I have been wanting to do an Ironman. I wanted to sign up for Ironman USA (Lake Placid). But unfortunatly that Ironman sold out before it ever went online. That would have been a good one to do since it was so close.
The Louisville Ironman was my second choice since it is the next closest. According to Google Maps, it is about a 10 hour drive. Long but doable. I can take my car with my bike mounted on a rack. I wont have to go through the logistics of shipping my bike, and having to ship it home. Or the added expenses of flying both me and my wife…and my bike.
My wife and I were off camping for Labor Day weekend. But I wanted to be home at noon on Labor Day so I could sign up when the Louisville Ironman registration opened. I know that last year when the Lake Placid Ironman went online, it sold out in like 10 minutes or less. I didn’t want to miss out. A friend of mine who has done the Louisville Ironman twice, told me that it took a few weeks last year for the Louisville Ironman to sell out. But I didn’t want to take my chances.
We managed to get home about 11:15am. I checked the Louisvile Ironman website, and now there was a link to active.com. Previously there hadn’t been a link to active, and the 2009 Louisville Ironman hadn’t even been listed at all. I thought that they might be going to use a different registration service this year. The wewbsite said accepting registrations, so I clicked the link, made it a little ways, before being told registration opened at noon. So I waited. I tried periodically as it was near noon. Finally it let me start to register. There was the normal registration stuff. But there was also a bunch of questions such as why I wanted to do an Ironman, and what were my greatest accomplishments. I would have liked to have spent time answering some of these, but I didn’t want to having the Ironman close out from under me. So I answered these questions briefly, and went on. Soon I was done, and just had to click one more button to commit to doing it. $525 plus the $10 USAT one day license, plus the $25 processing fee plus the huge amount of work etc. I was a bit nervous. But I clicked the button. I had successfully registered for the Louisville Ironman. Now I need to learn to swim much better!
way to go Rob!!! good luck in your journey. I too was going through the nervous moments back in 2007 and 1 year just flew by . Just start planning and enjoy the experience.
Comment by IM Finisher Louisville 2008 — September 11, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
Thanks much! I am looking forward to the challenge. I am seriously working on the swimming which is my weakest discipline. I have worked up to swimming a mile. Still slow as mud, but getting better.
Comment by Rob — September 25, 2008 @ 6:42 am