While there were many reasons to come up to madison this weekend, the most obvious was the event besides the football game that took over the town.
I arrived in Madison on Friday evening and could sense that Ironman was in town. The barricades were starting to go up, the tape was on the street to mark the course, and people were walking around state street with their participant wrist bands. As I was walking up state street I started reminiscing about the last time that I was moving up the street headed towards the capital.
Nearly 2 years ago I was in the exact same spot, trying to muster up the last bits of energy that I had left to get across the finish line after a rather brutal marathon. In the time span of that marathon I experienced the full spectrum of emotions. I started running and felt great and thought that I might be able to absolutely fly through the marathon. Less than a mile later my hopes were dashed and I was frustrated and ready to quit. Somewhere around mile 18 I sat down for a little bit hoping that I would magically just get to the finish line. I kept moving my body through forcing small amounts of fluids and grapes until I could finally get to the end.
Finally, after over 5 hours of a death march I finally reached state street and again became overjoyed that I was finally going to finish. There was something comforting about seeing the dome of the capitol building lit up as the sky was turning darker shades of blue.
I decided that I was going to take a year or so off from Ironman to give my body a break, to give my mind a break, and to figure out when or if the long distance races would return back to my schedule. In the past 2 years I have spent some more time working on my running, figuring out how to train smarter, and take care of some professional obligations as well.
On Saturday I rode the loop of the bike course. I started out feeling great and I remembered every turn on the course. I remembered most of the technical aspects of the ride including the climbs after turns (and staying in low gears) the downhills (and tight turns at the end), and the never ending false flats. There were some parts of the course that initially didn't trigger immediate recollections but after some time fit right in.
Most of my mental markers on the course hadn't changed. The sign for blue mound which indicates the start of the never ending climbs into Mt. Horeb (which I think is the second most irritating climb on the course-only behind Witte Rd) was still there and I got the gearing just right. I had fun climbing the "3 Bitches" - old sauk pass rd, timber lane, and midtown rd, and was interested to watch my power as I pushed up the climb.
For having only done about 1 ride over 60 miles this summer and minimal hills, I was rather pleased that my legs help up during the ride. I averaged 18.0 mph for the loop which was quite interesting. It was about 20 minutes faster than I rode the course the first time 4 years ago, as well as when I rode the course in June of 09 in preparation for the last IM that I did here. 2 years ago when I raced the IM I averaged 18.67 MPH for the entire course. Overall, not too far off and better than expected. Overall, I was rather excited when I was able to look at the data in comparison.
Several months ago I decided that I was going to volunteer for the race for several reasons. #1 - I thought that it would be fun to volunteer on the bike course, #2 - I wanted to come and ride the course, #3 - it is a way to get a guaranteed entry into the race the following year.
On Sunday morning I woke up at 5:30, got in my car and drove off to the cross plaines aid station. I picked this spot because it is the aid station right before the 3 climbs described above and I figured it would be fun to motivate people at this point.
The moral of the entire story below, setting up and running an aid station is difficult work, and everyone at some point who races in triathlons should volunteer at an aid station.
Immediately after arriving I went to work, we started unloading the truck filled with water, ironman perform, food, and the works. Honestly it was quite depressing to see an entire truck filled with pallets of water, sports drink, and everything else. the sad part is that they went onto the truck with a fork lift...but we didn't have a fork lift to unload the trucks.
It took quite a while to unload everything, get all of the water bottles and sports drinks ready to go and nearly 3 hours after starting everything was set up and we awaited the first competitors.
The first pro athlete came blazing into the aid station and barely slowed for his hydration. I was the lucky person to be the first in line to hand off water to the first pro athlete. It was kind of a rush and then it only got busier from there. The day was absolutely fantastic. I met some really nice people, and it just felt great to help the athletes on a journey that I know from previous experience can be rather mentally challenging at times. I am thrilled that I had a chance to volunteer and should the timing be right in the future is definitely something that I would consider again.
There are a couple of things that I saw which really made me happy as a volunteer:
- When the athlete called out what they wanted and pointed directly at me, I was able to get the water into their hand every single time. The only time I missed a hand-off today was when some lady stuck her hand out at the last minute and magically expected that I would be able to read her mind.
- When riders slowed (at little, not to a grinding halt, but a just a little) as it made the hand off much easier.
- Of course when athletes said thanks, or my favorite of the day, "awesome technique" after I had run up with one of the riders to ensure a good hand-off.
After nearly 10 hours in the sun we packed up the aid station and I returned back to Madison. Walking on state street is always a fun time with all of the runners. It was kind of neat that I could recognize some of the faces that I saw out on the bike course at various points on the run. After dinner I strolled over to the finish line and watched for a little while.
Needless to say, the finish line is always an exciting place to be and thinking about racing in another ironman definitely made the entire situation all the more exciting. Soon it will be my turn again.
