I left Ames in the afternoon for a leisurely 5-hour drive to Wisconsin. I had nearly everything I owned packed in my truck. I had thought about asking Terri if she wanted to drive to Madison with me, but it's a good thing I didn't. There is no way that I could have even fit her in the truck, let alone her and all her stuff, too! It didn't help that I'd had my eyes glued to the internet - checking out a bunch of different weather sites, trying to get a handle on what exactly the weather was going to do. I thought I had everything I could possibly need, and to look at my truck, you'd think I was right!
Thursday morning, I picked up my bike from Skunk River, following it's pre-race check-up. Ronn very generously loaned me some race wheels for the event, but because I hadn't yet ridden the bike with the new wheels, I threw my stock wheels in, just in case.
The drive is about as boring a drive as you can find in the midwest. The longest stretch is from I-35 east to Dubuque on Hwy 20. While it's great that it is all 4-lane the whole way, there isn't a town or even a gas station anywhere along the whole 2-1/2 hour trip.
I was heading to meet Roehr in Stoughton, Wisconsin, where we would have dinner and then head to her friend's house for the evening. Stoughton is about 15 miles south of Madison which would allow us to get on the road early to be at the Gatorade-sponsored swim Friday morning. We had a great dinner of the now-mandatory-pasta-with-red-sauce-pre-race-dinner followed by every triathlete's favorite - ice cream. Aside from the swarms of mosquitos, Stoughton was a good place to start the adventure.
Friday:
After a quick bite to eat, we headed north to Madison and tried, but failed (too early), to check into the Hilton, so we just parked and headed to Lake Monona for my first swim there. The sun was shining, but there was a bit of a wind, so the lake was a little choppy. I didn't want to do a whole loop of the course (1.2 miles), so I just tried to get used to the chop and the lake. I ended up with about a 30-minute swim and felt good about getting out. I dried off the best I could, but it was still a touch chilly. We picked up the first schwag of the event: free bottle of Gatorade Endurance and a Gatorade water bottle.
Having perfected the art of wholesale clothing changes with little to protect but the car/truck, we switched from swim to bike clothes and headed out for a quick little ride. We no sooner got started and heard a noise coming from my bike. We finally determined that it was the new wheels, but not what was causing the noise itself. I called Ronn back at the store and he figured that it was not anything serious. I could still use the wheels, but the big question was, "Would the sound drive me crazy during the race?"
I decided that it probably would, and rather than change anything at the last minute, I gave up whatever savings the race wheels would have offered and instead put my old wheels back on.
We loaded everything back into our trucks and went to get in line for registration. It's basically a lot of standing in one line, getting some piece of paper, getting into another line, moving down the hall to sign your life away, and getting into another line, then repeating for about an hour. We got all our race numbers, bike and helmet stickers, transition and special needs bags, instructions, and more free schwag.
We realized that our swim and ride and registration did not eat up enough of our day, and according to our watches, it was still too early to check in to the hotel. We decided to try our luck anyways, and we ended up hitting the jackpot! They only had one room ready, and it was an upgrade to our original reservation. We happily took that, for no extra charge, and got to get in and unpack and clean up.
Roehr's parents were getting into town about the same time we were done getting ready and they took us out for lunch at a great little Mexican place on State Street. We ended our dinner about 2 hours before the Welcome Dinner and Athlete's Meeting. That really didn't slow us down though...
I think we sat down and relaxed for the first time around 4pm. They say that you should stay off your feet and do as little as possible so as not to tire out too much the couple days before the race, but we'd been going non-stop! We met up with Terri, her parents, and Jess and Rich outside the dinner, so we all got to sit together. We had another good dinner of (what else??) pasta with red sauce and lots of veggies and breadsticks. There were some cool presentations during dinner. Mike Reilly (the voice of Ironman - he's the guy that says "Julie Vardaman, you are an IRONMAN!!" when you cross the finish line) emceed and he introduced the oldest and youngest males and females and interviewed them on stage. Then he said that they had started a new tradition at Ironman Lake Placid in July, and they wanted to continue it in Madison.
