The Race to Get Into the Race

The Race to Get Into the Race

Ironman Arizona is a week away (November 16). Yet another pack of endorphin-crazed athletes will be toeing the line for many different reasons, but mostly just to see if they can do it or how fast they can do it. Those of us who do long endurance events frequently hear things like, "You're crazy," or "Haven't you got anything better to do with your time?" Ah, but if only they knew what some of us do just to get into the race in the first place. Behold …

Ironman-branded races (Ironman is actually a brand owned by the World Triathlon Corporation) can be difficult to get into. Most of the races fill up very quickly so you have to commit a year in advance. The current year's participants get first crack at signing up, then volunteers who helped at the race, then general public on-site, then it opens to online registration if there are any spaces remaining. Some races, like Ironman Arizona, are so popular that the online registration literally opens and closes within a few minutes or, as happened the last few years, within seconds. There have been years when some ironman races don't even make it to online registration because enough people sign up on-site. 

I first encountered that phenomenon in 2011 when I tried to sign up for the 2012 Arizona race. The online entry forms for Ironman races are ridiculously long, but I was prepared. I had all of my information ready to copy/paste into the form and was off and running as soon as it opened. It's amazing how stressful it is to fill out a simple (but long) website form when you know the clock is ticking. I think I actually worked up a sweat. On one of the forms, I hit the button at the bottom to continue and it told me I had forgotten to click one of the required boxes at the top. I took a few seconds to find the box, check it and move on. That would come back to bite me. I made my way to the last field on the last page and was entering my credit card expiration date when the keys stopped working. I thought my keyboard had gone dead or my Internet connection had stopped working. I was in a mild panic when I scrolled to the top of the page and found a message saying the race was now full. Seriously? I figure I missed it by about 10 seconds. Let's just say it's a good thing the kids weren't home because some colorful words were spoken.

To say I was frustrated would be an understatement. I had done my first Ironman earlier that year and I was itching to do another one. I didn't have the budget to go anywhere except the west coast so I figured I was out of luck. In the end, it wound up working out well because I was able to get into Ironman St. George. I loved that community and race and then got to have a great adventure with my daughter as we drove back home from southern Utah. We toured several national parks along the way and encountered the world's best tuna sandwiches at Cafe Soleil just outside of Zion National Park. Silver linings indeed.

Last year, however, I wanted to give myself a better chance to get into the 2014 race so I decided to fill a volunteer spot and sign up on-site after the race. It was also a good excuse to go visit my family down in Phoenix since I hadn't yet been there. Well, even that is difficult to get into. By the time I decided to do this a couple of months before the race, the volunteer slots were already filled. I got on the waiting list to see if spots opened up and one eventually did at a running aid station. Sweet! 

My volunteer shift wasn't until the late afternoon, but I went to the race by 7 A.M. so I could be there for the start, follow some friends who were racing, and check out the logistics of the course to prepare for the following year. I had a great day of cheering the racers, sending tons of texts and Facebook posts back and forth with friends around the country who were helping me keep track of where our racers were at so I could be at the right place at the right time to cheer them on. Special shout out to Ginny, who was there trying to qualify for Kona. It was fun yelling out her current age group placing as she zoomed by. This was my first experience on the spectator side of an ironman and it gave me a new appreciation for it. It's exhausting! At one point, I found myself in a Starbucks to recharge my phone (together with several dozen of my new spectator friends) and just to sit down for a while before dashing off to catch the next racer friend coming by.

At the appointed time, I showed up at the aid station location and met with the team captain to get my volunteer shirt. Going into this, I knew I would probably have to get up a little early the day after the race in order to line up with the other volunteers and sign up for next year's race since registration opened at 8 A.M. Imagine my surprise when the team captain said if I wanted to get into next year's race, I would need to get in line sometime between 3 and 5 A.M. Um, what? Yes, he explained to me and another slack-jawed volunteer that more than 3,000 of the 4,000+ volunteers had said they want to sign up for the race. Keep in mind the volunteer sign up is after a large portion of the current year's participants had already signed up for a race that has less than 3,000 spots total. That means I would get back to my mom's house (a 45-minute drive away) late from the race, get a couple of hours of sleep then head back down to the race site to get in line to sign up for the race. Alrighty then, away we go.

