My birthday present was a day late

3 sleeps left...

Yes, I was star struck 😍 At the Wahoo tent where Lionel was doing his final turbo workout before race day. He was barely sweating whilst I was a sweaty mess just standing still 🤣

There are various pros I follow, Lionel Saunders being one of my favourites for his honesty and openness about his background and his training.

I had a wander around the expo checking out kit, bikes, wheels, recovery tools and bought myself some Tres Pinas kit for yoga or tread mill runs...

One could easily spend a fortune at the Expo! A stall tried to convince me to buy UV +50 sports kit, they understood straight away that the UK is not their market!

Bumped into my friends Helene and Nick who spotted me walking past Lava Java so I joined them for a soft drink and ended up having lunch there, their Ahi poke bowl. I could live on this food very easily.

I was keen on getting a massage and had managed to book one at a place centrally in town called ‘A touch of heaven’! Hmmm this could be interesting 🤔 Friends here thought this could be potentially dodgy but I reassured them that I‘d checked it out and spoken to the masseur and all would be fine. And it was. A mixture of medium pressure sports massage and holistic massage I felt very relaxed afterwards.

I had in my plan to do a swim with the GB age groupers today but I felt fatigued this morning so opted to not. Rest is now key.

My old school friend who I’d not seen for 27 years (that’s a long time!!) invited me as her guest to the Slowtwitch party. Only a 5 minute walk for me to a private house along Ali’i drive looking out over the ocean it was a HOT but fun few hours with free food, mingling with guests, and catching freebies that the Slow twitch organisers were throwing at us from the balcony above 😂 Jenny’s long arms proved very handy in the crowd. We picked up some T-shirt’s, towels, food snacks, recovery cream, but we didn’t win the Zipp wheels, the Normatec Boots, the Garmin watches or the very expensive $11,000 wetsuit!!!

Jen & I centre of first photo on their website...

https://www.slowtwitch.com/Photos/Features/Kona_2019_Slowtwitch_Gathering_Gallery_7451.html

We happened to buy the same vest top at the Expo:-)

Back to base for a lighter supper as had picked at food at the party and I also made my rocket fuel bars for race day (my bike bars!). A fridge bar combo of granola, almond butter, brown rice syrup and raisins. Tested in training back in the UK and here in Kona.

A photo before it was cut into 6 small bars.

Each bar contains about 22g of carb, 113mg of sodium which when combined with my carb/electrolyte drink OSMO per 500ml - 20g CHO & 370mg sodium, provides the tested amount of carb and sodium for the bike section. I’m looking to drink around 750ml per hour but I am taking an extra bottle with me now in case I feel I need more (especially if very hot and windy conditions mean the bike is going to take longer).

A beautiful sunset to end the day...