Kona and Weekend Wrap Up

October is my favorite month. It is apple season and I loooooove apples, especially cider, but MOSTLY Cider Donuts!!! mmmmmm......the best around here are up at Outhouse Orchards, which is off of my personal HIM bike course. I am wanting to do a ride for the donuts one of these weekends.

First, Dogfish Head from Delaware brings out their seasonal beer, Punkin Ale, which if you haven't try it yet, is in my opinion, the BEST Pumpkin spiced beer out on the market. I recommend taking a pint glass and dipping the rim in shallow water then dipping it in cinnamon sugar, then pouring the beer in. It is seriously heaven!

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And more on the beer front. Friday night my friend and I brewed an Apple Triple. Go HERE to read about the Tripel Style. In short, it is a high gravity Belgian Ale that involves a shit-ton of malt which means a LOT of alcohol, usually between 7 & 10%. Well, because we added apples, and because there was NO rain this past summer, the local apples this year are small, but PACKED with sugar.

More sugar = more happy times for yeast  = more alcohol. Our final gravity? 1.095. What does that equate to?

13% beer!!!!!!

Yeah buddy!!!!.....might need to shock it with some more yeast in a few weeks to kick start it again. Those yeast cells are gonna be tired after chomping through that much sugar.

On the workout front, running is SO FREAKING EASY right now due to the 0% humidity we have in the mornings with the cool temps. I love running in this weather! I knocked off an easy 4.5 miler Saturday morning.

Sunday morning I set out to find some new roads and knocked off a 40 mile ride. I made it to tony New Caanan, CT and found a few good roads that are perfect for some time trialing. Here is my route. I just loooooove my S2.

Finally, let's talk about Kona.

The day was somewhat ruined when Chrissie Wellington pulled out before the race even began. Bummer. She got the flu. Major bummer! Chrissie is a class act and thought it to be best to let the healthy folks duke it out. So the #2 woman who was expected to be Chrissie's competition, Mirinda Carfae, let it rip on the Marathon and won. Next year is going to be an EPIC battle for the women's race, something we haven't seen since Chrissie started dominating Kona.

On the men's field, I didn't expect Macca (Chris McCormack) to pull out a win like he did. And what a way he won it!!! He pulled some gutsy moves on the bike and they paid off. He had to get as much time on Crowie (Craig Alexander, the past two year winner) as he could on the bike so he could hold him off since Crowie is the best runner out there. His strategy worked, but not without some fireworks! The 2nd place finisher, Raelert, caught Macca within the final 10K, then Macca basically mind fucked him and pulled out the win. Raelert's lesson learned? DONT hit the aid station with 2 miles to go. Boy did Macca exploit that stupid move! It was game over from that point on. BEST men's finish I have ever seen since I started following Triathlon and Kona.

Congrats to Mirinda Carfae and Macca! If Macca returns, its going to be one heck of a 2011 Kona, especially if Lancey boy shows up to lay down the law on the bike.