Our director/owner Gerry Rott started the race with only a couple dozen participants soon attracting international athletes including Mark Allen, Julie Moss and Scott Tinley. Now it is sold out at 1,800 athletes. All along Gerry has kept the race with a real local feel.
The original awards banquet was hosted by the Hilton Waikoloa Village at the Ocean tower pool. Lavaman quickly grew and moved to the beach at Anaeho’omalu bay, soon the race was discovered by the purple people from Team in Training. The Team in training athletes came by the 100’s from many states to conquer more than the Lavaman course, they came to conquer cancer.
For me I’m very proud of our outstanding team of photographers that shoot 16,000 images in 6 hours of racing – then the post processing starts, “oh the editing” each image is adjusted and numbered for easy retrieval.
This is all done digitally with computers that upload from us to you, all posted in 48 hours. Wow! A far cry from the days of the wallet “Proofs” we handwrote the roll & negative number on the back then mailed out with stapled order forms.
We waited patiently at the post office for the orders to come in a dozen here a dozen there to be printed to 4x6s, 5x7s, 8x10s and then mailed out asap to decorate your refrigerator door. It’s a labor of love.
What a fabulous run we have had working with all the marvelous volunteers and athletes.
Below is a letter we at Hawaiiphotoman read before each race, it is our inspiration.
Congrats and Mahalo to all the Lavacrew
Happy Hump Day
