One Week Until IronMan Coeur D’Alene

So, I have just a little over one week until I participate in IronMan Coeur D’Alene (I think the test to know whether you’ve registered is whether you can spell Coeur D’Alene). This will by my 3rd IronMan, after St. George the past two years.

While I’m looking forward to a much more flat run course, and what everyone says is a beautiful location, I’m a little nervous about a beach start with 2730 of my closest friends! The only other beach starts I’ve done were at Xterra races with much smaller fields — and they were still the most stressful starts I’ve ever done. Something about swimming in swirling foam of churning whitewater after a short sprint. Wish me luck!

The participant list is out now — so if you don’t have your number, get it here. I’m lucky number 2055.

Just about all the age groups have participants, particularly on the Men’s side. There is even one participant in the 80-84 group. Edwin Wolfgram from Missouri. Looks like he was the 70-74 Age Group Champion back in 2003. Glad to see he’s still at it!

In terms of Kona Slots — my age group, men 40-44, get the most. There are 446 others in my age group, and assuming there is at least one finisher in each age group, we’ll be competing for 5 spots. Numerically, that makes this age group the most competitive group, with just 1.1% of the field getting to Kona.

I’d previously calculated I’d need around a 9:40 to get one of those, and that’s probably not going to happen. My main goal is to have a fun race, and beat my last year’s St. George time of 11:11. We’ll see what happens from there. But, last year, there were 13 guys in my age group that broke 10 hours, so I’d need a looooong roll-down.

Here is how the age group picture breaks down:

Of course, the final spots are determined by the number of finishers in each age group. And, with a few groups having just one of two people, there might be some mixing around. Also, the M18-24 and M60-64 are kind of on the bubble in this current allocation — if their share dropped just a bit they’d probably lose one spot to other groups. M40-44, and M50-54 would likely pick up a spot each if more become available.

Now, just one week of doing standard taper activities: Doubting my training, obsessively checking the weather forecast, trying to cram work before taking time off, browsing triathlon magazines while resisting the urge to buy a bunch of things I’ve never trained with, and becoming increasingly sure that my seat height and cleat position are just not right.