It is now a few days post Ironman Wisconsin and it is time to sit down and write my race thoughts down. I am going to break the race into a few different reports and reviews in order to keep them shorter and topic centered. The reviews I am going to write for now are:

1. Ironman Wisconsin - The Experience
2. Ironman Wisconsin - My race results and analysis
3. Ironman - What Next? (2008 thoughts on training and racing)

Links will be provided once the reports are complete.

Ironman Wisconsin - The Experience

Thursday - 9/6/07
Nikki and I finished our early morning training sessions and jumped into the car to drive to Wisconsin. The trip was pretty uneventful other than the terrible rains that forced us to drive 35 mph for way too long.

After getting into Madison, we went straight to our hotel to see Jeff, Eric and Beth who drove up on Wednesday. Soon after arriving, Eric looked at me with a concerned look and said, “Let’s take a walk.” Right away I thought that my bike had been destroyed because we all transported our bikes in a U-Haul that they pulled. The initial anxiety was an over reaction to what actually happened. The short story is that Nikki’s bike wasn’t secured well enough and her cassette ended up scratching my rims all up and destroying my tire. The solution was that I used Beth’s wheels that she normally rides because she was going to use a set of race wheels anyway. Problem solved.

Friday - 9/7/07
We woke up early enough to make our way down to the Gatorade swim. The water was really choppy and made me a little nervous. Even though I had improved my swimming a lot over the last year, it was still my first Ironman experience and the idea of 2,300 athletes swimming together made me nervous. The choppy water didn’t help.

The rest of the morning was spent at the convention center getting massages (I didn’t but the others did), buying items at the store and getting my registration packet. One major lesson I learned was to not let your USAT membership expire. My number expired on 8/31 so I had to stand in line forever while Nikki by-passed at least 45 minutes of standing in line.

Upon returning to the hotel Eric spent time changing out wheels and cassettes for us. Thank goodness for his bike mechanic knowledge. I should learn a few more of the basics too. We went on a little ride from our hotel that afternoon to make sure the bikes worked properly. They did, but I still felt a little uneasy on new / different wheels. Looking back it was just something for my mind to grab ahold of and stress about.

The Ironman Hospitality
The rest of the weekend was really governed by the Ironman timeline. We went to the athlete dinner and meeting, we raced, we woke up Monday morning and went to the Ironman store, attended the awards banquet and then left. One thing is for certain, Ironman does fully support the athlete and they do a tremendous job building up the experience to be a one-of-a-kind event. I’ve always been a little anti-MDot because of the associated attitude. (The one that says your not “xx” if you haven’t done Ironman or Kona, etc.) I can see the addiction to these events and I appreciate the place that these events have in triathlon. But I also appreciate the place that events like the Lake Barkley Race has too.

Why Triathlon is different than many sports.
One thing that continues to come up again and again for me is the line between the professional athletes and the age-group athletes. This maybe due to the fact that professional triathletes don’t make big money or because they commonly come into the sport from positions that rarely include the limelight, I don’t really know. Maybe triathletes are just level headed by nature (although I’ve seen some very unlevel headed age-groupers….).

After volunteering at the finish line of the Ironman Louisville race and talking to people that were also there, several people mentioned how nice Chris McDonald (the overall winner) was. At Ironman Wisconsin we sat down at the athletes’ dinner and Jeff began talking to a kid sitting next to him. While in line, I realized that it might be Zach Ruble a younger professional. Jeff, Eric and Beth ended up talking to him throughout the dinner and I had a brief opportunity to also talk to him after the race. Once again an example of a professional that was generous with his time and not big-headed. How many sports can an average fan/athlete get that close to the professionals?

The Spectators and Volunteers at IMMOO
This is definately the best part of the Ironman race experience in Wisconsin. There were over 3,500 volunteers at the race! It is pretty amazing to have volunteers strip your wetsuit, find your transition bags, unrack your bike, chase you down with bottles of water, etc, etc.

The fan support for this race is also like no other event I’ve done, outside of the Chicago marathon. A few things that really stood out to me:

- Swim to Bike transition: heading up the helix and into the parking garage was amazing. Spectators stood two or three deep all the way up the helix, which made it hard not to run by-the-way. A very nice pick-me-up after swimming 2.4 miles.

- Verona: Beth and Eric had told me about the people in Verona, but it had to be experienced. Riding through town made me feel like a professional cyclist riding through a small town in France. The street was baracaded off, spectators were lining the street on both side cheering.

- Devil’s Hill: If Verona made you feel like a professional cyclist, then this climb definately did. The spectators were line up on both sides again, but this time there were no baracades. It reminded me of some Tour de France climbs when you wonder if fans are going to get out of the way… in this case, out of my way. As we hit that hill, both times the cheering got me a little juiced and I killed the hill. I spun fast and past a lot of riders both times. (And noticed my heart rate in the 170’s!)

Final Thought
The experience of doing an Ironman is worth the time, effort and money that it took. I always anticipated I would race Wisconsin in 2008, now I am certain I will be there again. While I was a little too dazed to hear my name called out “Gary Ditsch. You are an Ironman” I was told by several people that they saw it online.

Another amazing thought. People actually cared and were able to see me become an Ironman. The only thing that was able to make the day better, was that Nikki became an Ironman on the same day! The training and the race will be an experience we will be able to share together for a long time.