So, I'm doing it again. I signed up for Ironman Coeur d'Alene 2009. I knew it was coming. I said just days after the first one that I could see myself doing another one. And so here we are.
My brother, Adam, signed up as well. Actually, I signed him up because he was having validation issues. What a crazy sign-up process. We spent about 30 minutes before registration opened refreshing browsers and getting "too busy" pages. Finally we got in and I got through registration pretty easily. He however couldn't get passed the credit card page. So I called him and did the registration for him over the phone. Since nothing was defaulted (I was still logged in as me), I had to enter everything. My hands were shaking and I was starting to panic that I wouldn't be able to get it all in. In the end it was fine and he's now registered. On a whim, I told him that he should double check his registration and make sure I didn't screw anything up. Apparently I did - I misspelled his last name, the same last name that I share. Nice, huh? Fortunately he was able to call and have them fix it. Anyhow, after all of that, several hours later, there were still spots available.
But now we're in and it's kind of anti-climactic since it's a year away and I still have to get through this season.
And now a little bit about the competition. Adam is a year younger than me and I try to always be one step ahead of him. He came to my first triathlon as a spectator and loved it. The very next year, he was out there participating. Unlike me, he is a great cyclist. With running and swimming, it's a very close tie with me being just a few seconds behind him. I think our biggest challenge was during the 5430 Sprint last year. He started 10 minutes behind me and was determined to catch me. I was determined to not let that happen. It's a short enough race that 10 minutes is a lot to make up. I knew we were pretty evenly matched in the run and swim, so I just had to make sure he didn't make it all up on the bike. I was heading back towards the finish line during the run and probably had a little over a mile to go. Since it's an out and back course, I could easily see how I was doing. All of a sudden, he's running on the other side of the path and says "Hi Jess" and I was floored. He was SO much closer than I had anticipated. I then dug deep and took off running and didn't stop until I crossed the line. He crossed about 30 seconds later. It was a close one (and yes, he made it all up on the bike).
You could say we're a little competitive with each other, but in a good way. We're also very supportive of each other. This will be his first Ironman and I'm excited that I'll there doing it along side of him (or a few minutes back).
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