KOHALA COAST — Some might consider the number 13 unlucky or a bad omen. For Tim Rea and Lectie Altman, it proved to be advantageous.
Both went nearly wire-to-wire to take home the top male and female finisher honors respectively at the 13th edition of the IRONMAN 70.3 Hawaii triathlon on Saturday.
The course consisted of a 1.2 mile open ocean swim at Hapuna Beach State Park, a 56-mile out-and-back bike on the northern half of the IRONMAN World Championship course to Hawi, and wrapped up with a 13.1-mile two-loop run, finishing at the Fairmont Orchid’s Honu Pointe.
Rea, of Australia, finished the race — also known as Honu — in 4 hours 18 minutes and 33 second, improving on his runner-up finish of a year ago.
“I’m pretty ecstatic to come back and get the win. I’ve been thinking about it all year,” Rea said.
Rea’s race-best bike of 2:13:43 gave him a nice cushion over the rest of the field. However, the daunting run course was still ahead. Debuting its new, two-loop look for 2016, the run drew a nearly consensus opinion among the athletes as the most difficult part of the venture.
“I tried to build as big of a lead on the bike as I could, because I knew on the run I couldn’t go too quick,” Rea said. “Guys underestimate it. Running on grass knocks everyone back at least 10 minutes. It zaps people and is a tough way to finish the day, but it’s rewarding to get it done.”
Brett Tingay followed as the second male finisher — and tops in his 35-39 age group — at 4:20:01. Oakland’s Kevin Coady finished third (4:25:52), and won his 40-44 division.
While Rea did his damage on the bike, Altman used her speed in the water to get an early lead on the female field. She had the fastest swim (25:37) of the day — male or female —and finished the 70.3-mile trek in 4:45:16.
“It was nice to start the day with an awesome swim. Then I pushed it on the bike, and hung on for dear life on the run,” Altman said, who lives in Kaneohe on Oahu. “I love swimming at Hapuna. We come up here a couple times a year for training and I think it is one of the most beautiful places in the world to swim.”
Altman came into the race with some Honu experience. She raced three times previously, finishing as the top female amature in 2014 — the final year Honu hosted a professional field. She also found the run the most arduous part of the race.
“They took an already really hard run course and made it even harder,” she said with a laugh. “I thought it would be a lot easier, but oh boy. But maybe it wasn’t harder and I was just going faster this time so it hurt more.”
Following as the second female finisher was Steph Corker (4:46:14), and Alison Maher (4:49:04) in third.
Kealakekua’s David Wild repeated as the top Big Islander, finishing fifth overall at 4:28:35. He was also the top state of Hawaii finisher.
Now with a focus on age group athletes, the race offered 35 slots to the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships, which will be held in Mooloolaba, Australia on Sept. 4. The highly sought after slots were distributed to the top age group finishers, but the complete list was not available at press time.
The number of slots grew from the 30 that were handed out last year, which IRONMAN 70.3 Hawaii race director Danielle Swenson attributed to the large surge of momentum the half-IRONMAN series is experiencing, now with nearly 100 events around the globe.
“This race has grown, absolutely. And so has the whole 70.3 series,” Swenson said. “With the excitement around the 70.3 Worlds, it was decided to include more slots.”
The race may be half the distance of a full IRONMAN race, but Swenson assured — it takes just as much effort from the throngs of volunteers to make the race go smoothly.
“The volunteers really make this thing go. Every time we have an event it blows me away that there are so many people willing to come and give their time. It’s awesome,” she said. “It was a beautiful day and we couldn’t be any happier.”
