Ironman Adventure: Episode 1

Pre-race OR Coeur d'Alene: The Gathering

I arrived in Spokane, WA on Thursday afternoon, where I was greeted by rolling green hills, lovely cool temperatures, and an epic spinning bear hug from The Bea. We picked up the rental car, made a quick stop for lunch, and started our road trip to Coeur d'Alene. We drove and drove and drove - and 40 minutes later, we were there. First order of business: athlete checkin. I got my official Ironman wristband (which I was commanded not to remove FOR ANY REASON EXCLAMATION POINT), my bib number, swim cap, and the coolest backpack EVER. Seriously. The hundreds of hours of training? Totally worth it just for that backpack. After I got all my stuff, we headed over to get the keys to our house for the next five days. It was a really nice, new house in a quiet little neighborhood - perfect headquarters for Team Kristen. That night, we hit up the MoonTime pub for a little dinner and live music, both of which were pretty great.

Holy frozen extremeties

Friday morning involved a frigid, frigid practice swim in Lake Coeur d'Alene. The first five minutes felt like the cold water was burning the flesh off of my face, but then I got so numb that I hardly even noticed the cold anymore. We wandered around the athlete village a little bit, hit up the grocery store, and hurried home to meet... BREE!!! After nearly six years of interwebs friendship, we finally got to meet in real life! You know how awesome you've always thought she is? Multiply that by, like, seven. Hundred. Seriously. She's awesome. So the three of us kicked it for the rest of the day. I took a quick break to hit up the mandatory athlete meeting (which was mostly drowned out by the unbelievable cacophony of a torrential downpour), and hightailed it back to the house where dinner (prepared by Bree and the Bea) was waiting.

Bree and Bea and Me

 Saturday was the designated day to drop off gear bags and bikes to the race site so everything would be ready and waiting the following morning. It's a stressful thing packing up an Ironman gear bag. You have to imagine every possible item you could ever possibly use or want or need during the race, and then put it all into designated plastic, drawstring bags. There were five: morning clothes (so you'd have a place to put the clothes you...wore in the morning), swim to bike (everything you would need to transition from swimming in 56 degree water to biking for 7 or 8 hours), bike special needs (anything else you could possibly want after biking for 5 or 6 hours: mine included a third water bottle with my carbopro/IM Perform mixture, a Snickers, and a Mountain Dew), bike to run (running gear, sunscreen, etc.), and run special needs (long sleeved shirt in case it got cold, blister kit, extra gels). Needless to say it was a LOT of stuff, and the fear of forgetting something important (shoes?? pants??) was very real. 

After everything was where it needed to be, we rushed back to the house to meet up with the three remaining members of Team Kristen - my parents and my sister! They had an actual epic road trip to get from Nebraska/Colorado to Idaho, including stops in Jackson Hole and Yellowstone, and close encounters of the buffalo kind. We basically did what my family generally does and spent the rest of the day talking and eating. Dad grilled burgers, which made the whole house smell like summer in Nebraska. Le sigh. I headed to bed around 10 or so and had a fitful night's sleep.

And that concludes the pre-race portion of Ironman Coeur d'Alene. Stay tuned for Ironman Adventure: Episode 2!