Kona 2013 – Our 10th anniversary

… and still, the Island is a challenge for all of us

The stories around the winners have been told many times. The moments of joy and grieve, of laughs and tears by the finish line have rounded the globe, let me guess, at least twice. We don’t want to tell a story of glory here, even though we experienced a glorious day with Rachel’s 2nd, Sebastian’s 3rd and Yvonne’s 4th place in Kona this year.We want to talk about all of you, of those who have been there and those who stayed at home, all who worked hard to make this event possible for Biestmilch.

To make the packing lists, make a good guess how many pieces to ship, arrange the shipments, get all the papers done properly that customs and FDA won’t whinge is a skill of its own. First time in all these years we managed to get all our stuff, the expo booth, and our Biestmilch products smoothly shipped to Kona in time. Nine years of misjudgments and falling into all kind of traps taught us a lot about the differences between cultures, nations, organizations, structures, procedures, mindsets and individuals.

This time everything waited already for us in the Fedex office at Keahole Airport, Kailua-Kona. Thanks to the staff in the Kona Fedex office who was ready to receive and store our things until we arrive.

We ourselves flew into Kona via San Francisco, all in time, all routine after 10 years. Jet lag got ticked off. Immediately we switched into the Kona mode. It felt as we had never left. Time flies.

Moving into the new house

Breath-taking! High above the Pacific coastline we had rented a house. We had found a little paradise, a retreat so very beautiful. As usual the big shopping tour to COSTCO’s was the first point on our task list. To have all the essentials in fridge and freezer, from bread, pasta, chilies, fish, beer to wine, makes a hard life a lot more joyful. These odds and ends facilitate work, no doubt.

The volcano and the mountain

The jet lag made it easy to decide in favor for this 80 miles trip South to the volcano reserve the day after our arrival. We left at 6 am to the origin of all life. Happy but tired we came home early afternoon and ready to start with our jobs. Next day the US government shut down and all gates remained closed for the rest of our stay. The next morning we left even earlier to enjoy the sunrise on Mauna Kea. This trip belongs to our yearly routines when we are on the Island…

The housework

The week before the race week is usually busy with preparations for race week, and invitations at the house. Since we have Kjell, who became famous for his cooking skills through all these years, people love to be invited at our house. [j25_slider source = ‘group’ width = ‘640’ height = ‘360’ count = ‘7’ align = ‘left’ slide_width = ‘640’ slide_height = ‘360’ easing_type = ‘none.easeout’ easing_duration = ‘1000’ frame_size = ’10’ autoplay = ‘true’ pause_time = ‘5000’ pause_on_hover = ‘true’ field_of_view = ’30’ visibility_depth = ‘2500’ path_gain = ‘0.002’ spacing = ‘450’ enable_alpha_effect = ‘true’ enable_depth_of_field = ‘true’ enable_shadows = ‘true’ slide_face = ‘1’ group = ‘737’]

We the week started with reassembling all our Biestmilch boxes. The most delicate job that needed to be done was sewing up our CUBE’s small lesions from last year, and I am definitely not a master seamstress. Then its dressing need a wash badly. Next step was spreading out all the pieces of our booth on the terrace and trying to figure out how to reconnect them. We wanted to have a master plan not to get into troubles down at the expo when the area turns into a war zone during build-up hours. We also wanted to make sure not not to embarrass ourselves. 

All in all  we spend a lot of time driving back and forth between our storage room, COSTCO, Walmart, Lows, Office Depot etc. to collect and connect all the little missing links in our thought concept. After all one week later we ready for action.

The field work

Beside all our tasks around the house there are all our field work jobs that are really time consuming, sometimes fun and sometimes a damn strain…

The guests

Sebastian on Tuesday, Rachel on Friday, Yvonne and her friend Per on the weekend, Ronnie and Sebastian again on Monday. By then race week was in full swing. 

The street art

On Saturday, one week before the race we set out to place Asphalt Biests, tape cubes and Boosters between Hawi and the turning point on Alii Drive. 

The Booth

It was our first time at the IRONMAN expo. For a team of four only setting up the whole booth was not an easy task. We had a beautiful place close to the waterfront. Our cube and the orange red tippi really looked marvelous. In both of them the sun light played its own show. We had three days to meet people and get our messages across, a difficult task in a noisy environment like this. The months to come will tell us how far we reached out. You can always do better, but we were happy with the feedback and attention we got.

The Race

Stretched out between excitement and boredom…  our main task as spectators: waiting 

The Photo Shooting

Acting instead posing was our basic idea. Our athletes had their phones to shoot each other, Sebastian Kuhn did the professional photo part and Herwig Steiner, our video artist, added the motion pictures: The result: “there is one shooting another one, the other one is shooting another other and the other other is shooting the one“

And then we left the Island

If you bring too many things you have three choices in the end: storage room, back to the Mainland, or on board back home. It all needs good planing, a well thought through logistics because after the race we are always running out of time. Sunday, we breathe deeply… Monday is photo shooting and packing. Tuesday is departure at noon.

Finally we are sitting in the plane to San Francisco. 

Thank you all for making this journey possible and a success: Patricia Keyling, Fritz Oelberg, Arne Schumacher, Harry Glatz, Ralf Scheiber, Kjell Schiöberg, Herwig Steiner, Patrick Lehner Mark Hughes, Rachel Joyce, Yvonne van Vlerken, Ronnie Schildknecht, Sebastian Kienle, Sam Gydé, Stefanie Adam, Ralf Preissl and last but not least Sebastian Kuhn…