The 99 Steps of a Typical Ironman Trip

Posted on by Sandy

(courtesy of Head Coach Dave)

The 99 steps of a typical IM trip

  1. Arrive in town.
  2. Find over-priced accommodations you are staying a minimum of four nights at
  3. Unpack bicycle, spread gear around room randomly.
  4. Attempt to reassemble bicycle, realize you forgot to mark your seat and handlebar position before disassembly. Guess position and tell yourself it won’t make a big difference.
  5. Drive bike course at slow speeds while making wrong turns. Annoy locals.
  6. Find swim venue. Put wetsuit on, stand around for 15 minutes. Swim 10 minutes, take wetsuit off. Look around to see if you impressed anyone.
  7. Walk around expo looking for free stuff.
  8. Go to registration tent, stand in line, get bag, check bag for goodies.
  9. Go back to hotel, arrange energy products into different piles. Stare at piles.
  10. Spend 2 hours preparing for bike ride with race wheels and drink systems. Go for 30 minute ride. Go back to hotel.
  11. Decide that this would be a great opportunity to learn how to rebuild your rear hub to fix the play in it. Disassemble hub.
  12. Drive to house where your club mate, the bicycle mechanic, is staying. Show him the pieces of your rear wheel. Beg for help.
  13. Go to swim start Friday morning. Look for tell-tale wrist-bands on other competitors; look condescendingly at all those swimming who aren’t participating in the race.
  14. Go back to hotel, spend 4 hours attaching numbers to your bicycle, helmet, and race outfit. Panic that you don’t have 8 pieces of reflective tape for your run outfit, even though IMNA has never been known to enforce the rule.
  15. Drive down to expo at the last minute, stand in line, pay $10 for a strip of reflective tape. [LOVE this one]
  16. Drive back to hotel, place energy products into various bags.
  17. Pack transition bags.
  18. Unpack transition bags.
  19. Repack transition bags.
  20. Drive to Carbo-dinner. Stand in line, proceed through buffet with poor food selection, sit at crowded table, remember you paid an extra $20 each so your family could enjoy this food. Listen to IMNA personnel tell same jokes as last year. Realize that Dave Scott has apparently discovered the fountain of youth. Stand in line to leave.
  21. Prep bike to drop off on Saturday, discover your tire has a slow leak. Drive to expo, stand in line, pay $80 for tubular tire. Get back to hotel, realize you don’t know how to glue on a tubular, drive back to expo and have them do it for you.
  22. Drop bike off, spend time covering bike with various plastic bags because everyone else is doing it.
  23. Drop off your transition bags, realize you forgot your salt tablets, drive back to hotel to get them.
  24. Drive back to hotel again, arrange race gear for tomorrow morning.
  25. Pack special needs bags.
  26. Unpack special needs bags.
  27. Repack special needs bags.
  28. Realize there is nothing more you can do to get ready. Sit down and relax.
  29. Panic.
  30. Eat early dinner
  31. Go to bed, lie there in a cold sweat.
  32. Wake up at 2:00 am for 1000 calorie bottle of nasty-tasting concoction, “because Gordo does it”.
  33. Lie awake listening to horrible weather move into town.
  34. Wake up at 4:00 am, listen to spouse complain.
  35. Get in car, drive to start. Stand in line to enter the transition area.
  36. Check transition bags.
  37. Stand in line to get body marked.
  38. Check bike, stand in line to get tires pumped up.
  39. Stand in line for porta-john.
  40. Realize you left your water bottles with special nutrition needs in the fridge at the hotel. Drive back madly to get them.
  41. Get back to start, wait in line for parking spot.
  42. Stand in line for porta-john.
  43. Get wetsuit on, stand in line to enter swim area.
  44. Realize it’s too late for a warm up. Stand in line to enter water.
  45. Stand in water with 2000 other people while sun comes up and national anthem is sung by local high school girl. Realize that few moments of your life have been this beautiful.
  46. Gun goes off, 2000 people attempt to swim on top of you; realize that you are in mortal danger or drowning and few moments of your life have been this dangerous.
  47. Get kicked in face, goggles come off, panic and tread water trying to get them back on while people hit you. Remember you paid good money & trained a year to do this.
  48. Exit swim, stand in line to get into transition.
  49. Stand in line to get out of change tent. Get bike, stand in line to get out of transition.
  50. Start bike, realize that there is no way 1000 people can pack onto a course within 20 minutes without massive drafting problems. Hope that poor bike handlers don’t crash in front of you.
  51. Ride bike.
  52. Panic that you’ve already fallen off the nutrition plan that your coach gave you.
  53. Make up for lost calories and fluids in the next 15 minutes. Feel ill.
