So the big weekend was here – Volunteer at IMAZ so we could have first dibs at signing up for the big race next year. My two girlfriends and I boarded a plane super early Saturday morning so we could get to Tempe by 9 am for the volunteer meeting. We were going to be body markers! This is a great place to volunteer because you get to interact with the athletes before they start and hear some of their stories of how they got there or why/who they are racing for. It was a very emotional experience for me and I had such a blast doing it. Also it allowed us to be in the transition area when the swimmers came out of the water and hopped on their bikes. We literally had the best seats there to view everyone taking off for their 112 mile bike ride.
After our volunteer shift was over was continued to hang around Tempe and grab some food. We were going to walk back to our hotel to grab some shut eye since we had been up since 3 or so in the morning but as we were walking in that direction we passed the bike course and saw one of our friends finishing her first loop of the bike! We were so super excited we decided to stay and watch all our other friends and cheer them on. All the other spectators were great. We had a so much fun goofing off with them and cheering on their friends, while they also cheered on our friends. We saw our coach Dawn come in off the bike and we quickly ran to a spot on the run course so we could help her keep track of her position in the race. She was racing for a Kona slot we wanted to help her as much as possible.
It was so much fun watching the pros on the race course as well. We saw Leanda Cave, Linsey Corbin, Amanda Stevens, and Timothy O’Donnell to name a few. Poor Tim was having a tough time on the run so when my friends and I saw him walking we yelled out his name and some encouraging words, which got us a little wave and then he started running again. It was so much fun!!
Our coach ending up with a 20 minute PR and a Kona spot by getting 4th in her age group!
The next morning we were up early again to get in line for registration. I’m so glad we got there early because the line was already long and just getting longer. At 9 am they opened the tent and in we went with our credit cards and out we came with our slips of paper saying “Congratulations, you have just registered for Ironman Arizona”!!
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