It was called the "Biggest Loser." We all wondered why we would want to celebrate a loser at the Athlete's Meeting, but it started to make sense pretty quickly. He had everyone in the room stand if they had lost 20 or more pounds training for Wisconsin. Roehr turns to me as she stands up and says, "I think I can do pretty well at this game!" Mike has everyone remain standing if they had lost 30 pounds. Then 40, 50, 60 ,70 pounds. By the time he gets to 80 pounds, there are only 3 poeple standing - Roehr and two guys. At 90 pounds, one of the guys sits down. At 100 pounds, the other guy sits down. Roehr won!!! The only standing ovation of the night went to Roehr. She went on stage to chat with Mike and I chased her with my camera, trying to take pictures without crying all over the camera.
On Tuesday of that same week, Roehr had finally reached her 3-year goal weight at her Weight Watchers meeting. She'd lost a total of 111 pounds! It couldn't have come at a better time, nor was there much better way to celebrate that milestone than by being recognized by her fellow athletes and completing an Ironman triathlon all in the same week!
Roehr headed out after the meeting with her friends from work, and I headed to Ben&Jerry's with Terri and her parents for some ice cream. Notice a trend here??? We ran into Tina and Kara at the ice cream shop - we almost knew we could find them there - then sat outside and enjoyed the evening and the sweet treat.
On my walk home, I was reminded of an Ironman tradition: the Underpants Run. It's basically what it sounds like... a bunch of adults running around in their underwear. I realize the picture isn't the best, but if you look closely, you'll see some tighty-whiteys in the shot.
Saturday:
The final day of preparation. We awoke to wind whistling though our window. It looked cold and dark outside. Not good news for me. I tolerate heat WAY better than cold. But there was always the hope that dispite the weather predictions, Sunday would be better than Saturday. I could only hope.
The first order of business for me on Saturday was to get my bike ready and pack my transistion bags and get them checked in. I wanted them to get out of my hair - I'd been obsessing over what to put in each bag and I needed to stop so I could enjoy the rest of the experience. We packed everything up, then headed out for another quick bike check. The IronMaiden was much happier with her old wheels and so was I. I knew exactly how the old wheels and tires would react under all conditions, so I felt good about that decision. We turned in the bikes and transition bags without any problems.
I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that it had the potential to be a miserable day weather-wise for race day, and I felt like my hands would freeze with the gloves I was planning on wearing. They would be especially worthless if it rained, which it also looked pretty certain to do on Sunday. We did a quick run down to the bike shop on the corner and I bought the LAST pair of full-fingered gloves they had. Granted, they were mountain-bike gloves, but something was better than nothing.
We ate some snacks and cleaned up again. I headed out to meet up with my parents and Lori, and we headed towards Verona and the bike loop. I wanted them to experience the whole course, even if it was from the comfort of the Suburban. The first few hills brought out some groans from the backseat, but I kept saying, "Oh, that's nothing. We haven't yet got to the BIG hills!" They were worn out by the time we got to Mt. Horeb, so we stopped for lunch. As we continued on the driving tour, I think the difficulty of the course began to sink in for them. Then they remembered that I had to do 2 laps!!
We got back to Madison and met up with Phil and Susan (my aunt and uncle who drove up from Texas) at the hotel, looked at grandbaby pictures, then loaded back up to get downtown for the big group dinner.
I made reservations at the same Italian place I had eaten on the training trip - Bellini's. We were the first party of the evening, but we were a big one! There were over 20 of us there, including Cara, Sunshine, and Sparkle who had just gotten into town. The staff did an excellent job and kept checking in to make sure everything was just right. Terri and her family arrived, then the whole party of Des Moines triathletes showed up. We pretty much took the whole place over! I had a TON of fun talking to people and getting fired up for the big race! Roehr and I passed out the Iowa State shirts we bought for people to wear so we could see them on race day. Roehr and her sister (and the rest of us) were surprised to know that Jenny (Coach Jenny from DM) was a good friend from college. I don't think anyone thought their paths would cross again, and certainly not at an IM. Jenny hardly recognized Roehr - she knew her back in the days before her 111 pound transformation! I walked out of that dinner just filled to the brim (and over-flowing) with the love of all those people who had sacrificed in one way or another to make my dream come true! It sounds kinda cheesy, but I've never felt love like that before in all of my 30 years.
Following that great meal of... you know the answer... pasta with red sauce, I drug Cara, Sunshine, and Sparkle downtown with me for... you know the answer... ice cream at Ben&Jerry's then dropped them off at the bar, while I headed back to the Hilton to turn in. I had a good phone conversation with Terri as I walked back by myself. We went over our last minute details and then shut the book on all the training of the last year. We 're ready to take the final step!
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