Every January for the last three years, Jose Graca has embarked on a personal challenge with his bike over the infamous stretch of pavement known as Queen Kaahumanu Highway.
The Kailua-Kona resident, who turned heads last October when he crossed the Ironman World Championship finish line for the 18th time in his career and as the Big Island’s top finisher, said that like many athletes, he took the rest of the year off from hard training and racing to allow his body time to reset and recover.
It’s a double-edged sword for athletes of any caliber, and while Graca received some much-needed rest over the holiday months, he also accumulated an extra 15 pounds and celebrated the New Year feeling a bit sluggish and out of shape.
However, come the first of January, Graca was more than ready to whip himself back into race shape. He calls it, “Graca’s 31-Day challenge.”
“For my 31-day challenge, I ride my bike for 62 miles every single day in January,” the 43-year-old said. “By the end of month, I go from weighing 184 pounds to now 172. My goal race weight is around 170. This is my third year doing this challenge. I feel that it helps me get in overall shape better, including feeling stronger in my swims and runs.”
Graca proved his theory works at Sunday’s Team Mango Mini Monster 70.3 triathlon race.
While competitors agreed that conditions were near perfect as they were greeted with a super calm 1.2-mile swim in Kailua Bay, and virtually no winds for the 56-mile bike on Queen Kaahumanu Highway and 13.1-mile run on Alii Drive, it was still a strenuous race from start to finish.
However, Graca simply made the daunting task look easy by stringing together the fastest individual swim (28:29), bike (2:25:43), and run (1:34:47) splits of the day, to cruise through the finish line in a blazing time of 4 hours, 28 minutes and 59 seconds.
“I felt pretty good all day,” Graca said with a smile. “The conditions were good with the only challenge being the run on Alii Drive. I haven’t been running too much, but after riding my bike everyday over the last month, I’m now feeling ready to race Lavaman, then Texas. My goal is to qualify for Kona at Texas (Ironman North American Championship) at the end of April. If I qualify, this year will be my 19th time at the start line of Kona.”
Last year, Graca endured months of rehab after having surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee. A miraculous comeback helped him earn a last minute slot to Kona when he placed second overall at August’s Ironman Coeur d’Alene in Idaho. Graca then completed his racing season with an impressive performance at October’s Ironman World Championships, finishing in a time of 9:36:38.
Graca says that through his experiences with injury, recovery and racing at such a high level, he now trains smarter, not harder.
“I do all of my run training on the grass behind the pool. I only run on the road in races. My doctor told me after last year’s knee surgery to run on the grass as it’s better for my recovery and that I needed to take care of my body,” Graca said. “But I love it. I now train differently than when I was younger. I train smarter, I respect my body, and I follow my training plans. So if it says to go easy, then I go easy.”
Following Graca in the overall placing was last weekend’s Springtime Triathlon champion, Michael DeCarli, in a time of 4:55:10. Adam Rave was third and finished with a fantastic time of 5:25:20.
In the women’s race, Volcano resident and Hawaii County Firefighter, Noe McMahon, claimed her first Mini Monster 70.3 women’s crown with her time of 5:42:40.
“It was pretty good,” the 27-year old said. “Conditions were ideal, the swim was smooth, the bike went well, and then the run went pretty well. The plans were to make it as comfortable as possible and just get through it.”
McMahon said that she initially didn’t know about the event until she saw a Facebook posting about the race.
“I actually heard about this event at the last minute,” she said. “I saw there was a pre-race meeting on Saturday so I decided to just show up to register.”
Her late decision to enter and plan an overnight stay in Kona made it all worthwhile as McMahon held a comfortable lead from start to finish, and upon finishing, she received Team Mango’s nostalgic race T-shirt and the winning Mini Monster wooden trophy.
However, McMahon admitted that completing the Mini Monster 70.3 was no easy cakewalk.
“I did Honu last year and that was definitely eye-opening,” she said. “All long events have their moments when there are times that are not that smooth. Today, there were moments for me. Maybe part way on the bike, then again somewhere before the turnaround on the run. Then you just pull it all back together and you think, okay, we are almost done.”
Kamuela’s Crystal Hirst was the next female to cross the finish line in 6:31:00, with Erin Rene of Kealakekua in third at 6:34:09.
And once again, the Ankrum family — son Aiden (swim), dad Adam (bike), and mom Laura (run) — dominated the relay division with their combined time of 5:02:02.
Event organizer, Carl “Gecko” Koomoa, agreed that the Mini Monster 70.3 race is a lot harder than most competitors realize.
“This is a tough course, it’s like the world championships,” Koomoa said. “You get out onto the Queen K and there’s no messing around. It really does drain and put some damage into you. Luckily today’s conditions were wonderful compared to year’s past.”
Koomoa added that for the second year in a row, the full Iron Mango Monster 140.6 Triathlon race was cancelled due to lack of participation. Competitors seemed to be more attracted to the 70.3 distance especially since the race qualifies as a validator for those selected to compete in Kona through the Ironman World Championship Hawaiian Drawing.
“It originally didn’t start off as a validator when I started it eight years ago,” Koomoa said. “It was created for the Monster.”
Koomoa added that the event was orginially set up to give athletesa shot at the 140.6-mile distance since getting into the Ironman World Championships is very difficult.
” But then everyone started coming to me asking for a validator. It wasn’t until Ed Ignacio confirmed with Ironman that our Mini Monster 70.3 could be a validator that I thought, wow, this is really cool,” Koomoa said. “But this is a real unique event primarily because it’s so tough. And I love that everyone enjoys coming out to do the race. Yet most important, is me thanking all of our volunteers. All the credit for making this event what it is belongs to them.”
