Tempe Road Trip: Arizona Ironman 2012

Arizona Ironman Finish Line

So, I have officially, well at least mentally, committed to my first Ironman distance triathlon, Ironman Arizona 2012.  Because of the demand for most Ironman events, the only way to guarantee that I can have the 'privilege' of competing is to volunteer at the previous year's event.  So, that's what I did.  My friend Jason and I decided to make the road trip out to Tempe, Arizona and work as a volunteer at the 2011 race.

We signed up for our volunteer spots a couple months ago.  I suggest doing this, since you'll have a better selection of volunteer options.  There's about one volunteer per racer at a large event like this.  Jason and I chose a shift at one of the run aid stations.  We were able to get an early shift, and a short one too.  More on that later.

As Jason likes to say, "to make a long story longer", here goes...My daughters were staying with Grandma, so I was all set.  We drove out Friday night, and were staying at a budget motel, a couple miles away from the race area.  The volunteer meeting was 9am on Saturday morning, so we headed over a little early to check out the expo area.  You could feel the energy in the air around the expo area.  The athletes were checking in their gear, and they had one last chance to get in a practice swim at Tempe Brown..er..um...Town Lake.

Before the swim start

After the volunteer meeting, Jason and I hung around the expo area for a while, running in to a few friends, and then off to lunch, Fatburger.  What? I'm not racing this year.  This was my first visit to downtown Tempe, and I really like the Mill St. area.  Later in the evening we met some friends for dinner, three of the four of them were racing Sunday morning.  The Mill St. area was super busy with everyone in town for the Ironman race and that night was the ASU/Arizona football game.  We made it an early night, since the plan was to get up and watch the start of the race.

Aid Station set-up

Race morning, we made our way to one of the bridges over the water.  As the crowd grew, we realized we were on the 'wrong' bridge.  Since we didn't have time to get over to the 'right' bridge, we watched the start from where we were.  If you haven't seen a mass swim start of a large event like this, it's pretty amazing.  2,500 people all swimming together, to the same location.  I suggest going to YouTube and search for "Ironman Arizona swim start."

Bike coral, pre-race

Next, we headed to the swim exit to watch the pros and lead AGers come out of the water.  Somewhere around 70-75 minutes after the AGers start, the transition area starts to get hectic.  The volunteers handing out the T1 bags and the bikes can't keep up with the flow of people.  From there, we moved over to watch the bikers as they headed out on the three loop bike course.  We began to make our way over towards where our run aid station was, but we still had some time to kill so we stood along the bike course and cheered on the racers as they went out on their 112 mile journey.  We had time to wait for the pros to finish their first lap and see them as they come back into Tempe towards 'hot corner.'  Hot corner is a spot on the course where you can sit and watch the bikes as well as the runners.  This is probably the most spectator friendly race I've been too, which is one of the reasons I chose it for my first full 140.6 race.

Keep going Frank

From there, we made our way to our aid station.  Our shift was the first shift, which basically meant that we were there to unload the truck and set up the aid station for the long day ahead.  This aid station was mostly filled with volunteers from a local college women's rowing team.  Our shift was done even before the pros came through, so we decided to stay and work a little longer.  Ultimately, we ended up staying for an extra four hours.  This gave us a chance to see the top pros go by on each of the three loops, and we had a chance to see all of our friends come through.

After dinner, we headed over to the finish line to watch some of the finishers come through.  This is a very inspirational part of the race.  You're seeing people that have just raced for 8 to 17 hours continuously.  The bulk of the top AGers come through between 9 and 11 hours.  One of the great traditions of Ironman races is for the top pros to come back to the finish line to cheer on the racers coming through at the final hour, hours 16 to 17.

Monday morning was the main reason I was there, to sign up for next year.  The volunteer registration opened up at 8am, which is when I got in line.  Well, almost three hours later, I made it to the registration tent, and I did it, I signed up for Arizona Ironman 2012.  I later heard that the online registration sold out in 10 minutes, so I'm glad I made the trip.  Jason promised he'll be out there to volunteer again next year, and of course, sign up for 2013.  I'll make sure he doesn't forget.

And so it begins, my journey to complete my first Ironman race...

Me and Tim O'donnell

Lindsey Corbin

Eneke Llanos