Ironman Spectator's Recap

Nick (nephew):

I wrote a quick minute-by-minute (hour-by-hour?) recap of July 20th for Mary Lou to give her an idea of how the race looked from the other side, and our impressions of her and her performance as the day went on. She asked me to post it here--but this by no means lets her off the hook for delivering her own raceday narrative.

July 20 (some times are exact, others from memory and may be off)

~5:40am. Overcast and cool. Looks like it will be a nice day for a race (how wrong this was). A bit hung over from the night before. The house is creaky and everyone is up, even though the second group was going to wait and go into town a half hour later.

~6:35am. We've left Mary Lou to place her special needs bags and then stake a spot on the far shore. Many of the athletes don’t seem in that much of a hurry. They stroll languidly up and down the street in wet suits stripped down to the waist and bare feet.

~6:45am. The water is filling up. The beach looks packed. There is a lot of excitement. Seeing all those people in the water, ready to swim across that lake, I am feel for perhaps the first time that this could be a fun thing to do (this feeling quickly fades, and does not reoccur until much later at the finish line, but by then it has changed). When the pros take off, I'm surprised at how few of them there are. Then everyone takes off, and it's very cool to see that many people swimming out at once. Even in the mass of people, they look fairly evenly spaced, but I imagine this soon changes as they get farther from shore.

~7:12am. Rain. Hard rain. Hope it lets up by the time the swim is over. First two leaders are done with the first lap.

~7:38am. Uncle Mike and I go back to the cars to get the extra umbrellas. We rejoin the group. We walk around a lot. We finally find a small uncrowded deli to get breakfast and coffee. The rain hasn’t seemed to dampen the mood of the spectators.

~8:05am. We leave our prime spot at the deli (it had seats and was dry!) and head over to the beach. Some people are finishing, others are on their second laps. The rain is really coming down now. Some people have tents set up on the sand.

~8:20am. We push our way to the pathway leading from the swim to the bike transition. I'm struck by how jiggly everyone is as they run. Blame rain, blame spandex. Still, sort of a depressing thought, to see all these really fit people and I'm noticing this among all things. Blame society, blame me.

~8:35am. Mary Lou plows on through, faster than expected. This really excites us. Either she low-balled the estimate or exceeded her own expectations. I can't emphasize enough how pumped we are. As she ran by, my thought was this: she really looks like she belongs here. This isn't someone playing at something over their head or posing.

~8:42am. We run around trying to find the start of the bike course. We barely make it there to see Mary Lou take off, but too fast for pictures. The excitement from her awesome swim time has given way to worry. The rain hasn't stopped or slowed. I'm trying to remember if she’s ever told me about riding in the rain before. I can't recall. It seems really dangerous to me. I can't imagine its very fun for all those involved.

~9:15am. We find a hotel lobby to sit in to get out of the rain. There's a nice view of the lake from here. Lobby only has one bathroom per gender: bad idea.

~11:30am. We're in position in town to see Mary Lou’s first pass through on the bike. I'm determined to get a good picture, but my camera is really slow. I take a few test pictures, seeing if I can get some shots of people eating. No dice. The rain is coming sideways, so I give up and put the camera away.

~11:50am. All of my directions about what she was wearing (helmet, clothes) were inept, and most of us only catch sight of her once she passed us. Still, pretty exciting. Everyone looks good on the bike, no one seems to be struggling (later I realized could have been because we were half-way down a hill). Lots of people eating on the bike. Funny to watch.

~12:17pm. Back to the cars to get dry and find lunch. Bob and Cindy and Ann go back to the cottage to change, and Mike & Mary and Jaclyn and I to the little sandwich shop across from your hotel. The sandwich shop entertains a strange arcane method for ordering that flusters everyone. I overcome this by eating pig again in the form of a pulled pork sandwich (if you're keeping score, this is 3 meals in a row).

~2:30pm. After lunch, we're all back in the same lot and heading up the hill to the oval.

