Ironman-arama-ding-dong

Week 25: August 18-August 24

Bike: 42 km (12 km on mountain)...I've been a bike slacker lately!
Run: 23 km
Swim: Zip, zero, zilch...although I did frolic in the Okanagan Lake
Winery stops: 7 - which resulted in 12 bottles of vino

It's only fair to warn you before you start reading, that this is a very long post. But, lets face it, this is a post on Ironman, so having anything shorter than an endurance read would be contrary to the very spirit of the event.

As most people know, I have been training for the 2009 Ironman. If you don't know this, you've been probably pretty stumped by the blog structure and wondering why I keep talking about exercise. At the end of August, I headed down to Penticton to move the 2009 Ironman dream a little closer to reality, by actually registering for the event. I also used the opportunity to watch my first Ironman and plan a race strategy for next year (race strategy = survive).

I was lucky to have a friend, Nadele from Whitehorse who was participating in Ironman and willing to share a room with me. Thanks to some over-eager planning on my part, I'd managed to secure a bed and breakfast (Spiller's Estates) last November at a nice little winery uphill from downtown Penticton. The Ironman weekend started early Saturday morning when Nadele and I headed downtown to the Athlete's village to drop off bikes, pick up bags and look at all that Ironman had to sell. The only downside to Ironman (besides the long swim, bike and run) is that it can sometimes seem more like a store than an athletic event. You can get any piece of clothing imaginable, water bottles, cups, shot glasses and even mouse pads nicely decorated with the Ironman logo. In addition to the Ironman logo-ed paraphernalia, there are plenty of sponsors showing off their wares - all of whom are guaranteed to improve your Ironman time and experience. The one sponsor of interest to me was Cervelo, who was demo-ing various road bikes. I knew it was a bad idea to try out a new bike, but couldn't resist the sweet appeal of a Cervelo RS. I just may need a road bike for next year (54 inches if anyone is looking to buy me a gift).

After Nadele got most of her gear ready and I realized I couldn't afford anything they were selling, I headed to Skaha beach for some surf and sand. Ben and Jill, my friends from Edmonton, were in Penticton watching a friend compete and were my beach buddies for the day. My over-eagerness to enjoy the sunny beach resulted in a very burnt back, a necessary, but painful consequence of my vitamin D doping pre-winter darkness. After ice creams and iced lattes, I headed back to the hotel, knowing that Sunday would be a very long day.

Ironman started in the early hours of Sunday morning as Nadele woke up to eat her pre-race meal, and I prepped for a heavy day of spectating. We headed into Penticton at stupid o'clock in the morning, and I dropped Nadele off and combed the packed streets for a parking spot. Despite the fact it was only 6 o'clock in the morning, thousands of spectators were already cramming the shores of Lake Penticton, craning their necks to spot family and friends in amongst the pink and blue headed swimmers.

As the clock ticked down, the swimmers migrated towards the start line. When the gun went off, the pink and blue swim caps disappeared into a swarm of splashing water.

While the swimmers started off on their 4 km trek, the crowd's attention span quickly expired. I snuck away and ducked behind a big bush, squeezing myself between the branches and a chain link fence. Like a prepubescent Peeping Tom, I stared lecherously at the abundant bike porn laid out in front of me.

Rows upon rows of Zipp wheels, carbon fibre frames and aerodynamic water bottles stood in front of me. It only took 55 minutes for the bike show to begin, as the first pro came out of the water and grabbed his bright orange Trek bike and started on his 180 km bike ride. I stuck around to watch all the pros pick up their bikes (mostly Cervelos, with the occasional Scott and Guru joining the ranks). After almost an hour, I decided to move to a better place to watch riders head down the street and onto the highway. I managed to cheer Nadele through on her bike, then hopped into her car to see if I could catch the cyclists partway through their race.

It didn't take me long to realize a major flaw in the spectating plan. Not only did I have NO clue where the bike race ran, I also had no idea what the road system around Penticton looked like. Thankfully, I'm a very resourceful girl and realized that all I needed to do is follow one of the many other support vans. I tucked in behind a maroon minivan adorned with Go Paul Go! and other messages of supports from some guy from Alberta. About 15 minutes down the highway we turned into a charming hotel parking lot - oops...I guess I followed the wrong car. I turned around, headed back down the highway, this time following a car until I reached a pylon - a sure-fire indication of a race course. I got to Okanagan Falls just in time to watch Nadele's spandex shorts go tearing by. Fed up with my poor spectating strategy, I decided to alter my observation schedule for the rest of the day.

My new plan took me to the Main Street of Penticton, on the corner of Starbucks and Weenie Wagon. A mere 5 hours after hitting the water, the first cyclist came tearing down the street, with me perched on a garden box at the corner. I had managed to find myself in the perfect place to watch cyclists finish, runners start, and exhausted competitors reach the final 2 km. It only took a couple minutes until I realized that the number of spectators was creating some real chaos, that wasn't adequately being controlled. The chief volunteer was looking for some help, so I jumped off my garden box, grabbed a volunteer shirt and started one of my favourite activities - bossing people around. Truthfully, telling people to keep off the street is not my idea of fun, but it did give me the greatest viewpoint possible. The highlight was watching Belinda Granger leading the women back from the marathon. The only person looking happier than Belinda were the hundreds of women along the street - thrilled to see a girl "chicking" most of the competition.

After volunteering for a couple more hours, I started my personal Ironman event. The folks at Ironman are serious about endurance and have decided to take it to the next level by making waiting in line a serious endurance activity. Everywhere you went at Ironman there was a line - and these weren’t little piddly 10 km lines, or even marathon lines, these were serious Ironman lines where you could expect to wait for hours, so you better bring your Gatorade and power gel. Thankfully, unlike biking, swimming and running, line standing is an event that I have the capacity to win.

My main line standing event started at around 4:00 pm on Saturday, when I joined a fellow Yukoner, in the registration line. At this point we were third in line, and ready to spend a rainy night, camped in a small tent outside of the Ironman tents in downtown Penticton. In keeping with the endurance theme, I worked at staying awake and warm throughout the entire night. I was lucky to get a break from my line waiting duties to watch Nadele cross the finish line in all her Ironman glory, and got a real sense of the overwhelming crowd support at the end of an excruciating 42 kilometres. Ultimately, it was the cheering, music and announcer that convinced me that Ironman would be worth all 1019 minutes it might take.

The race director woke us up bright and early on Sunday morning to start shuttling the line up into the main area and get us ready for registration. Because I volunteered I was shuttled into a separate line and found myself set to be the very first General Entry of Ironman 2009. That’s right - I already won something at Ironman! Sure it wasn’t the swim, bike, or run portion (or even the transition part), but first is first and I was the first one to put my name down and commit to $658 worth of pure pain! The picture shows all those people who didn't win first in line to register (or as I like to call them, the losers). When I watch them all pass me next year, I'll hold on to my small victory on August 25, 2008

Post-registration, Nadele and I enjoyed the other big tourist draw of Penticton - wineries. We cruised up and down the road to Naramata sampling fruit wines, grape wines and anything else people were willing to give us for free. I ended up with a box load of treats that Nadele was nice enough to bring back to Whitehorse for me.

The registration is done, the money paid, the wine tasting over, now I have 52 weeks to get my body ready for what might be the most physically demanding experience of my life!

Sierra posted this on Sep 10, 2008 from the gym | | permanent link