Ironman Wisconsin Pre-Race

Pre-Race

I drove up to Madison from the Cities on Friday for check-in. It's a Sunday race, so you have to be in town on Friday. I was on my own. Due to the Friday and Monday that Ironman requires, Tina and the Boys could not make it. 

Road Trip!

I left at 7:oo am, and arrived in Madison with plenty of time before my 3:oo hotel check-in and the 5:oo deadline for athlete check-in.

Athlete check-in is extremely well organized. They have you sign waivers, record your weight, pick up your packet, get your bracelet, pick up your gear bags and register a timing chip. The packet has your stickers, bib and swim cap (green!). The gear bags are for T1, T2, special needs and morning clothes. You get two special needs bags.  You have access to a special needs bag halfway through the each of the bike and the run. The bracelet (green!) gets you into everything for the weekend. I also got an orange bracelet that indicated this was my first Ironman. I thought there would be some benefit to the orange, but it was never mentioned throughout the weekend. Still kinda fun though.

The swag for check-in included a poster, flag, luggage tag and back pack. The poster and flag have the logo for this year's race: a barn and a cow. UGLY AND STUPID! I would be so much happier with just an m-dot logo. What a bad marketing decision. The backpack is cow-free and super nice. Probably not big enough for race day tri gear, but it will be a nice gym bag.

Poster, with the barn covered.

After check-in, I went to an athlete info session. There wasn't a whole lot of new info (if any) presented. If you knew the rules of Ironman and read the athlete guide you knew what was going down.

That was about it for Friday. I got checked into my hotel which was a half mile away from the race, and tried to rest the day away. The hotel was not cheap, but it was probably worth it. Being able to walk to the race and not worry about parking saved me a lot of stress on the weekend. My hotel and the finish/transition were all by the state capitol.

Friday night I had to pack up my transition bags. This went pretty quick since it all had to be packed and sorted Thursday night before my Friday road trip.

Saturday morning, I went down to the lake for a quick swim. Folks online had been growing concerned with the drop in water temp. I figured it was worth while to check it out and know what to expect on Sunday. I only swam around for about ten minutes. With my long sleeve wetsuit it was actually a nice temp after you got past the initial shock.

Saturday was gear check-in, and again it went pretty smooth. Bikes were checked into transition and the gear bags were checked into rooms just outside transition. I ended up on the second farthest bike rack from the mount line. Not a terrible inconvenience, but a little annoying.

Can't even see the turn to the mount line from here.

You had to rack by the seat.

Run Gear bags.

Men's Transition

Again, after check-in I went back to the hotel and tried to rest the day away. The lazies seemed to work. Even with an after noon nap, I was still in bed and sleeping by 9:30. I suppose it's a good thing that I get sleepy when I'm nervous. I set my alarms (3) for 4:15. Transition opened at 5:oo.

The dream.

The octopus is a little wierd, I know. Tina found it for me. I carried it around on the weekend and through the race so that whenever someone asked me about it (or gave me a cock-eyed look) I would think of Tina and the boys.