than me in Kona, so my trash-talking strategy was to undermine the race itself.

The weather in Kona leading up to the race was unseasonably cool. Macca himself had been tweeting about how pleasant the conditions were. So I made a point to make sure Steve knew how easy he had it this year, unlike the tortuous conditions I had in 2010 (which, admittedly, were actually milder than normal.)

Steve and I saw Macca at the expo, and Steve told him "I saw your tweets about how good the weather is this year." Macca replied in his thick Aussie accent, "yeah, it was much hodder last year." I told Steve "See?! Macca says it was harder last year!" Steve said "no, he said it was hotter, not harder." I disagreed: "He said 'Harder!'" "No, 'Hotter!'" "Harder!" "Hotter!"

Regardless of what Macca truly said, I think hotter means harder anyway, so I declared victory.

In terms of actual race-day conditions, some things are tough to compare. I don't know what the swim currents were like this year. We both had winds on the bike, but I don't know the actual stats. There is something called the "radiated heat index" which I heard was 127 last year and 135 this year. It would imply the bike was hotter this year, but I have no idea when or where those readings were taken year-to-year.

What I am convinced of - without question - is that the run weather was much cooler this year. It was pretty overcast, and at times it looked like it was going to rain. It was very good running weather as far as I'm concerned.

In conclusion, if I had the nice cool weather they had this year, I would have easily shaved 10 minutes off my run. And then Steve would have beaten me by only 50 minutes and I would have beaten the spread. So there.