Outdoor activities and sports—both extreme and not-so-extreme—are perennially popular in the Islands. In a place where the passing of seasons from, say, fall to winter is marked mostly by a change from warm sunny days to, well, cool sunny days, that's not much of a surprise.

But each October, we're reminded just how perfect Hawaii's location and weather are for a diversity of outdoor activities. This comes courtesy of two of the state's most-enduring, challenging and world-renowned homegrown sports events—The Ironman World Triathlon Championship and the Molokai Hoe.

The Ironman Triathlon, celebrating its 31st birthday today, is the granddaddy of the sport—a 2.4 mile ocean swim in Kailua-Kona Bay, followed by a 112-mile bike ride across blazing hot South Kohala Coast lava fields, finishing with a 26.2 mile marathon back into the lava fields. The Molkai Hoe, happening on Sunday, is a 41-mile open-ocean single-hulled team canoe race from Molokai to Oahu, across the unforgiving Kaiwi Channel.

We wrote about both of these annual events in a HawaiiMagazine.com feature preceding last year's events. Click here for the feature.

If you're on the Big Island's Kailua-Kona side today, the best place to watch the Ironman is at the start and finish line, which are fortunately at the same location: the Kailua-Kona Pier. The triathlon's 1,800-plus participants cutting into the calm waters off the pier at 6:45 a.m. makes for a very cool Kodak moment. Be sure to occasionally return to the pier the rest of the day to watch triathletes finish each stage of the event.




Check out these related HawaiiMagazine.com posts:
Are you Ironman enough to pony $10,000?
Ironman Triathlon, Molokai Hoe test endurance this weekend
HAWAII Magazine guide to getting to and staying on Molokai