Madison, Wisconsin United States Ironman North America 83F / 28C Sunny

Total Time = 15h 14m 51s Overall Rank = 1849/2397 Age Group = M40-44 Age Group Rank = 295/368

I'm a BOPper, thus why this RR wasn't written in record time, well, that and having 3 young sons that need my constant attention, Taz our dog, and an EXTREMELY patient wife that is dedicated to her profession which doesn't allow me to be a slug and sit on the computer all day padding my post count even moreso, but, I digress.

I had a few days to think about what I wanted to write, and it was hard to sieve through all the data and events that I absorbed in my tiny little brain. There are so many persons that I met, made friends with, trained with, conversed with, and had good times with to get through my training and race. The adventure, the fun, the pain, the constant struggle of BALANCE and needs, and endurement to get to this point, and now it has ended - almost seems all too quickly (except for that dang 1 hour and 51 minutes in Lake Monona ;) ).

To those that I may have seen but am not remembering your name, I apologize.
To those that I had the pleasure of meeting (and remembering your names ;) ), and trained with, and simply just hung out with whether online or in person, I thank you for being there.
To those that want to know what my experience was for my 2nd Ironman, read on!

First, I want to thank my friend and coach Paul Riehemann from Middleton, WI, for allowing me to be his guinea pig, and providing his concepts and plan upon me, to build me into a lean, mean, Ironman machine - okay, lean is more accurate at least. ;) THANK YOU, Coach Paul-dude! You were the one that got me started in the first place!

Next, I thank the Donkey Gang/Crew/Group/Pride/Nation for their giving nature, and tireless inspirations! You are the BEST group that anyone could be associated with. As DJDavey states - "EEEE 2 the effin' AAAWWWW!"

Coming up not far behind, is my BT buds - those online peeps that take their time out of their day to be there with a fun-filled fact, a weird or obscured bit of trivia, or a friendly greeting. BT Members are (once again, I need to quote another super person by the name of ZEERA) FANTASTIC!

Lastly, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, since I rarely mention them, I PRAISE my loving, very patient and tolerant wife, Dee, and my 3 sons, "Razor", "J-man", and "#3". I tried to be there as much as I could, but I still missed so much of their lives for the past couple of years. I've stared at some of the pictures that Dee took for the last couple of years of "Da Boyz", and just stared, wondering where the time went, wondering how they sprouted so quickly, and wondered what happened to my little men. It hits me hard. Their rib-breaking hugs and super smiles I've welcomed enthusiastically. Dee's and Da' Boyz' tolerance of me when I was in carpy moods at times for not being able to workout or whatever, was not justified - they deserved better.
I LOVE YOU, DEE and DA' BOYZ, WITH ALL MY HEART! *BIG HUG AND KISSES AND BUTTERFLY KISSES*

Okay, let's get past the sappiness already. ;)

The pre-race started very early for me (almost two years), with getting time off from work in the morning on Thurs. and Fri. before the race. I believe that stuff started to go south for me when I showed up a tad late for the Thurs. morning swim with bertgwen, Lazymarathoner, and tri...
1). Was late for the swim.
2). Forgot the swim goggles in the car. Bertgwen had an extra set to loan me. They fogged up constantly. He warned me. ;)
3). Dead body wasn't found yet from the drowning in front of the Terrace on the swim route from the night before. Very morbid.
4). Picked up a one-inch vertical slice at the top of the ball of my left foot below the third toe, that went below the callous . I Didn't clean it out until after I got home 9 hours later.
5). Met Birkie. He started the bad juju. ;)

I registered early, and then went to the RaceDayWheels expo tent and had the ZIPP 404s put on, then took a quick ride before picking up #3 at the sitters.

Fri. morning met up with Mndiver, Lazymarathoner, Firstnet911 (and his snake friend), Amyjotris, Whizzzzz, Coredump, Tri... and his brother IronGuinness. (Sorry, don't recall the other BTer that joined us).
Met Jtopin and he lost his participant wristband while swimming. He eventually got another one. Had lunch with Deannas, Runs_with_Jasper, mchally, bertgwen, and a couple of other BTers (sorry, guys).

Sat. took J-man to the kids' race and he was able to get a photo op with Mike Reilly (in my album)! Had dinner that night at Biaggi's with a number of Donkey. Jszat and lara13 (wife), TriDDS and tri-n-spin (wife) and kidlets, Travisvb24 and Sandivb(withdigits) (wife), sgoehner (no wife ;) ) who had earlier reservations. In our group were DJDavey, Gofishltp, KimK, Schwimmycoach, Amyjotris and Firstnet911, DeannaS, WaveDOG, rcav8r (with wife?), and my wife and boys. Jszat waited around and had the NEW Donkey visors for those that wanted to purchase them. Yep - got one (nothing new on race day, huh?)!

