A friend of mine shared this video with me back in the fall as we were training for a half marathon. I about died! To the outsider, what I am taking on is rather crazy. But I can totally relate!
Please excuse the language in this video. This why my blog is titled as such!
Texas Ironman Logo
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
It's Offical!
It's offical! I am on my way down the road to crazy. And that road is 140.6 miles long. I have taken the first step in completing, what really is, a lifelong dream. I remember watching Ironman competitions on TV when I was in middle school and high school thinking, "That is *$^&ing impossible! Those people are nuts!" But in the back of my mind, I though, "How cool would that be?!?!" And now, through a series of events in my life, I am setting out to do what 14-year old Sabrina said was impossible.
I have three main goals with my Ironman journey:
1. Be a legal finisher!
2. Have a memorable journey, hence the blog! My intentions are to blog my training, thoughts, and other musings on the road to Ironman.
3. Fundraise for a charitable organization- but more on that in another blog.
So here is how my trip offically started. I was excited to hear that Texas was going to have the first ever full Ironman event in the Woodlands (an hour from me). I, of course, wanted to be in the action in addition to the fact that I knew several people participating in the event. I signed up to volunteer in the fall, knowing somewhere in the back of my mind, volunteers got proirity registration for the next year's event. I completed my first half Ironman (Longhorn 70.3) in October of 2010 and somwhere towards the end of the run I really started to wrap my head around the fact that this ultra-endurance sport was NOT impossible.
As the Spring wore on, I rode the MS 150 (two day 150 mile bike ride <160 actaully...but who's counting?!?!>) I really began to think to myself, "You should do this. Its in your backyard. You can train the course. You don't have spend money to travel. Your family is in Texas to support you. You should do it." So somewhere in the month of April (I think?) I started to verbally say, "I'm doing Ironman Texas 2o12!" And I made it a (subconsicous) point to tell a lot of people. The more people I told, the more people that would hold me to. Hence, another reason to blog!
Anyway, back to the weekend. I volunteered on the bike course but my volunteer coordinator (whom I NEVER met!) didn't tell anyone about how to get priority registration nor did he ever bring me my offical volunteer shirt. But I KNEW my name was in the system as a volunteer. Thanks to my good friend and training buddy Dinh (Bacon) Pham, he forwarded me the email with information on sign up and loaned me his stinky volunteer shirt!
I got up at 4 this morning (my alarm was set for 5...think I was excited?!?) and made it to the Woodlands a little after 6. There was a line of about 30 people already formed. As I got in line, I realized that most of the people in line were athletes from yesterday who wanted to go to the Ironman store to get their finisher gear. Hmmm.... Once the flood gates opened at 7:00, I went in quest of someone who knew where I needed to be for registration. I was successful and when I found the tent, I found that I was FIRST in line! They said registration would open at 9 but they opened more like 8:30. I was actaully shaking as I handed over my credit card ($625!) and my ID. My heart was fluttering when he said, "Okay. You're in!" No backing out now. No refunds. It's on!
I have three main goals with my Ironman journey:
1. Be a legal finisher!
2. Have a memorable journey, hence the blog! My intentions are to blog my training, thoughts, and other musings on the road to Ironman.
3. Fundraise for a charitable organization- but more on that in another blog.
So here is how my trip offically started. I was excited to hear that Texas was going to have the first ever full Ironman event in the Woodlands (an hour from me). I, of course, wanted to be in the action in addition to the fact that I knew several people participating in the event. I signed up to volunteer in the fall, knowing somewhere in the back of my mind, volunteers got proirity registration for the next year's event. I completed my first half Ironman (Longhorn 70.3) in October of 2010 and somwhere towards the end of the run I really started to wrap my head around the fact that this ultra-endurance sport was NOT impossible.
As the Spring wore on, I rode the MS 150 (two day 150 mile bike ride <160 actaully...but who's counting?!?!>) I really began to think to myself, "You should do this. Its in your backyard. You can train the course. You don't have spend money to travel. Your family is in Texas to support you. You should do it." So somewhere in the month of April (I think?) I started to verbally say, "I'm doing Ironman Texas 2o12!" And I made it a (subconsicous) point to tell a lot of people. The more people I told, the more people that would hold me to. Hence, another reason to blog!
Anyway, back to the weekend. I volunteered on the bike course but my volunteer coordinator (whom I NEVER met!) didn't tell anyone about how to get priority registration nor did he ever bring me my offical volunteer shirt. But I KNEW my name was in the system as a volunteer. Thanks to my good friend and training buddy Dinh (Bacon) Pham, he forwarded me the email with information on sign up and loaned me his stinky volunteer shirt!
I got up at 4 this morning (my alarm was set for 5...think I was excited?!?) and made it to the Woodlands a little after 6. There was a line of about 30 people already formed. As I got in line, I realized that most of the people in line were athletes from yesterday who wanted to go to the Ironman store to get their finisher gear. Hmmm.... Once the flood gates opened at 7:00, I went in quest of someone who knew where I needed to be for registration. I was successful and when I found the tent, I found that I was FIRST in line! They said registration would open at 9 but they opened more like 8:30. I was actaully shaking as I handed over my credit card ($625!) and my ID. My heart was fluttering when he said, "Okay. You're in!" No backing out now. No refunds. It's on!
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