Ironman Wisconsin Draft Marshall Report

My report is below.

I had to add to this that a friend of mine, Adam Brown, finished in 10 hours, and I think he got a Kona slot. I have had the privilege to ride my bike with Adam a few times, and I am so thrilled he had such a great race. I just hope he remembers me once he turns pro :)

I was a draft marshall yesterday from 7:30-5:15. It was a new way to "participate" in an IM for me.

I did IMWI last year, DNF'ing at Mile 70 of the bike, as my body was not doing well in the heat. So when looking at the forecast for the weekend, I was happy for the racers, as anything less than 90 degrees would appear to be easy by comparison.

I haven't owned my own motorcycle for 15 years, and haven't ridden on the back of one for about 12, but I still had my helmet, and I hoped, my rainsuit. Luckily, I located the rainsuit in the garage and gave it a good wash (it smelled like who knows what from being in the garage for years) "just in case" it rained.

My coach, Rich Strauss, flew into Chicago on Thursday evening, and then he drove up to Madison on Friday morning to do some business and give a talk in the afternoon, while I put in another day of work. Rich picked up a loaner motorcycle in Albany, Wisconsin, for us to ride on. I was driving up early Saturday morning.

I had signed up to volunteer sometime in July, I think it was, and although I received a form confirmation email, I never received anything telling me where to meet or at what time. The volunteer website said to show up at 8AM on Saturday for a generic meeting, where all would be revealed. So I got up at 4AM on Saturday and left my house at 4:45 to drive 150 miles.

I left my car at the home of an athlete (whom I met at IM Brazil), Dino, and his wife Christine, both of whom were racing, and Rich picked me up on the motorcycle for transport to Monona Terrace. His meeting was to begin at 9AM.

I got to the volunteer hall and couldn’t find a specific meeting for the draft marshals, but did find a group of 3 who were trying to find it as well. Around 8:45AM we got the head of the bike course marshalls (pointers at intersections) to see if he could find out what we needed to do. He said he believed that we were going to have a meeting at 6PM! I wasn’t up for that, but that’s why I was there, but I figured I would show up at the moto meeting, hoping they would know something about us.

Well the moto meeting that was to begin at 9AM wasn’t on, but Paul Huddle was in the room, and he called Jimmy Riccitello and found out that us draft marshals were meeting at 10:30. Phew! At least we wouldn’t have to come back late in the day. Meanwhile, the moto meeting didn’t get rolling until about 10:00, and I hung out there until my meeting began.

Finally, about 10 of us got together and reviewed the rules and such—there was another group of about 10 that was coming up later in the day because they were officiating at other races in the morning—and around 12:30, I finally got on the bike with Rich and we took off to just do some riding. Other bikes were going to meet at a Culver’s in Mt. Horeb for lunch, but I knew of another place there that was better, so we went to the Grumpy Troll for lunch, and then we rode around a bit more and ran into Cave of the Mounds, and I had told Rich he needed to do something suitably cheesy in Wisconsin, so we went in and took the tour. I had done it years ago with my ex-husband and didn’t remember just how interesting it was. Sure, cheesy, but still, a cave. Nothing like going down into a cold, wet cave when you are cold and wet already!

By the time all that was done it turned into 5PM and Rich dropped me off at Dino’s, and he went back to the athlete’s home he was staying with. I was fed some pizza and a glass of wine, which was probably more than I needed, as I had sat on my butt all day, but oh well. Dino showed me some photos and videos he had taken from IM Brazil, and that was a nice step back in brief time. I hadn’t stayed at the pasta party for the drummers and dancers, so I got to see what all the fuss was about. 3 scantily-clad girls shakin’ it to a loud drum beat. It was sort of obvious why mostly the men stayed for the show.

4:30AM Sunday and I am up. My athletes are ready to go, and I just needed to get dressed and have a cup of coffee. We said our goodbyes and I said good luck to Dino, Christine, and another athlete who had come in from Milwaukee, Rob. I had until 5:30 before Rich picked me up on the bike to go and do our thing.

The morning was cool—it hadn’t really changed much since Saturday evening—mid-50’s. It wasn’t raining until I went outside to wait for Rich (Dino lives in a cul-de-sac in some woods and so I went out to the circle with the light), and then a light drip drip drip began. I was debating whether I would need the rainsuit for this, but I got on the bike with Rich, and then of course the rain picked up, and we stopped less than 1 mile later and I put it on.

I had looked at the Weather Channel to see the radar and it was hard to tell whether this would be just clouds, spray, sprinkles or out and out rain. By the time we got to Monona Terrace, it wasn’t really doing anything, and so I took the rainsuit off again. We went up top to watch the swim start. Although I heard later that the swim was “bad,” it didn’t look any worse than the 3 times I’ve been in it. The lake wasn’t any more or less choppy, and I’m sure the temperature was maybe low-70’s, and from my perspective, while there were more bodies in the water than last year, it really didn’t appear any more congested than last year.

At 7:30 we were to mount our bikes and go out on the course. I thought initially we were just going to ride out to the loop and stage ourselves, but we only went to Rimrock Road, which is where the athletes first get on “actual” road, and waited, and then we were to let various numbers of bikes go by and then 2 cycles would head out more or less after them. Oh yeah, it was kind of drizzly so I had put the rainsuit back on before we headed out. Good idea as it turned out!

