IMWI Weekend Adventure - Sunday 1

I apologize for the tardiness of this post. As much as I have wanted for over a week to sit down and write it, work had to come first. It's turning out to be huge, so I'll put it out a piece at a time. Please let me know if it's too big - a lot happened and I wasn't sure what you'd care to hear about.

When I woke up Sunday morning my first thought, after internally bemoaning my still-rotten cold, was concern for the athletes. The weather was nothing like the forecast predicted - it was downright chilly with a light rain.

I paused on the walk to my van to stare at my watch, counting down to 7:00. I had a twinge a regret for not seeing them off in person, silently wished the racers a safe swim and headed for Verona. I was halfway there when my phone rang; it was the Bike Sag Captain asking me if I was "at Monona Terrace." Considering the lengths I'd gone to not 24 hours before to pin him down to meeting me at the Verona aid station (HIS choice of location, btw), I was speechless for a moment. Then, doing my best to hold back the frustration and incredulity from my voice, I let him know I was pulling up to Verona where we had agreed to meet. He said he'd be there in 20 minutes. It was nearly 30 minutes before I saw him, but since the racers were still in the water I wasn't too concerned about starting the shift a few minutes late.

What I was concerned about was something I'd wondered the day before and hoped would magically reveal itself to me when the time came. I had no idea how I was supposed to drive along the bike route and give the athletes enough room. Unfortunately, this concern had a lot of merit.

Got my radio, got loaded up with water (which I found ironic and unnecessary, especially considering I'd already brought a cooler full of cold beverages, but they insisted) and got some food from an aid station - the stuff they say to have in case you pick up athletes. After some brief instructions on how to get around the Verona roadblocks (that had closed since I'd arrived), I was on my way. Sans, btw, the Race Support window clings he'd said we needed, because he didn't have them. He gave me a makeshift paper sign (but no tape), so every time I approached police blocks I had to hold up the damn sign to get through.

I was feeling very official with the radio and all - I got to hear everything going on from the control center whether it was related to my station or not. This was a bit unsettling when I began to hear frantic calls for heaters and amubulances as the later swimmers emerged from the water, some clearly hypothermic.

I wasn't on duty 5 minutes when the first call about a distressed cyclist came in - she was barely out of Monona Terrace, still on the bike path. They were being polite on the air, but it sounded like the swim had shaken her up badly and she was dizzy and vomiting. Control called for Bike Sag One and asked if I could get her... there were a couple of problems with this. First, I'd been told by my captain that nobody needs help that close to home and not to go that far down the course. Second, I had no way to reach her on the bike path (I later heard them saying it wasn't even safe to take the golf carts down the path for fear of hitting cyclists). Third, I was in stinkin' Verona, at least 20 minutes away. So, I regretfully had to tell them I couldn't reach her; at least a medic stayed with her until she could walk to a nearby spot another volunteer happened to be at for a ride.

I marveled at the ridiculous number of tech support calls for flats. By 10 am the list was over 25 athletes long and all the Tech Support guys could say was "we'll get there when we can." I stopped for every cyclist I saw on the side of the road but it was so early in the race (some hadn't gone 10 miles yet) that nobody was cold enough yet to give up over a flat. One poor guy I stopped for was on his third flat in 15 miles. I heard various theories for this, but the one that made the most sense was that the moisture made road debris stick to the tires.

I can sum up the experience of patrolling the bike course in two words: nerve wracking.

On the way to Madison I had a different lane than the cyclists, but always had to be on the lookout for cars coming the other way who were in my lane. Because of the rain I was concerned about getting stuck in the soft ditches as I pulled off to let them by.

On the way to Verona I had to share the lane with the cyclists, which is essentially impossible to do. I drove on the left when I could, but with all the rolling hills this is incredibly risky because of vehicles coming from the other direction that can't see you. Even with the rain and cold I left my windows open so I could hear the cyclists yell if I got too close. Even with windows open and constantly watching the mirrors and checking over my shoulder all the time, frankly my van has some pretty bad blind spots and I was flat out terrified of impinging a cyclist's space and putting them in danger.

I was told by my captain to "always obey traffic laws" because he has witnessed the police ticketing race support vehicles who did not. Imagine straddling the center line, cyclists in front of and behind you and some of them passing so sharing the lane beside you, the sound of rain, the annoying slap of windshield wipers, the crackling and constant radio chatter... and approaching a 4-way stop full of cops and with cars backed up in every direction (except yours). You can't get over in the left lane because there's a car stopped in the oncoming lane across the intersection.

What would you do? Yeah - I didn't know either.

In desperation I thought about the one other piece of advice I'd received from my captain - "just honk at them and move into the lane, they'll get out of your way" - and thought the same thing about it then as I did when I first heard it (more or less "are you fucking kidding me there's no way in hell anyone in their right mind would do that").

