2009 Ironman Wisconsin: Race Report Part I

On Thursday, September 10, 2009 Danielle, myself and our friend J (and our 2 dogs, Annie & Bubba) left the confines of the tiny island of Manhattan at about nine o’clock pm EST. The drive was a fairly simple and straight forward one; take the New Jersey Turnpike South to I-80 and then drive West for what seemed like an eternity. Once past Chicago, we would head gradually Northwest eventually arriving in Madison, Wisconsin.

We had our SUV set up so that all of the luggage was shoved into one corner of the back end of the car and piled to the ceiling. This left plenty of room for whoever was riding in the back to either lay down and sleep (fully stretched out) or ride sitting up in the back seat. With this layout we were able to alternate drivers and drive through the night arriving in Madison at about 1 PM.

Upon arrival, we checked in to our hotel and decided to shower and relax for a few before heading down to Monona Terrace, which was the staging are for the whole event. When we did decide to go check in, we only got slightly lost on the way. Also, on the way, I got a call from Helen Manning, media relations director for Ironman. I contacted her several months ago to see if I could sing the National Anthem at the race start. She was calling now, to ask me to sing the anthem at the athlete dinner/briefing (about 4 hours from then!!). I said that I would have to call her back after I had a chance to warm up because, driving through the night, halfway across the country is not the greatest thing for my voice.

The first thing I did was drop off my bike with the guys from Race Day Wheels, so that my shiny new Zipps could be put on and my cassette swapped out. Just a little fyi, I was riding a Zipp 808 in the front and a Zipp 1080 in the back (clinchers).

After dropping off my bike we headed inside to wait in line for check in. The first step was to check in with USAT (U.S. Triathlon’s governing body). J had forgotten his USAT card, but fortunately they were set up to be able to look up the USAT numbers of people that had forgotten. This part was pretty quick and painless and upon getting stamped we were instructed to double-check our bib number and head to the next stop to pick up all the legal mumbo-jumbo that goes along with participating in an event where you’re pushing your body (i.e. waivers).

Getting waivers was also pretty fast and painless, and we then went into the big line to get weighed and pickup all of our race stuff (numbers, chips, caps, etc.). For one reason or another, J’s info was nowhere near filled out on his forms and he was ushered to the “solutions” line, where they fixed the issue. We were checked in and on our way.

In the expo area, I headed right over to the Newton booth (are you surprised?) to meet some of the people I have been in touch with but have never actually met in person! The first person I said “hi” to was the guru of all things customer service, Tory Oakland! We only spoke briefly because I had to get back to warm up and go pick up my bike and I would also be at the expo the next day for a Twitter/Brandon’s Marathon/Facebook meetup for which the Newton booth was the meeting place.

J and I headed to grab my bike and had some extra time so we walked around and found some food (a really delicious sandwich place called Milio’s). As we were waiting for the bike to be done after eating, we were met by @nickjantz who I knew was racing and was planning on being at the meetup the next day. We got the chance to hang out for a few until my bike was ready and to trade results and basically be tri-geeks for a bit.

After a short-ish wait, we grabbed my bike and headed back to the hotel for me to warm up (vocally) and to get ready for the athlete’s dinner. I decided after a short warm up that I would be fine to sing and called Helen back to let her know. After taking a couple minutes to sit down, I got dressed and headed out the door for the dinner.

I arrived at the dinner and met with Heather, another of the media relations people with Ironman who gave me a cool “V.I.P.” wristband. I should have seen where else it could’ve gotten me, but oh well! I wanted to wait until after the dinner to eat anything because I didn’t want anything to throw an extra wrench in the works. After waiting for about ten minutes, I headed to the stage with the color guard presenting the flag. Now, I am used to singing in front of a lot of people, but the flag always gets me and I was in front of about 4,000 people, many of whom would be sharing my pain two days later, so, I was a bit nervous. The Anthem went fine and, all things considered, I felt good about it.

We then sat through a presentation of about an hour or so. This was where they gave us a run down of rules and such. It was a very well produced presentation which included many cheers and a few tears. Soon enough, we were out and on our way back to the hotel.

I never did get anything to eat at the dinner, but my wife was all over it and got me some wings! So, I was full and ready for bed!

Stay tuned for Day 2!

[mappress]