  54. Ride bike.
  55. Get saddle-sore.
  56. Ride bike.
  57. Decide to piss while riding to save time.
  58. Spend the next 30 minutes soft-pedaling, coasting, and practicing mental imagery trying to relax enough to let it go.
  59. Give up, get off at aid station and spend 30 seconds in porta-john, get back on bike.
  60. Ride bike, feel queasy and bloated, take 3 salt tablets at once to make sure you’re not low on electrolytes. Throw up.
  61. Get off bike, sit in change tent wondering why you are doing this. Listen in disbelief to volunteer telling you you’re almost done. Proceed to marathon course.
  62. Realize that you should have practiced the 1000 calorie drink at 2:00 am before race day.
  63. Throw up, walk, jog, repeat for 26 miles.
  64. Start gagging at the thought of another energy gel.
  65. Sample the variety of food at aid stations. Discover Oreos, the food of the Gods.
  66. Invent the form of locomotion called the ‘ironman shuffle’. Feel proud that your 12 minute mile is technically not walking.
  67. Pass your spouse. Make them swear to never let you do another one of these. Discover flat Coke, drink of the Gods.
  68. See finishing chute. Sprint madly down the road high-fiving people and cheering while announcer screams your name. Realize it was all worth it.
  69. Get to finishing chute, wait in line while a man takes his extended family over it with him.
  70. Cross line, collapse into arms of patient volunteers.
  71. Spend next two hours in med tent realizing that you should have drunk more fluids when it got hot.
  72. Go to massage tent, eat cold pizza and wander around in a daze while wearing an aluminum foil blanket.
  73. Stick around finish line until midnight to share in “the ironman spirit”. Beat 12-year-old to grab free socks thrown into crowd.
  74. Look in disbelief at fresh and bouncy professional athletes dancing at the finish line.
  75. Cheer last few athletes into the finish before midnight. Ask your spouse if you looked that bad. Be amazed that they spent 17 hours out there moving the whole time.
  76. Go back to hotel, collapse in bed.
  77. Wake up, go to bathroom, collapse back into bed. Repeat all night until the 6 IV’s the med tent gave you are through your system.
  78. Wake up at 4:00 because your legs hurt so much.
  79. Eat first breakfast.
  80. Sit around until spouse wakes up, eat second breakfast.
  81. Shuffle around town Monday morning wearing finishers T-shirt and medal. Smile knowingly at other fellow shufflers. Graciously accept congratulations from locals thankful you came to their town to spend money.
  82. Eat third breakfast at all-you-can-eat buffet.
  83. Go to Official Finishers merchandise tent. Stand in line. Pick out $200 worth of clothing with prominent logos on it. Stand in line, pay $600 for clothes. Contemplate getting a tattoo to immortalize your achievement.
  84. Fall prey to peer-pressure and marketing techniques. Cough up $450 to sign up for the race next year – since it will sell out today, and this is your only chance to sign up!
  85. Proceed to IM Hawaii roll-down. Hold out hope that, even though you finished 80th in your age-group, this will be the year everyone leaves early and you get the last spot.
  86. Eat first lunch.
  87. Go back to hotel, stare at the disgusting, sticky, smelly mess that is your bicycle and race clothes. Start packing things up to fly home
  88. Eat second lunch.
  89. Go to awards dinner, stand in line. Get poor food from buffet, remember you spent $20 a head so your family could enjoy this magical moment with you.
  90. Watch hastily-produced race video. Closely examine each frame hoping they caught a glimpse of you on the course. Be disappointed.
  91. Watch age-group athletes get their awards. Wonder how many of them actually work for a living, and where you can get some of the performance enhancing drugs they appear to be on.
  92. Realize that one has to go all the way up to women’s 70+ age group before finding an age-group your time would have won.
  93. Listen to long, excruciatingly boring thank-you speeches from various professional athletes.
  94. Stand in line to get out of awards dinner.
  95. Go to Airport, stand in line. Deliver $5000 bike to Neanderthal-like baggage handler. Pray. Reluctantly take finishers medal off to pass through metal detector. Proudly tell TSA personnel what you did on your weekend.
  96. Get home, contemplate unpacking disgusting bicycle, decide to leave it until tomorrow.
  97. Eat Bon-Bons and watch TV. Contemplate unpacking your bicycle and training again, decide to leave it until tomorrow.
  98. Repeat above step for 2-10 weeks. Step on scale. Look at your fat, disgusting self in a mirror and remember you signed up for next year’s race. Unpack bike, chip mold off of seat tube. Show up at swim practice again.
  99. Get ready to do it all again next year…