Riding the Ironman course

Some of my friends and teammates are gearing up to race Ironman Coeur d'alene in a few short weeks. For those of you that aren't familiar with Ironman its the quintessential endurance race. It involves a 2.4 mile (4km) swim, followed by a 112 mile (180 km) bike ride and then a 26.2 mile (42km)run.As if that is not overwhelming enough the race has time limits. If you don't get through each stage of the race by the cut off time you are out of it and not allowed to continue. The professional athletes finish the race somewhere under 10 hours. Age grouper athletes can take up to 17 hours to finish. But when they do finish..wow...what a huge achievement.

We are lucky enough to have one of these races staged close to where we live, in Coeur d'alene, Idaho. This is great for those training for the race. They get to ride the actual course and get familiar with every twist and turn so that on race day they are comfortable with the course and know exactly what to expect.

Last weekend a group from my tri club were doing their last ride of the course before the race.I decided to go along with them for fun. The course itself is two loops but we rode just the one loop of around 56 miles. It was a blast to be out there....the weather was beautiful, the people were fun and the course was gorgeous...hilly but gorgeous.

Along the way we saw some pros out there training.  One of them Hilary Biscay took some pictures of us as she rode past and posted them on her blog.  She makes it all look so easy.  Riding super fast and taking pictures at the same time. Her pictures show us stopped at an Ironman rest stop that some friendly person set up outside their house complete with water, sports drinks and a porta-potty.  Moments before these were taken I was changing my shirt so I'm glad she came by after I was fully clothed again as that would have been a little embarrassing.

The race itself is June 26th. Matt and I are headed out to volunteer and cheer on our friends. I'll be taking lots of pictures and will make sure I blog about it. Should be a blast!