Hello World. I wanted to chronicle my journey to becoming an Ironman and I figured a blog would be the perfect forum to capture all of the fun and excitement. I must admit that I am doing this mostly for personal reasons, but I would also like to share it with others in an attempt to entertain, inspire and educate. Although I am starting this exactly one year before the race, anyone familiar with me or the Ironman experience knows that this type of journey really takes much longer than just a year. I would guestimate that mine has taken closer to 3 years before building up the confidence to consider this. My 3 years were filled with a lot of ups and downs, but taking those lumps over that time has positioned me nicely where I want to be today in a good place mentally and physically to take on this challenging goal.
As I chronicle everything over the next year, I hope to interject information about my training, my lifestyle and the various challenges and issues I’ll be facing while trying to juggle this goal along with a full time professional career & family duties. I suspect it won’t be easy, but than again if it were easy, everyone could call themselves an Ironman.
Stepping back for a moment, let me describe some of the in’s and out’s of Ironman. For those of you who do not know, Ironman is the granddaddy of all triathlons. The Iron distance consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run (marathon). The events follow that order and they all need to be completed in the day. The athletes have no more than 17 hours to complete this mission with several cut-off times within the event. If you are not out of the water by 2 hours & 20 minutes, you cannot finish and get a DNF (Did not finish). If you are not complete with the swim AND bike by 10.5 hours, you get a DNF. And, lastly, if you are not done with the swim, bike and run by 17 hours (midnight), you get a DNF. There is no slacking in Ironman and this is just one of many reasons why it is so difficult.
There are a total of 27 certified - Ironman races in the world with only 9 inside the United States. In my opinion, we are truly blessed with having one of these events in our state capital of Madison. It is not only a great asset to the state, but it is also goes down as one of the most technical and challenging bike courses in all of Ironman. If you are a cyclist, this is clearly the course to race!
Another interesting element about Ironman is the demand for these races. The race in Madison requires a $650 registration fee per person and sells out a year in advance – within hours. In 2011, Ironman Wisconsin registered 2449 athletes (almost $1.6 million in revenue). This is a big business, money making machine that seems to have no shortage of athletes who are willing to subject themselves to this type of torture. Fortunately I am one of those athletes and I was able to register for the event in Madison on September 9, 2012. How did I register? Let me tell and show you………
The best way to insure you get a spot at Ironman is to volunteer your services the year before the event. Oddly enough, the biggest hurdle is actually getting registered to volunteer. In April of 2011, registration for volunteering opened. Over the course of about a week we registered and re-registered probably a dozen times. There were numerous system problems in which were told we had to register several times before it actually worked. The software they use for this is very poor and at no time did we ever feel we were truly registered despite going through the process so many times. Anyway, it all worked out and we were booked to work the State Street aid station handing out food and drink to athletes on the marathon. The race was on September 11, 2011 and Colleen and I made a weekend of it by spending Saturday through Monday in Madison.
Our volunteer shift was from 3-7:30pm so we had the entire morning to watch the event and try to track down friends we knew who were doing the race. Last year we got out at 7am and watched the swim start which was fantastic. If you ever have a chance to see a mass swim start of an Ironman…do it. It has been described as one of the greatest spectacles in all of modern sport, and I would agree. This year we were in for a long day and wanted to watch the final athletes cross the finish line before midnight, so we decided to skip the 7am wake-up call. Instead, we started the morning with Starbucks and a visit to the bike course. We stationed ourselves on top of the Midtown hill (one of many large hills on the course). This area is heavily populated with fans and has the type of energy one would see on the climbs of Le Tour de France. These are a few of the sights we saw….
The day went fast and before we knew it we were at our aid station doing our duty to help out the athletes. The crowd support and energy along State Street was electric and things went by quickly. We were able to see virtually every one of the dozen people I knew doing this race. So many of these people I had trained with during the summer on both bike rides and open water swims. It was a very satisfying feeling to see all of them succeed in Ironman.
After our shift we wound down with a few beers and wings at a local establishment just off State Street. After dinner, we headed out to the finish line where we stayed from 8pm to midnight. I was able to see virtually everyone I knew run through that finishers chute. We cheered everyone on and had a most awesome evening. Just the thought of me doing that next year sends shivers down my spine.
Registration to race in the event occurs the day after Ironman. Volunteers get first chance from 9am-12. Open registration for all others begins at noon. This year, all 2500+ spots were filled by 2pm. We waited in line for about 45 minutes and then things moved along pretty well. Within an hour or so I had laid out my $650 and had my entry to Ironman 2012.
Me, in my volunteer shirt and Starbucks coffee close by.....
