Pre IM WI - Wednesday/Thursday

I started this blog to track my Ironman journey. I hope someday years from now I can reread what I wrote and realize what an incredible journey I had in the summer of 2006. This recap will be long and filled with perhaps too much detail as I try to recount as much as I can, for my own sake. So grab a pumpkin spice latte or two and read away.

In actuality, this Ironman story started in September 2005. I knew that if I was ever going to do an Ironman, it would be IM WI and it would have to be 2006. After a race in September 2005, Trina and Cassie, my IM WI sisters, and I decided to sign up. A quick call to my aunt and uncle to ask for some lodging at their house and it was a go. Monday morning the "submit" button was clicked, the credit card was billed, and the journey was on.

Fast forward to IM race week. Tuesday night before the race, I did not sleep much. I was trying to finish some laundry and pack it for the trip. The weather forecast was calling for a high in the 60s and rain in Madison on Sunday and I wanted to be prepared for everything from 95 degrees and scorching sun to 40 degrees and snow. In addition, I was preparing for a tough decision that I would have to make in the morning.

Wednesday morning rolled around and at 8:00 I got a call from Trina. She had gotten sick from a virus over the weekend and sounded dreadful during our phone conversations on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday morning she sounded great, 100% miraculously better, and was ready to go. We had planned to take two cars between four people (My two IM WI sisters, Josh - the favorite local pro, and me) but I had to make the tough call of "quarantining" Trina and asked her to drive in her own car. Believe me, it was not an easy decision, but I did what I thought was best for all of us. In hindsight it was probably a good decision as my car was jam packed with just Cassie's and my gear. We left about an hour and a half later than expected, but we were not in too much of a hurry. It was all good.

Nothing real noteworthy occurred during our drive, which was a good thing. We did see a pet shop that had a sign for "Exotic Monkeys" for sale. The store was closed though. We rolled into my aunt and uncle's place in the evening, unpacked and unwound. Bruce, another CTC member, had already arrived in WI and he came over to talk about the next few days. After chatting a bit, we were all ready for some sleep.

We all tried to sleep as much as we could, but we wanted to get down to the Gatorade swim before 10:00. Being the light sleeper that I am, I probably managed about 6 hours of sleep, but woke up feeling pretty good. We grabbed some breakfast and were at Monona Terrace before 10:00. We got marked, gave our gear to the bag check folks, and jumped in the water. Our spirits were high as we swam an easy mile. We all had a sense of calm as everything seemed to be aligning for us. The sun was out, the water was at a perfect wetsuit temperature, no waves, and we all felt strong during our swim. We then eased ourselves back into The Terrace for registration.

Josh had the perks of being a pro and was in and out before we were even into the registration room. The line wasn't too bad, though. When I finally sat down to go over the packet with the registration lady, a chill ran down my spine as I realized months of training were about to end with the race of my life. I received my all-important wristband and timing chip. Wow, I was really here.

After registration, we headed over to The Great Dane restaurant/brewery for lunch. Fish tacos, chicken pot pie, and beer. MMMmmmm. Lunch did not last long as we had a mission for the afternoon. Cassie decided to use one of my wheelsets, but she needed to find a 12-25 cassette with Campy spacing that would fit on Shimano splines. Who in the world would have one of these in stock? Well back at The Terrace, we met up with Mickey, who is absolutely The Man. One of his Madison buddies made a few calls and found one at the Yellow Jersey Bike Shop a few blocks away. Mickey decided to make the walk with us. All day he had been pointing out and introducing us to different folks.

Hey, that guy there is the president of Ironman... there's Paul Huddle and Paula Newby Fraser... I want you to meet the guy who owns Inside Out Sports... This guy runs Ironman live; can you take a picture of us... Oh, we have to stop by and talk to the Baker's cookie guy. It was like that all day and all weekend and was that fun. I can honestly say that without Mickey in Madison, my race weekend would not have been as awesome as it was.

The bike shop was trippy. The owner wore a light purple shirt with black slacks, had a black tie tucked into his shirt, and his hair clipped back with a women's clip. He was probably in the middle of a case of the munchies, but he certainly knew his stuff regarding bicycles; we got what we needed too.

Trina, Cassie, and Josh then headed back, but I stayed downtown to meet up with some more celebrities. I met RunBubbaRun, IronWil, Mr. Wil, and TriSaraTops before we headed over to a power presentation hosted by Stu. There I met Thomps and RobbyB as well. So after the presentation, TriSaraTops and I head back across town and we munched on some pizza with Trina, Cassie, and Josh. Soon it was lights out in preparation for another fine day.