KAILUA-KONA — After Jose Graca crossed the finish line of the 2018 Ironman World Championship, he was draped with, not one, but two flags. One for his native Brazil, and the other, the flag of his adopted home of Hawaii.
“The community helps me. I wanted to share this with the community — with Kona,” Graca said. “This is my place now. I love living here.”
Graca was the first of the 10 Hawaii Island triathletes to finish the 40th edition of the annual race Saturday, with a time of 8 hours, 58 minutes and 59 seconds. He placed 108th overall and fourth for men aged 40-44. He finished last year’s race at 9:36:38.
“I put so much time and energy into training, and I did a lot of training to get better this year,” Graca said. “This is my last year in this age group, and because I know it’s a big race — 40 years — I put in a lot of energy.”
Despite shaving more than 30 minutes off his total, Graca said he began the race worried about his body, specifically his legs, and how they would do on the run course, which covers 26.2 miles from Alii Drive to NELHA energy lab and back.
“At the beginning of the week, I went to Waipio Valley and I did a training camp,” Graca said. “And after Waipio Valley, I was so sore. The last three days I was so sad. I thought I can swim and bike, and maybe I cannot run.”
Graca said his worries fell away as the race went on, and while the run was still demanding for him, he felt mentally ready for the challenge.
The run course also proved to be challenging for David Wild, who in his first Ironman World Championship race finished second among the Hawaii Island triathletes with a time of 9:41:02.
“I had an amazing swim and bike, but my run sucked,” Wild said. “I pushed. I wanted to take a risk, but I took too big of a risk. I pushed on the bike because I wanted to ride with the big boys, and I wanted to see what I could do.”
Wild — a Konawaena High School math teacher — said he didn’t feel the effects of his hard effort on the bike until he started running.
“I definitely pushed too hard with trying to get out of the draft packs,” Wild said. “There was a little bit of drafting going on, and to get out of it I had to surge ahead. I think I may have burned a bit too many matches, and I think it slowly chipped away at me.”
Wild said he was able to still able to stay within his target range for watts, and overall he was happy with his finish time for his first time in the race.
“I would love to do it again next year,” Wild said. “And if I did it again next year, I would definitely do a couple of things different. I would pull back on the bike a little bit.”
Wild only has to look a little farther up the finish line for inspiration for next year. He credited Graca as being one of the sources of motivation to get through the race.
“He’s an amazing athlete,” Wild said. “I look up to him. I see him training and then I see him killing the races and I’m just in awe of that guy.”
Wild, also a cross country coach for the Wildcats, also had some special cheerleaders during his grueling run.
“My cross country students were at the energy lab,” Wild said. “And I saw them and I ran passed them even though I wanted to walk. I wanted to show them I was running.”
Coming in third for Hawaii Island residents was Steffen Brocks with a time of 9:58:77, followed by Dan Gampon (10:16:26), Michael Decarli (11:11:29), Michael Vrbanac (11:46:26) and Keish Doi (11:55:12). The remaining Hawaii Island athletes did not finish the race before press time.
Brocks said the weather was on his side for his finish of 714th place overall, and 28th for men 50-54.
“I think the conditions this year were probably a little bit more conducive to a faster race,” Brocks said. “It wasn’t as warm, just with the storms we’ve been having the last week. And consequently there wasn’t as much wind, especially up in Hawi.
“After having done this thing 13 times, you experience all sorts of conditions and typically you have a 75 percent chance here of having a really hot and windy day, so the days when you don’t, it’s kind of fun.”
After 13 years, Brocks still isn’t done. He is headed for Arizona in five weeks for Ironman Arizona, a qualifying race for next year’s world championship.
“I just love doing this,” Brocks said. “Kona is the best place in the world. And to be able to race here in your own neighborhood is absolutely awesome. There’s nothing else like it.”
