Hey Eric, Kona didn’t slap you down. You fought the good fight. You survived an ordeal that (based on what I heard) would have sent most people off the race course. Kona dealt you some heavy punches, and you punched back. In a race when most people would have walked off the course you stayed in the fight and broke 12 hours. That is huge. Arguably, this was your best performance ever. It must have been 11:59:00 of pure hell, and you didn’t give up. That impresses me, but much more importantly than that, it says you’re a man who can finish the job. But then again, people who know you already knew that. Two years ago a friend of yours told me “Eric hasn’t missed a workout all winter”.
“The credit goes to the man who is actually in the arena…”
Hawaii was 11+ hours of misery for me. I’m not even going to try to go back until the 50th anniversary! The week of events was great though. The superbowl of triathlon and I got to play.