KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii, Oct 5 AAP - Despite her phenomenal record, Australian triathlon star Mirinda Carfrae feels she is yet to reach her Hawaiian Ironman potential.
Carfrae has won the last two women's titles at the Ironman world championships and will go into this Saturday (Sunday AEDT) as the race favourite.
A year ago, Carfrae made up a whopping 14 minutes after the bike ride, breaking her own marathon run course record with a withering split of two hours 50 minutes 26 seconds.
It was one of the finest performances in the event's storied history and confirmed her status as the Queen of Kona.
As well as claiming the last two titles, Carfrae is a three-time champion overall and has been on the podium every one of the last six years.
She holds the course record for the 3.8km swim, 180km cycle and 42.2km run event of 8:52:14.
Apart from the distances, the Hawaiian Ironman is also notorious for fierce tropical heat and trade winds that lash the exposed bike course on Hawaii's Big Island.
Just three other women have won more Hawaiian Ironman titles.
Also, Craig Alexander is the only other three-time Australian champion at Kona.
But Carfrae knows she must keep improving if she is to hold off Swiss Daniele Ryf, runner-up last year.
Ryf has enjoyed an outstanding season and she is rated as Carfrae's main rival in a stellar field.
"I'm 34 years old now - for an endurance athlete, I'm really coming into my own," Carfrae told AAP.
"In the next few years, I should be in my prime.
"But really my goal is to see how good I can be as an Ironman athlete here in Kona.
"That's always my driving force and I don't think I'm there yet."
Carfrae admits when she first came to the race in 2009, she had big plans.
"I never would have said that when I first started out doing Kona," she said.
"But I always had a belief that I could win Kona more than once - and you never, ever say that out loud.
"Then you win one and you try to focus on getting better."
Carfrae was a basketballer before she switched to triathlon and those court skills probably averted disaster late last month.
Midway through a training ride in Hawaii, Carfrae was in a hurry to buy a chocolate bar at a service station and crashed.
She only suffered some scrapes and said the injuries would not affect her on race day.
But it could have been a lot worse.
"I was a little over-excited for my treat halfway through my ride," she said.
"I'm fine - I was a little sore for a couple of days, a couple of scabs are healing, but it's not going to make a difference on race day.
"Many years of playing basketball showed me how to fall properly.
"Everything happens for a reason."
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