The volunteer shift was great fun and I highly recommend it even if you don't like to race these kinds of things. The time flies by and you get to see people out there in all sorts of different mental and physical condition, but always moving forward. My aid station was at an out-and-back portion of the course where I'd see the same runners four times at roughly miles 6, 12, 18, and 24. It's a massive and constant stream of people, but after a while, we could start to pick out people we recognized from a previous pass. Some happier at that point, some not so much, but still moving forward. Many of the volunteers knew people running and phones were ringing with texts as others let us know when our people were getting close. We'd temporarily cover for each other when one of our folks would come by so we could run with them for a few steps to cheer them on. When Ginny came by with two miles to go, I had the great privilege of telling her she was 10 minutes up on the third-place person in her age group and got to watch her raise her arms in joy. She knew that meant she was likely going to Kona, which she did and just completed last month. It was awesome. 

After my volunteer shift, I walked back to the finish line area in the dark. Along the way, I got to briefly meet another friend, Shaker, who was still moving forward and was in good spirits despite having a tough run. It was nice to be able to text his wife to let her know he was ok because we'd lost contact with him on the race tracker. I completely missed Mark, though, who was in the process of finishing his first ironman after struggles in previous ones, but Ginny got to see him so that was good. I hung around at the finish for a while and was eventually able to meet up with Ginny and have a nice long talk. I headed back to the house sometime around 10 pm with my legs aching from standing, walking, running all day. It certainly wasn't to the level of discomfort for those who were racing, but the general feeling was surprisingly similar.

I decided I couldn't handle getting back there at 3 A.M. and I doubted that many people would show up that early anyway. I got up a little before 4 and got back to the race site at about 4:45. Myself and many other volunteers walked towards the race site looking for where the volunteer line was. Some people eventually directed us to the back side of the park near the bike rack area. When I first saw the line, it looked like there were a couple of hundred people in line so I thought, cool, I'll just have to wait here a while, but I'll definitely be able to register. I was soon corrected, however, as somebody else in line pointed out all of the places I couldn't see where the line went. Hmm. This might be closer than I thought. After about an hour, the powers-that-be started to move the front of line from what I found out was a staging area to where the final line would be located. As the line moved, they snaked us through the park and that's when I that's when I got a true appreciation of how long the line was and how many more people had showed up after me.

Once the line finally got to the place where it would be until registration opened in another two hours or so, we settled in and started calculating. Let's see, how many racers do you think already signed up for next year? Maybe 1,000? 1,500? Let's see, if that leaves about 1,500 spots remaining, are we far enough up in line to get in? What about the speed pass people? I had no idea what that was. Apparently, you could sign up for the unpopular volunteer shifts and they would give you a speed pass that worked similar to how it does at Disney. The speed pass folks got to be in a separate line right at the front and would get to register before the rest of of us normal volunteers. Dang, wish I had known about that. 

After a while, you could literally see people standing there and counting. We saw people trading off spots in line so others could go to the front of the line and then walk back, counting along the way. We'd watch people continually showing up to get in line and then perversely enjoy their reaction when they saw how long the line was. It made us feel better that at least we had a better shot than them. Ungenerous, I know, but at that point you're looking for any positive you can get to the stupid thing you are doing by standing in line for hours in order to pay hundreds of dollars for something that is a year away. 

I never did find out exactly where I was in line, but I estimated I was about halfway through it. At times, we could see people walking by with video cameras to capture the whole thing. The video below, by Mike Kichler, gives a great idea of what it was like. This one was shot after registration had opened so the line had already shrunk for a bit as some people were done. I couldn't find myself in this one, but judging by the light at the time and where I remember being, I think I was somewhere between the 1:20 - 1:30 mark of the video.

As the person in the video explained, there were also people who showed up to camp in line overnight. They were turned away, but they gave them special wristbands that allowed them to come back in the morning and get in the front of the line. Dang, I wish I had known about that one too. In addition to the volunteer line, there was yet another line of people from the general public. They would get to sign up after the volunteers, if there were any spots left open.

Despite our angst wondering if there would be enough spots left, in the end, I was able to register as was everybody else in the volunteer line. Even volunteers who didn't show up for the line until 8 were able to get in. Damn, there was a missed sleeping opportunity. To my surprise, everybody in the general public line was also able to register AND it opened up online for a short time. In fact, a friend back home was able to register online from the comfort of his own house. Seriously? 

Ok, while I know it would have been a lot cheaper and much less of an endurance effort just to get into the race, it was a great experience and I'm glad I did it. I got to visit with family, experience a new race from the other side of the barriers, and cheer some people on in person. I found myself excited to be signed up for two ironman races in 2014 and looked forward to going back to Arizona. 

The only problem is, after all that, I won't be there. More on that in the next post, but here's a clue.