What I actually did was slow way down (and I'd only been going maybe 15mph), trying to simultaneously watch the cop and my mirrors, hoping for a space between cyclists to squeeze over a bit. As I slowed, I hear a woman screaming from behind "GO CAR GO NO DON'T STOP GO!!!!" while the red-faced cop - who had not visibly waved me through - shouted something like 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU CAN'T STOP' I'm still not sure how I made it through the damn intersection without hitting anyone.

GREAT for the ol' blood pressure. And I was signed up for 5 hours of this.

One thing I will say about working this station is that you truly have to have a lot on the ball. I tried to think of a nice way to say that without implying any disparagment of my fellow volunteers, but..... Hmm. How to explain. Here's one example of the are-you-freaking-kidding-me-ness I encountered. One of the Bike Sag drivers called in to Control and then.... you could hear her breathing, you could hear her talking to her friend in the car, wondering why they didn't answer... this went on for nearly a minute, and I'm sure every other volunteer with a radio was screaming along with me: "LET GO OF THE DAMN BUTTON YOU F&*%^NG MORON!!!"

Eventually she must have decided they weren't going to answer and let the button go so Control was able to respond. I marveled at the politness with which he explained to her how the "push to talk" button works and that she should please keep in mind when she held it down she was blocking radio traffic from everyone on that channel.

Around 9:00 I started to keep my eyes open for Iron Wil, TriSaraTops and the other Tri-Bloggers I'd met Friday. I can't remember what time it was, but I did catch a glimpse of Iron Wil when she was around mile 12. It was so quick I barely realized it was her before she blew by, so I was left cheering and clapping alone in my car. I'm also pretty sure I saw Pharmie around mile 10.

Around 8:20 the two lead cyclists passed through the first aid station just as I happened to be there. I can't tell you how exciting it was to see the lead car with the clock on top. I grabbed my camera and shot, but unfortunately it had been jostled around in my pocket and the setting got bumped from picture to movie. (Nope, it doesn't appear it actually recorded a movie either.) By the time I realized it the lead male was past and the female lead was just passing. All I caught was the tail of her fast-moving rear wheel.

The tail end of the lead female cyclist as she blows by on Whalen Road.

Around 9:30 Control starting requesting information on the final cyclist on the course, but it was quite a while before they had confirmation on it. I knew as soon as she passed I was out of a job, so I was keeping my eyes open as well. I was making my last trip towards Madison when I found her, looking great after what had to have been a rotten 2-plus hour swim.

Final cyclist out of T1, very early in the race.

As soon as she passed I got on the radio and asked my captain what I should do next. I had 90 minutes left in my shift. There had been an enormous amount of activity from the northern section of the loop, so when my captain was stumped speechless over my question I suggested I head up to help them out. He said that sounded great and to meet him at the Cross Plains aid station.

After a seeming eternity of dodging bikes and winding roads and frustration, I was still more than 20 miles from Cross Plains. Right at Bike Special Needs I happened across a volunteer I recognized from the previous day's meeting and he gave me directions for a great shortcut up Cty P. Had he not, I might literally have pulled over and cried from frustration. More of the same, really - map sucked, no directions provided, didn't know the area, was stuck following the bike course, which is inherently slow, dangerous and stressful.

En route to Cross Plains there was a huge amount of radio chatter about some very cold cyclists who had made their way to the aid station and were waiting for transport back to Madison. The Sag van assigned to the area was already full with a load back to Monona, and it would probably be at least an hour before they could be picked up. I got on and informed Control that I was free and on my way to that location; they said that was perfect and instructed me to do the transport.

I arrive at Cross Plains, I find the guy in charge of the aid station, he says "great!" they're cold and have been waiting a long time, let me go get them. As I see him talking to the cyclists, the Bike Sag captain runs over, dramatically waving me off and telling me that's not my job. Um... hello?! My part of the course is empty, there's 30 freaking minutes left in my shift, these guys have no one else to take them AND I was pretty sure I needed to meet the guy taking over my shift at Monona at noon. How much more fucking logical a solution can there possibly be?

He would not let me take them back.

He ordered me to patrol from Cross Plains to Mt. Horeb (which was already freaking covered by another van, so all he did was create a situation where we'd have to pass each other in the ditches), and he said if I did that loop and the cyclists were still here when I got back, then I could take them back. At this point there's like 25 minutes left in my shift, I'm at least a half hour from Madison and he's telling me to do a loop that will take at least an hour. I debated the wisdom of arguing with him, maybe explaining that I didn't have a Tesseract in my back pocket to make this ridiculous timeline work out, but decided not to rock the boat and go ahead with his stupid instructions. I hadn't scheduled back-to-back shifts and had a little time before I was due in T2, plus there was a cyclist on that section who had been out there for more than an hour waiting for Tech Support. I figured I could check on her status - miraculously, my captain suggested the same thing.

Just a few minutes after setting on out this mission I saw Iron Wil at roughly mile 37. She caught my eye and flashed me a great big smile, then tucked back in and continued on her way. She looked strong and happy and I was excited knowing I should see her in T2.

