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Thursday evening Keith and West Coast Jen Brown arrived from California. As a surprise to their Dad, all of Keith's children will Keith know they would be flying into Madison on Friday. This really helped Keith's mental focus and mine for what we're about to embark on. I also got a phone call from my good friend Jim Whetstone letting me know that him and his wife Bonnie will be arriving sometime Saturday afternoon. Last but not least, Brad Kelly our videographer will also be arriving on Friday evening.
We all woke up Friday, and headed towards the venue so that Keith could sign up and be official for Ironman Madison 2009. Once Keith was registered, we headed over to Tri-Bike Transport to get our bikes and our gear bag. We'd run into a slight snag as they left the gear bag in Minneapolis and this contained both of our wet suits, bike shoes and bike helmets so we need this in order to compete. Marc the owner of tri-bike transport was very accommodating and took care of us as he always does. We recommend him highly if you need them there website is http://www.tribiketransport.com/ . With our video man Brad follow us around and walked along the entire venue especially to the Janus Charity challenge booth to see Casey and Christina. We also stopped by the Ford booth to visit our friends there as well. The venues backdrop was that of the city of Madison with its beautiful capitol building on one side and Lake Monoma on the other. It is a very small city with a large College feel with the University of Wisconsin right in the heart of everything....so all in all it is a very youthful and high energy place.What seemed to be the theme for Keith & I was that obstacles kept trying to get in our way and we had to do allot of going with the flow. The first was our gear bag not arriving, then Keith's computer from his bike was missing so they offered to get him another which delayed us getting our bikes again so they could install it for him. We finally got the bike thing squared away so we could take them to Matt to take a final tune up to them and then ride them back to the hotel for a final check on eveything and get our transition bags ready for delivery to the transition areas tommorow. Then around 5 PM I got a call from our Video man Brad that the flight he was scheduled for to Milwaukee was so far delayed that he would not get into Madison at all and only to Milwaukee by 11:30 PM which is a 1 1/2 hour drive for us and we needed our sleep so it was becoming a very stressful last Ironman trying to get through all of our logistics. My wife volunteered to drive by herself to get him but I wasn't comfortable with that as that meant her getting over tired and stressed so we talked aout it and decided we would pay to shuttle him over as the most cost effective and time efective way. It wasn't easy but we made the arrangements and it all worked out as he was picked up and arrived around 1:30 AM. Thanksfully we got what is usually your best night's sleep before an Ironman 2 night's prior as the eve of Ironman is normally a 5 hour sleep with several wake up during the night....
We all awoke on Saturday and Keith & I could finally get to the water and swim to test the temp, get familiar with some line of sight areas for the swim and just release some pent up energy. This is usually a fun filled day but also a kind of up and down emotional roller coaster as well. It is a time where Keith & I have some fun together knowing what lay in front of us oh so well. It is also a day where we do our favorite thing at the past 5 Ironmans which is get a massage....later in the afternoon....This last swim before race day was a little different than the last 5 because of something that happened 2 nights before. Apparently there were a couple of guys out on Lake Monoma fishing and at around 9 PM decided they would cool off and go for a swim. Unfortunately they had been drinking and only one made it back to the boat and they had done this very close to the swimming area of the race. The sheriff's boats and divers were searching the murky waters and as there was allot of algae and pretty much no visibility you can just imagine what a difficult time they were having locating the body. This made all of us a little nervous and saddened as we wish no one to have that fate. I can only speak for me but as I swam I was a little freaked out at times thinking about if I would swim into a body by accident and lucky for me it didn't happen cause I probably would have had a heart attack on the spot and joined him.
We got out of the water and Brad did some filming as we got out of our sausage suits and focused on the final day before the race. We have to return to the hotel after doing our final check in with Janus Charity Challenge http://www.januscharitychallenge.com/ which is the vehicle Keith & I used to raise money & Awareness for our charities. Then pack up and ride our bikes and transition bags into each area. We packed all of our transition bags the night before and of course you look in each one probably 10-15 times after you pack it to make sure you didn't forget something....it's a maddening ordeal but for those of you reading it's all part of the experience.....here is an example of some of the logistics it takes for setting up the bikes in transtition in Madison.....to get to our bikes we had to exit the water and then run up a helix to the top of a parking garage and change in the transition area (below) into our bike gear and then proceed to the top where our bikes are located (below right) Can you find my bike please?:
Thanks for reading....
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