Ironman Arizona 2007

140.6 miles

226.3 km

That's about the distance from Glasgow to Aberdeen. Somehow Amanda and I plan on doing that distance, under our own steam, next Sunday. We start off with a 2.4 mile swim - about the distance across the Clyde, from Cardross to Greenock, then we hop on our bikes and ride for 112 miles - from Glasgow, that would get you to Fort William. Then, after that brisk 7 hour warm up, we do a quick 26.2 mile marathon on foot to round out the race. In one day. Without getting any sleep. Us and 2,400 other people. But we are ready.

This all started about a year ago - I got an email from Amanda: Topic: ironman AZ Date: 05/02/2006 From: "McGregor Amanda-A14120" To: "Gordon McGregor" registration is up!!!!!! April 15th 2007... Let's do it!!!!!!!

My first response was to tell her she was mad. So was my second and third responses. But after a couple of days, she wore me down (or actually, just signed me up anyway!) So we started on this crazy journey to finish one of the hardest races around. We joined a training group in Austin, called T3 and made a load of new friends. There will be 30 of us traveling out to Arizona to race together, which adds to the shared insanity. I took about 6 months just trying to get fit enough to start the training, dropped 25lbs and mentally got myself to a point where it didn't seem such a ridiculous goal. Then we started the training. 20+ mile long runs in the cold and wet. 6 hours freezing on a bike. Swimming in the dark and cold. Amanda kept better track than I did, but we've swam over 50 miles, rode over 2000 miles and ran 450 miles training since September. Oh, we are ready.

So we fly out to Tempe on Wednesday evening to start the final stages of this long journey. This is the time to really enjoy : the race. The training was hard, the race is going to be hard, but nothing is going to stop us finishing. Someone will need to drag me off the course. Plenty can go wrong, but I'm not stopping. 7am next Sunday morning, the canon fires and we take off in the mass swim start in Tempe town lake. 2000+ bodies swimming along side each other, punching, kicking, pushing and jostling for position. I can't wait. We are ready!

The race starts at 7am. Swim should be a little over an hour, maybe 1:15, so we should be on our bikes some time around 8:30am, then spending 6 or more hours riding around Tempe. If things go well, we should be starting the run somewhere before 3pm, right when things will be getting hot! Then the marathon. My best time ever was over 5 hours, but that was a horrible experience! I'm hoping for a slightly better marathon this time around, but all things considered, I think we should be finishing close to 8pm around the 13 hour mark. We have 17 hours to finish, before they close the course and tell us to go home, so I think I have a good chance of getting there. I'm ready. Just to give some frame of reference for friends & family around the world, here's the times. I'm not claiming to be hitting any of these marks though! This is just a rough guide. My race number is 694. Amanda is 2114. You can track us through the day at www.ironmanlive.com and see how we are doing. Though, if we don't appear, don't panic - it has been somewhat flaky in the past! There's more race details at www.ironmanarizona.com. Wish us luck! For Amanda's view on all this, check her blog.

p.s., Sorry for the lack of photo related blogging recently, maybe this explains in some small way, why.