It was interesting to see what the athletes were wearing—many were way underdressed based on what I would have had on for the temperatures, but I’m built like a greyhound. What was sad to see was people wearing virtual sails on their backs. You need all the help you can with aerodynamics on the IMWI course, and deliberately catching air is not a good idea. But then again, better warm and (relatively) dry, I suppose.

Another thing I found funny was the number of helmets that weren’t quite right on the rider’s head. I know one tries to get through T1 quickly, but still. This is probably normal, though, it was simply that I was getting a different perspective. Another thing that was interesting was that we were maybe 1.5 miles into the bike course and people were already eating. I mean EATING! I don’t touch anything for 15-30 min. once I’m on my bike—I may sip Gatorade, but here were people stuffing bananas and bagels into their mouths. Based on the temperatures, before I left Dino’s house, I postulated there would be 3 main problems today: 1) athletes not hydrating adequately due to the cool temperatures; 2) hypothermia; and 3) overeating. I later heard from some EMT’s that in fact, hypothermia was a problem, but the other 2 I am sure would just be reflected in slow racing times for some individuals. I saw one girl on the bike in just a bra top and shorts, and I couldn’t fathom her staying warm, but then I saw her running strongly without changing or adding clothes, so perhaps she’s used to this weather.

Now for the real marshall report. We were instructed to just get people spaced appropriately while traversing the out and back to the loop, and we were to be more of a “presence” than anything else. I would say that because of the constant rollers of the IMWI course, it is just not conducive to drafting. Sure, you had people who wanted to ride “near” others, and a few who were trying to pick their way through groups, but I only ended up issuing 1 drafting penalty (only drafting carried a time penalty of 4 minutes—all other penalties just required a stop into a Penalty Tent to report in and sign your name), 1 blocking penalty, and a handful of crossing the yellow line. There were many times when an athlete would be borderline drafting or failing to pass, and in most of those cases we would just advise them what was happening and go on our merry way.

The one guy I got for drafting was most likely not paying attention. He wasn’t a fast rider, so it wasn’t like he was taking away someone’s Kona slot, but still, he needs to understand the rules. I counted 20 seconds and that was once I decided to start counting, and he just stayed attached to the rider’s wheel. Note that when it would appear drafting was going on and then everyone began climbing, we let that sort things out. So this guy was on a short flat, and he just didn’t pay attention. What was funny was that everyone I gave a penalty to had a little story for me. I wasn’t too interested in the story, although maybe it will add some color to their race reports. The guy who was drafting just said, “Damn.” Good answer.

The rain wasn’t too bad until around 3PM. But the roads were all plenty wet, and this forced all the athletes to slow down for cornering and braking on downhills for safety. We didn’t witness any crashes, but we did come on a rider who had gone off into a ditch and broken his bars and was covered in grass and mud (he was OK), so it was game over for him. We saw another rather large woman who was being escorted by a police car while we were driving the loop for the second time, who we guessed might have been the last legal biker on the course? It wasn’t clear.

As the day wore on, I was surprised at how “not bad” many of the athletes looked. Since we would circle and then go back and retrace periodically, we saw many of the same athletes many times. I won’t name names, because some of them wore their last name bib number, and they would be recognizable. But the rain picked up around 3:00, and it felt like it was getting colder, although the bank in Verona said it was still 56 or something. But it wasn’t that comfortable on the motorcycle, either, but I knew the athletes had it worse.

When we got to the out and back to head in, we could see that people were tired and getting sloppy. They were just getting it done. I told Rich it would have been fun to have a loudspeaker blaring Larry the Cable Guy yelling, “Git ‘er Done.” I think on the Whalen Road stretch I gave out 3 penalties for crossing the double yellow. And it wasn’t just sliding on over. It was going clear over to the other side of the road. Since the roads weren’t closed to car traffic, this was just plain stupid. But, we also gave encouragement to people as we understood what they were doing.

I turned in my gear (penalty book and digital camera—I took a picture of each person who received a penalty), and we watched some athletes coming in off the bikes, and then we checked at some laptops for people we knew were racing to see how they were doing. I could tell from experienced athletes that many bike times were slow, one poor soul I know who was racing for the first time apparently didn’t finish the swim (hopefully I will know more later today), but I knew that if athletes warmed up just a bit, that slowing down on the bike might let them have a better than normal run.

We decided to head out on the run course, and since we had “go anywhere” rights, we rode right on the run course for awhile. Here there weren’t any penalties to give (at least I didn’t see anyone wearing headphones), so it was nice to just encourage runners. People looked strong, so I figured that anyone who made it out to the run course in one piece in <>

Rich and I were plenty tired at this point, and I had to drive back home, so he dropped me off at Dino’s, I finally took off the rainsuit and drove home. I felt sleepy and dehydrated, but I kept thinking about the people still racing and soldiered on.

It was a great way to give back to the athlete community, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Dino, Christine and Rob all finished with good times, as did a few others that I know. I was very happy to see that Pattie, my friend who I rode with in early August and who wasn’t going to attempt the run (she hasn’t run in many, many months), went on to finish the race! Kudos to all of them for maintaining in that weather!

If I were to compare this year’s weather to last year’s, I would take the rain and cold any day. I did see a few people who were wearing polypro head to toe, and they looked relatively comfortable on the bike. But still, every IM race presents its challenges, and the weather yesterday was about par for this time of year in Wisconsin.

Congratulations to everyone who made it in, and I am sure the race will fill up for 2007 as we speak!