A YouTube video (Ben Greenfield) that walks viewers through the Ironman Hawaii (Kailua-Kona) swim course using Google Earth visuals. It explains the course layout (single clockwise loop starting near Digney/Digamy Beach), key sighting landmarks (Kona hotel, antennas, pier), typical water conditions (about 80°F, non-wetsuit legal), pacing/drafting advice, and recommended practice swims to familiarize with ocean roll and sighting.
Questions this video answers
About 80 degrees Fahrenheit (non-wetsuit legal).
Single loop, clockwise.
About 46 minutes for men and about 48 minutes for women.
Swim from Digney/Digamy Beach out ~500–600 meters and back (about 1000–1200 meters total).
Chapters
Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield here and you're looking at the big island of Hawaii in this video which is part of a three part series that's going to walk you through Ironman Hawaii via Google Earth. I'll be giving you some tips for the swim course. And we'll be going over the swim course. So let's go ahead and zoom down to Kailua Kona, Hawaii and the Kailua Bay, which is where the Ironman Swim is going to take place. I've taken the liberty of pre measuring the swim course so that you can actually see how far out it goes. Essentially you're swimming straight out into the ocean, turning around and coming back following a loop, a single loop in a clockwise direction.
There are some sighting issues that we'll talk about today, but first let's go up to the official race start. Now, if you haven't been down to Hawaii before and this is going to be your first year competing or you're planning on competing there someday, you've always heard about the famous Elie Drive, which is where basically you see a lot of action during race week taking place. And that's essentially this road here that you can see skirting along the center of town and the center of the race hub race festivities. And check in is right here at the King Kamehameha Kona Beach Hotel. But right here is what's called Digny beach, the Ironman swim star. You can see there. If I click on it, we'll even get a photo of the Digney beach. That's what it looks like when all the people are out there. And I've actually placed my ruler out just a little bit far. Really. You're going to start right around in here. You can see here they've got a Coffees of Hawaii floating espresso bar. Believe it or not, they actually have that floating espresso bar out there. That marker is not really where it's at, but there is a floating espresso bar out there. What you're going to do is on race morning is you get into the water and you essentially swim out and wade out and you're treading water right around in this area. So the swim start is going to be closer to kind of right around in here. Now once you start, there are a couple of useful things that you can use for sighting as you're heading out to make sure that you're headed in the correct general direction. Aside from, of course, as you may have heard me say before, the of the person in front of you because since you're at world championships, lots of people swim fast and they swim straight. But over here you've got another hotel. This is the Kona. I'm blanking on the name of it. It's the Arroyo Resorts, Kona Inn, something like that. I've stayed there a couple times. It's kind of funny that I can't remember the name of it. Anyways, though, big hotel here, right off to your left side and you can see some surf coming against the rocks right here. And basically, as you're swimming out and swimming back, as you swim out, it's going to be on your left. As you swim back, it's going to be on your right. But I'll occasionally look to that just because in my practice swims leading up to race day, I can kind of judge based off of where I'm seeing that over my left shoulder whether or not I'm headed out the right general direction on the course. Now you're going to swim out along the shoreline. Again, this is a clockwise swim. So basically you'll be going out. Let me back out just a little bit here for you. You're going to be heading out basically straight out into the ocean along the side of the coast here.
And then you'll be turning way down.
Here, clockwise direction, heading back. So you're not swimming directly into the swimmers that are in front of you, but you'll be swimming beside them. You may possibly run into a few stray cats, but for the most part, clockwise swim. And the water temperature, of course, non wetsuit legal. It's usually around 80 degrees Fahrenheit or so. And it's a fairly. It's not the fastest swim course because it is in the ocean. I believe the record There is about 46 minutes for the men, about 48 minutes for the women. But some of the things that you want to think about during this swim is as you head out, like I mentioned, make sure that you sight off of the big Kona Hotel on your left side here. And then coming back, you can use that as you're coming back into the bay. But there's actually a couple of big antennas right around here just past the hotel that you can use to sight off as you come back. And those antennas tend to keep you swimming pretty straight because you're going to swim back right back in here into the bay, up into Digamy beach. And the transition is all out on this pier right here. So you'll be coming out of the water and coming into transition right here. But the Actual swim start is a floating swim start out in the bay, whereas the swim exit, you're going to come up some little stairs right here to the left, up onto the Kailua pier and up onto the beach again. Drafting is very important in this swim because lots of people are going to swim fast and swim straight. Get some ocean swims or some choppy lake swims under your belt because there is just a little bit of rolling in the ocean that if you're not used to, you're going to have to encounter down there. We'll see what type of skin suits or speed suits will be legal. As of the timing of this video, it's not quite clear, but regardless, that's basically the layout of the Ironman Swim. And essentially every morning before the race, I would encourage you to come down and test out the waters. If you were to swim from Digby beach out past the pier about out to here, and this is more generally the location of where they have a floating coffee bar in the mornings that's around.
500, 600 meters and back. You'll be getting about 1000 to 1200 meters in the water every morning. As long as that's not all swam at race pace, that's a good way to get a feel for the ocean. And of course, the official race check in is right down here at the King K Hotel. So you'll be kind of coming downtown a lot anyways. And the expo is just up ali drive back a little ways. So we're going to be going over the bike course, which is obviously going to be a lot more detailed and a little bit longer video in the next video, but until then. This is Ben Greenfield from the qualify for Kona section of the Rockstar Triathlete Academy, helping you out with your Kona swim.