I found the stranded rider without much trouble around mile 34 - she was about a half mile north of the little jog on Mineral Springs Road between the two sections of Garfoot Road. She was in the driveway of a very nice woman who had done everything in her power to make racer 2279 comfortable. The athlete was concerned about being disqualified, so refused to come inside from the cold. The wonderful woman brought her hot coffee, offered her food, wrapped her in a blanket and stood by her side the entire time.

When I arrived she had been waiting for 90 minutes. She had arrived only wearing a tri suit, but when I found her she was wearing: a shirt a volunteer had literally taken off their back, a jacket from the woman's home, and was wrapped in a blanket. She was still covered in goosebumps.

I got on the radio and asked again how far away Tech Support was. They'd had something like 12 calls in that stretch - so much so they'd sent a patrol looking for something deliberate on the road. Their disheartening response, which I was sorry 2279 overheard, was "tell her we'll get there when we get there." I think the problem was that there are two sections of Garfoot road, because in the 15 minutes or so I stood with her I gave them extremely specific directions at least 3 times.

Control came back with a polite version of 'WTF are you doing up there with her when we told you to bring the cyclists back from Cross Plains?!' My very carefully worded response (while the wide-eyed athlete and bystander listened in disbelief) was "I saw my captain and am doing what he told me."

This racer really tore my heart out. She was a petite blond but clearly made of Iron. Her emotions ranged wildly as I talked to her, tried to take her mind off the ridiculous situation.

She said, with tears in her eyes: "It's ok if they're not coming. Just tell me if they're not coming so I can know I can go get warm. If I'd known they weren't coming I'd have gone with the first guy over an hour ago."

She said, with resignation: "Well, I've always had good Ironman races before, I was bound to have a bad one sometime."

She screamed, jumping up and down with tears and rage and frustration: "They're never coming this just isn't right where are they?!"

I promised not to leave 2279's side until the situation was resolved, but she did make me drive down a bit to make sure the techs weren't on the other side of Mineral Point Road. When I returned from this little loop, maybe 15 minutes, the Techs had finally arrived.

She asked, with genuine concern, after the bike tech finally put on the new tire after a two hour wait: "Do I have time to finish the first loop cutoff?"

The tech answered nonchalantly "you've got time." I thought his answer was just too quick and too easy - he didn't even look at his watch. I didn't know there was a first loop cut-off, nor when it was, so I couldn't do anything but hope he wasn't full of it.

She removed the layers (giving me the volunteer's shirt, which I still have and will always remember her by). Ran a few steps with her bike, started to get on but then stopped and came back. Insisted on getting the woman's name. Insisted on getting mine. Thanked us both, and then resumed her race.

She did make the bike cutoff - including the 2 hour wait, her bike split was 8:27. I wish I could report that she conquered the awful morning and went on to finish but she, like so many racers that day, succumbed to the cold and did not start the run.

As soon as she was off safely I decided to blow off going to Mt. Horeb and headed back to the Cross Plains aid station. Sidebar: another organization problem I noted was that the bike volunteers referred to the aid stations by city name, but the Control center referred to them by numbers. If you don't happen to know the precise location of every aid station on the bike route, then when Control tells you to go to Bike Aid 3 you're pretty much screwed unless you want to ask - for the entire volunteer staff to hear - where that is (I had to do this humiliating thing. Just one more item on the list of things that irritated the crap out of me.) The bike course map does not include city names or aid stations.

On the way I called my Captain to let him know where I was headed - at this point is was nearly an hour past the scheduled end of my shift and I was still a half hour from Madison even with the shortcut. I asked him where I was supposed to meet the guy who supposedly started my route at noon so I could pass along the radio (without which you literally cannot function in this job).

He had no idea, so his grand plan (which took multiple radio contacts and cell phone calls to work out) was for me to give the radio to the aid station captain and instruct him to pass it along to "a guy named Tim in a white van."

Done rolling your eyes now? 'Kay.

So I handed off my radio. Oh, and another van had just been by 10 minutes prior and took the athletes (who waited nearly two hours) back to Monona. That took my grand total of athletes transported during my 6+ hours on the job to: ZERO.

By some miracle I found my way back to County P, pausing only once on the side of the road to call my husband at home (convinced I was somehow northbound instead of south), lamenting that I was lost in rural Wisconsin and to please Mapquest my ass out of the situation. By some stroke of luck I was going the right way (I tried to figure out my direction by the sun, but there wasn't any) and reassured, continued on.

Made it to Madison around 2, swung through a McDonald's to grab a lunch I couldn't taste anyway from my cold, stopped by the hotel just long enough to choke down my sandwich and change shirts for my next volunteer station.

Then I headed out to work T2.

Final Note: As bad as this sounds, I was still very happy to be of assistance to the athletes. I'm sure nobody would question it if I never worked this job again, and I debated it. In reality, I left this shift resolved to continue working it in future races until I know it well enough to take it over someday so the racers can get the support they deserve.