It has been nearly three years since we witnessed Germany’s Jan Frodeno and Anne Haug claim victories at the 2019 Ironman World Triathlon Championships – triathlon’s “Super Bowl,” held here in Kailua-Kona.
The Ironman World Championships is one of the most ferocious one-day sporting events on the globe, as athletes from around the world converge on our small town to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles — consecutively in one race.
On October 6 and 8, the Ironman World Championships returns to Kona after being postponed three times due to the pandemic. This time, the event will feature an exciting two-day race format — Thursday and Saturday — inviting spectators to two full days of goose bumps and inspiration.
For the athletes, after many months of personal sacrifices and rigorous training, it becomes the “icing on the cake”— a day they will forever remember. One hometown athlete returning to the October start line is Kailua-Kona’s Bree Wee.
Wee is by far Hawaii’s most decorated female triathlete — a two-time Ironman Champion who began her professional triathlon career after shattering the women’s age-group record at the 2007 Hawaii Ironman World Championships. The 42-year old has a resume long enough to fill a book, with well over 100 triathlon races including 25 Ironman-distance events, a record 10 titles at the Lavaman Waikoloa Olympic Distance Triathlon, and she is the course record holder at just about every local running, triathlon, and Peaman biathlon event in town.
After eight years in the sport fearlessly traveling the globe to challenge the best of the best, year after year, Wee announced her retirement in 2016 returning to her first passion — teaching and inspiring students of all ages at Kahakai Elementary School — a place she affectionately calls “her second home.”
As a full-time fourth grade teacher and mom to 16-year old son, Kainoa, Wee is doing her best — sprinkling training in whenever she’s able to for the October start line.
When asked about her preparation five weeks out prior to the “Big Dance,” Wee, who ran 12 miles prior to competing in and winning Sunday’s Biathlon, was very candid in sharing her thoughts and feelings about the upcoming world championships.
“I haven’t been especially motivated for it,” Wee said shortly after crossing Sunday’s chalk-lined finish next to Kaiakeakua Beach. “I feel that Ironman has changed in many ways from what I remember in my beginning years, the grass-rootsy feel it used to have is now different.
“I think just seeing Ironman go from grass roots where it was so much community involvement and everyone really supported it, to now having all the money in it and the politics involved in it — I think it’s taken away from that pure love of watching someone push themselves 140.6 miles. Like you no longer see our local friends, the community, or the people you work with, train with, that have become family that help you get through that 140.6 miles. Now you see this whole other breed from somewhere else making it into something more than it was ever meant to be. It’s just so different now.”
Wee reminisced to the beginning years and her then 25-year old self, when she first began triathlons, competing in her first Ironman World Championships, and the searing passion she had for it. Ironman has certainly evolved over the years going through a multitude of changes along the way, and now with this year featuring a two-day race format.
However, Wee credited training partner and fellow Kahakai teacher, Skye Ombac — one of this year’s Ironman rookies — for keeping her mind and heart in the right place, and reigniting the passion she once had for it.
“I have the experience, but she has the inspiration,” Wee said. “With both of us training for Ironman, it’s been a really beautiful balance. Watching Skye is like remembering who I was and the love that I had for Ironman in the beginning. It’s taken me back to my 25-year old self who loved it. My first Ironman was 15-years ago and so I have to remind myself that this is Ironman 15 years later.”
Wee added that while training is much harder nowadays being a little older and the challenges to finding time to put in some big mileage five weeks out, she finds satisfaction knowing there’s no pressure, no trophy or big paychecks waiting. It’s returning to her first love of the sport.
“Training with Skye has brought my passion back 100%,” she said. “I have to keep reminding myself of that first love and it’s also helping me when I see her so excited. She was in fourth grade, the grade that I teach now, when she first saw me race. And now she is a fifth-grade teacher. She was that little girl on the sidelines, watching her local school teacher Ms. Wee doing the Ironman. She said, ‘I’m going to do that one day.’ And now we are training partners. She is amazing.”
With teaching, Wee feels she is right where she’s meant to be — in the classroom helping to motivate the next generation.
“I definitely believe that I made the right choice retiring from triathlon to being in the classroom. I’m never out there training and thinking, I wish I could go back to full-time Ironman. I’m in my class and always think, I’m so glad I returned to this.”