Have a peachy and neato 2012.
By Sean Pagett| Special to West Hawaii Today
Holidays can be funny.
In December, we seem to use a lot of words that don’t usually pop up in our daily conversations.
Being a person with pea-mania and an inquisitive mind, I often wonder why we can’t have a festive February, a merry month of March or a jolly July.
In January, the word resolution is used very frequently, and when someone breaks a resolution it seems to have a finality to it.
I prefer to set goals that can be revised at any time.
That’s the beauty of goals: They give us an ideal situation to shoot for, but as we ride the wonderful wave of life, we find that we often need to stall instead of powering forward or alter our path when a road block bubbles up in our planned route.
I believe these revisions to our plans or goals are all blessings that, in many cases, are above and beyond our understanding.
Whether we ever find the answer to why something happens doesn’t really matter as long as we remain flexible and continue to have fun changing all of our goals as each day, minute, or hour passes.
When we have faith that things happen for us, not to us, it’s easy to enjoy life’s changes.
I’ve got a lot of goals I’m pursuing right now. In the area of this column, Frozen Pea Production events and other sports-related stuff, I can share with you that I’m once again shooting for having a column every Friday.
For FPP, we are planning to have our usual 13 events.
I also will be continuously open to making any changes that make them run smoother and more fun than ever.
As far as our other local sporting events go, my goal will be to be at as many as possible.
These are just a few of my goals that I’m really looking forward to, but I won’t be crushed if I have to alter them because as we all know, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
Back on Christmas Day, we wrapped up our 2011 FPP schedule and our year of family and friend get-togethers with Peaman’s Birthday Bonanza. As promised, I wore my pajamas all day, even during the swim, and they were quite a drag. My very holey or holly red flannels were nowhere near as cute as Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen’s pink Hello Kitty jammies, but most importantly, we both had fun and enjoyed the beauty and special feelings of Christmas Day.
Karlyn even found a way to be jolly and race well on the half-mile swim and 3.9-mile run course. As usual, she was up front following the swim, and only Todd Smith outran her. Smith crossed the line in 38 minutes, 45 seconds. Karlyn kept it close with a second-overall and top ladies time of 39:35.
Both winning times were well off the records set by Luis De La Torre and Joanna Zeiger in 2006. De La Torre stopped the clock in 35:53, while Zeiger recorded a very impressive time of 36:50.
Rani “The Roadrunner” Tanimoto closed out another phenomenal year with a third-overall time of 41:18. Tony Leonardini took fourth overall and second for the guys at 41:55. Sam Brown at 42:32 and Kevin Moats in 43:13 completed a very strong top group.
Chasing Pipes-Neilsen and Tanimoto in the ladies race were Sarah Chang at 45:28, Ricki Brown in 46:45 and Allison Alterman at 48:53. The finned pea title went to Colten Hayford, who posted a seventh-overall time of 44:18. Cindy Cary took the female finned title by covering the course in 1:07:36.
The split pea relay race was a really good one, with Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen giving her runner, Doug Leopold, a solid lead as he began his run. Behind them, the course record-holding father-and-son team of Kevin Moats (swim) and Karl Moats (run) was pushing hard to avenge their runner-up finish from a year ago.
In 2009, the Moats duo topped the split-pea race with a family team record of 36:35.
Last year, Kevin and Karl won the family title again with a time of 37:48 but ended up second overall to Peter Parisi and Jason Braswell, who set a new men’s team record with their time of 35:29.
Their determination paid off once again as Karl blazed his way into the lead and gave the Moats duo both the overall and family team titles. They stopped the clock at 39:15 while Pipes-Neilsen and Leopold combined for a total of 40:23. Aaron Barker at 41:28 and Ellis Andrews in 41:35 took the next two split pea run-only spots.
The pea-wee race was also a good one, with Cade Hayford and Casey Hayford staying close throughout the entire 200-yard swim and one-mile run/walk. Cade crossed the line first in 12:38. Casey followed in 12:41. Kanaipono Eckart, who placed fifth last year in 16:00, continued to improve by leaps and bounds with a third-place time of 13:34.
Makena Becker took fourth overall with a top teeny wahine time of 15:48. Lainey Eckart was next with the fastest finned time of 15:53. Her dad and escort, Lawrence, followed in 15:54. Merrymehana Resetnikov at 17:40 and Lindsay Resetnikov at 17:42 took the eighth and ninth spots, respectively. Peaberry wrapped up the jolly top 10 with his time of 18:18.
Anna Naggert and Kristoph Naggert led the way for the pea-wee split peas with their time of 10:52. The Strang family — mom Dana (swim), dad Jeff and son Jacob (baby buggy run) — took the sweet pea baby buggy title with their time of 46:40.
When the physical merriment was over, every kid and kid at heart went home with not just one pick out of the toy box but two since it was Christmas Day.
Our festive pod also had the pleasure of passing the Perpetual Pea from Dene Sturm to the Pintor Family. Abra, Nophia, Keaka and Briana Pintor will get to enjoy the love and energy of the special pea until we pass it on again following our next FPP event.
Abra is a local girl who, like me, went to Konawaena High School. She has also been blessing us with gift certificates for Ultimate Burger.
For a chance to win one, simply join us on Jan. 29 for the Peaman Splish-Splash and Superbowl Shuffle Biathlon. The half-mile swim and 3.1-mile run will start at around 8:03 a.m. No entry fees, no sign-ups just some good, healthy family fun, with the key word being fun.
I’ve always said I would keep on writing columns and being a pea as long as it’s fun.
On Christmas Day, some physical and mental health challenges and several other life situations left me feeling completely exhausted and not very hap-pea.
Our 2012 calendar can be found at bigislandrunningcompany.com and soon will be posted and available at our FPP headquarters and The Club in Kona.
If anyone would like to help drop off copies at our local sports stores or can help us on race day with the finish line area, please call Peaman at 938-2296.
Have a peachy and neato 2012.