Augusta IRONMAN 70.3

It's the final countdown... (I hope that song is in your head now, you are welcome)  

As my big race day approaches (September 29th!), I thought I'd finally share with the world what's going on and how friends/family can help encourage me along this journey, if you feel so inclined. I know Augusta is a bit of a hike for most, but you can also support me from a distance too! As you can see below from my nerdy statistics below, this race is a bit of an accomplishment, especially for someone who could barely run a mile a few years ago.
 

 

If you are interested in live tracking (online or via mobile), let me know. I will have to give you my bib # and the link to get set up when the time comes. It'll only take a minute to get started, and you'll get updates at each split - swim, bike, and run/finish! If you happen to want to make the trek out to Augusta, let me know as well! I will be there all weekend, so carpooling may not be convenient...but I'd love to have some familiar smiling faces at the finish line!

Just for basic info, I am bib number 2494, and my swim wave begins at 8:56am. (That's nearly an hour and a half after the first wave begins... I'm sure I won't be anxious during this time at all, ha!)

 

 

Here is little bit of background, goals, and nerdy statistics, just for fun!!!

 

IRONMAN is a race brand that is currently made up of two major distances: 
The IRONMAN (the 140.6 distance race) and the IRONMAN 70.3 (also known as long distance or half-Ironman).
The average race time for the IM 70.3 is a little over 6 hours. My ideal goal, other than just to finish, is to complete it in as close to 6 hours and I can...but I know that won't be easy, so I'm just going to do my best to finish! 
NFL player Hines Ward completed his IM 70.3 in just under 5 hours and 55 minutes - and this guy is not only paid to be an athlete, but he also had all the time in the world to train (unlike many of us with full time jobs).

So, that should give an idea of how long and big this race is, but just how big of a deal is it? How many crazy people actually put themselves through months and months of training only to push their body to it's physical/mental limits for hours on end? I did some googling and nerdy research, so here are the statistics. It's done based on world population b/c these are international races, so there's no easy way to distinguish US participation from the rest of the world.   

Number of years 70.3 IM has been running: 7
Number of 70.3 IMs each year: 60
Number of unique participants per IM race: 1,000
This estimate comes to:
  ~420,000 people having completed an IRONMAN 70.3 race
  ~60,000 competing in this distance annually
Considering a world population of ~7,000,000,000...

This comes out to basically: Each year only about 0.00086% of the world's population participates in an IRONMAN 70.3 race.

   About 0.006% of the world has participated in this distance since it's beginning in 2006... FYI, Chuck Norris isn't one of that small percentage!

   Including both IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3, about 0.018% of the world has participated in one or the other distance.
   Add into that the fact that less than 30% of participants are female, and only about 20% are ages 30-34.

At this point, the numbers hurt my brain, but as you can see, it's not every day that someone who claimed to hate running 2 years ago takes on an IRONMAN race. So, being one of the few, I could really use some fans on race day, even from a distance!

After countless months of pushing myself to train 6-7 days a week, and recently up to 15 hours/week for the last month, I am ready to see this madness pay off! 
And if you make it to the actual race, there will be some post-race beer drinking in celebration (after I eat a ton of food and drink a gallon of water, of course)!

Someone recently compared training on this level to having a baby. You prepare yourself mentally/physically/etc for 9 months, by the last few weeks your body is beginning to hate you a bit and you are just ready for day to get here. When the time comes, you spend hours pushing yourself to your physical/mental limits to see all the preparation pay off! (I guess the big difference is that I don't have to pay for my race for the next 18 years!)

 

Another way to support me in my IRONMAN journey is to help me raise funds for Operation IRONFREEDOM through the IRONMAN Foundation and the Scott Rigsby Foundation. It's a great cause that supports wounded soldiers returning from war and their families. To learn more about the cause or donate, click the link below!
http://ironman.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1049523&supid=389742632

Thank you so much for all the support!
 

Also, you should read this guy's story! What an inspiration!