Woke up at 3:45 a.m., had a nanner, had some water, had some whole wheat toast with peanut butter, and took some water with a NUUN tablet for the ride to Madison.
Carried my Special Needs bags, went to body-marking (got there early), and, while it was deathly silent with people walking around like zombies, I yelled out, very loudly "WAAAAAAAAVE DAWWWWG!!!", twice, but no response. People looked at me strangely, but I didn't care.
I told the guy volunteer that gave me first eye contact that I needed to be bodymarked. When he started to mark my calves, he said "Shaved legs. Thanks. This'll be easier". HEH, I chuckled, and told him that I just did them last night. *snerked again*. A couple of seconds later I saw Wavedog *bacon* and chatted a few minutes with him. I headed to the bike and setup the waterbottles and the aerobottle, checked the tires, and then went to T1, but had to wait until it opened up, so hit the bathroom early.
Ran into Scoobysdad and Force and chatted some. I thought I sensed some anxiety, but tried to keep it low key.
I headed out to the Capitol square to dump off the Special Needs bags, then came back and finally rethought and rechecked my T1 and T2 bags, just to make sure.
While waiting around, I met up with J_cow (mutri's brother) and his Mom, Joe_Runner and cweninger, who teased me and cracked me up when I was trying to get my Garmin to acquire the satellite signals by holding my arm up higher (yeah, kinda silly for doing that, but was worth getting teased about). After the Garmin acquired, I turned it off and placed it on the bike.
Sometime later, I met up with Amyjo and firstnet911, and was provided a BT tattoo to put on my shoulder.
Velcromom appeared and introduced herself. I think J_cow had a BT tat and gave me the last one, so I tried to put the tat on, but, duhhhhh, didn't read the directions clearly and effed it up. Velcromom was going to give me a shot in her RR or blog because of that, and a well-deserved one, too. ;)

Tri-n-spin, TriDDS, Travisvb(and digits), and Sandivb(with digits), and jszat showed up and tried to stay relaxed, but could tell they were getting nervous.

As persons were heading down the helix, I noticed the sunrise and how terrific it was. I can't describe it. I just can't. I would suggest checking the pictures that maybe online. It's breath-taking.

I had another potty break (in a port-a-potty, sillies) and then got into my wetsuit since it was almost time to close up T1.

I made it down the helix and noticed the many spectators that were already lining up. I had my morning clothes dropoff bag and asked a volunteer where I needed to put it, and another volunteer took it. I found my co-worker on the other side of the wall by the lake, and he showed me the Sham-Wow towels that he brought. I cracked up, cuz in '07 when he showed up to see me off, a number of swimmers came out of the water and asked if they could use his shirt to wipe their faces dry! HILARIOUS!

As Mike Reilly continued to talk on the microphone and the clock was counting down 'til start, I finally found the glasses table. The volunteer gave me a ziplock bag (new to me this year) with a piece of masking tape on it. He gave me a marker and had me write my number on the tape and then put my prescription sunglasses in the ziploc and sealed it.
I got caught up in the music and people around me (my short-term memory oops will come into play here later), and was doing some "white-man" dance moves. I was able to catch Deanna and the Donkai Flag proudly being displayed. Not soon after, DJDavey appeared and we wished each other luck (surprising that we forgot to flip each other off ;) ).
I know I saw Donnawiz prior to this and wanted to make sure that I gave her a shoutout.
Caught up with Travis and Sandi and a couple of others, made light of the mass amount of people around, slowly walked into the water, still favoring the not-yet healed cut on the bottom of my left foot, and yelled out MARCO POLO at least once, swam out a little ways, and gathered myself to prepare for another incredible Ironman open water swim start. Oh, I did relieve myself and raised the water temperature up about 0.0000002 deg. F - I hope it killed some of the blue-green algae. ;)

Many months went by and numerous hours of prep training went into this, so that was the warmup! Oh, and having fun kinda dancing and singing with the music, smiling, and listening to the voices in my head questioning all the madness that was about to unfold! Oh, and then being stunned at Trixie's full lip-lock on her friend, Robyn. GREAT GOOGLY-MOOGLY! Yeah, stunned. Or was it mesmerized? Culture-shocked? Taken aback? Okay, so it wasn't a full lip-lock. Okay, I GOTCHA! It was a "I love you my best friend" kinda peck - very sweet and touching. Being in Madison, I should be used to that. But, I digress again. Wait, this is a race report I'm supposed to be writing up, isn't it. ;)