Let the journey begin!
I had always been on the fence about doing a full Ironman. I respect the amount of time it takes to train and how that affects my family. I even wrote about it here just over a year ago – “IM or Maybe Not”.
Earlier this year I started to consider doing a non-WTC event, specifically Rev3 – Cedar Point, but for whatever reason, and almost any triathlete can understand this, hearing the words “Gary Schmidt, you are an Ironman” for my first (maybe only) full 140.6 mile Iron-distance race means something. It’s silly, but it’s important… to me.
Now, let’s go back to July of this year. I was talking about this with my wife, Mindy. We talked about Rev3 and also about IM Arizona and the words “I think you should do Ironman Arizona” came out of her mouth. That’s all it took to really convince me.
Today the journey to Ironman officially begins. The general entry spots for IMAZ sold out online in 10 minutes. I was a nervous wreck this morning and as 12:00 pm Tempe, AZ time rolled around I’m lucky I didn’t spontaneously combust. I’ve even had dreams about having problems registering. Just awful. I’m sure that I will be a million times more calm while I’m treading water in Tempe Town Lake next November 18th. I got right in at noon and after 3 minutes of nervous typing (and answering a lot of questions with “na”) I’m registered for IMAZ.
So, next year is set:
Jan 22nd – Carlsbad Marathon
Feb 24-25th – Ragnar Relay Del Sol
May 5th – Big Shark Vindo Fondo – 86.5 mile ride
May 20th – Gateway Olympic Distance Triathlon
August 5th – Boulder 70.3
Sept 22nd – Denver Marathon
Nov 18th – Ironman Arizona