~3:10pm. We're walking near the oval when it is announced that the winner is going to be coming through in ten to fifteen minutes. I'm struck by the fact that no one seems to care overmuch. There isn't a big crowd near the finish line.

~3:19pm. We're in a good spot to see Mary Lou go by this time. Lots of people look thrilled to be finishing the bike.

~3:33pm. Mary Lou looks really good starting the run. "I'm running" she says, but the more amazing thing is that it’s true. Some people looked so stiff coming out of the transition, as if they were willing their legs to bend. Rain lets up. Hope it stays this way for the run.

~3:50pm. Raining hard again. Figures. We check out the expo. Most of the stuff is priced where I'd expect, but Ann finds a sweatshirt for $180. This is why Mary Lou didn’t come home with a commemorative Ironman sweatshirt.

~4:45pm. I drastically miscalculate when she will be coming through. I had thought that the course was neatly divided into quadrants, and guessed at her 6.5 mile time to get into position to see her go by. But it would really be closer to 11-12 miles when we would see her. This is where we misidentify Mary Lou frequently. You'd be surprised at how many people she can pass for 100 yards away in the driving rain. Some of our guesses even turned out to be women.

~6:35pm. By this time I've figured out that I was wrong on the timing. When Mary Lou passes us this time she doesn’t look as good, but after walking by us she picks up the pace again, and I'm thinking about the psychological effect of passing through and having to do that loop at second time, knowing what's in store. It has to be really tough.

~7:15pm. She goes by in a red shirt, determined to fool us again with a change of clothes. Ann yells "You look fresh." She disagrees.

~7:30pm. We go back to the cottage for pizza and beer. It would be easy for some people to forget that at the time that Mary Lou is out there running and has been competing for more than 12 hours, but we don't. We feel appropriately guilty and in awe. The bacon pizza is especially good (pig at a fourth meal in a row--am I closing in on a record?)

~8:50pm. We leave the cottage to get back in time for the finish.

~9:35pm. In position at the finish. It's really exciting--and moving. Most of the finishers seemed to have saved something for the end, or the crowd carries them. Most are running. But one guy, youngish, just walks, a slow, even pace. He's sobbing as he walks, and along the way he stops to give some people he knows hugs (and some random strangers hugs too). It may sound cheesy, but I think these people are the ones who have really earned the title of Ironman. Not to belittle the pros who can finish the thing in 8-10 hours, or their prodigious talent, but you have to give it up for the people who have struggled 15, 16, even 17 hours to finish. They've paid a higher price than the pros. They've struggled longer, spent more time alone with their thoughts, and surely resisted the urge to quit more often.

~9:47pm. Keep watching the clock. Hoping Mary Lou will come through before 10 because I know that she’d be a little miffed at a 15:01 finish.

~9:59pm. Mary Lou appears on the track. I take a picture [note: sad to say it didn't turn out; flash ruined it]. I try to get another one but instead point to the clock and yell, but she’s already seen it. I can see the look on her face as she mouths an expletive and picks up the pace. She’s got thirty seconds to close maybe a hundred feet, but she doesn’t chance it.

~10:05pm. Right after Mary Lou finishes we follow to the athlete exit and see her heading into the medical tent. Another athlete is holding her arm to steady her. This was a really scary time.
It was probably about a half hour before they let Cindy into the tent and another ten minutes before she called out to let us know what was going on. In that time we saw ambulances come through and take other people away. I don't know what the others were thinking, but I have to admit I was thinking the worst: maybe it was too much to ask of yourself, maybe your body is letting you know it was too much to handle, and if it was worth it. Even when Cindy makes contact, the worry doesn't altogether leave, because they don't let her leave.

~11:48pm. We move the cars closer on the news that Mary Lou is almost clear to leave the medical tent.

July 21

~12:10am. When Mary Lou passes in the Jeep with Mike driving she looks a lot better (four bags of fluid heavier). Only now does it feel like the race is over.

Final Stats: 17 spectator hours, 3 changes of clothes, 2-3 lbs. of pork products. ~Nick