Louisville, Colorado IRONKIDS

The Louisville, Colorado IRONKIDS triathlon was Sunday morning! Louisville is right outside of Boulder, CO (as I discovered when I Map Quest’ed the directions)…and it’s about 10 degrees HOTTER than Colorado Springs!
On Saturday morning I had a really tough swim/bike combo workout…5000 meters in the pool followed by 8 repeats of the “Cave of the Wind’s” hill on the bike. After I got back to the training center, showered, packed, and ate lunch…I started driving to Louisville. It should have only taken 1.5 hours but with construction traffic on I-25, it took 2 hours…by the time I got to the rec-center to help with the registration, the entire crowd had already registered (sorry Jnet!). After helping with the last minute preparations, I checked into my hotel room and got ready for my last workout of the day, a light, one hour run.
IronKids always takes care of their volunteers and crew…this time it was a delicious dinner at Carrabba’s Italian Grill with a great group of 15 people and fun conversation. Hunter Kemper and his wife Val also drove up to help at the race…he got his start as an IronKid too! After eating and chatting, I had to get to sleep early…not only because the race started early in the morning, but I had to complete my tempo running workout before heading to the race site. That meant setting a 5:00am alarm clock and getting out the door and onto the running trails by 5:15am! It was extremely hard to do, but just thinking about the 100 degree heat the IronKids were going to be racing in later in the day…I wanted to complete my workout when it was nice and cool as the sun rose!
I got to the Louisville rec center in the middle of the madness that is race morning as a member of the race staff. We needed volunteers like crazy…everyone was doing the job of 5 people. After helping get the first wave of kids into the water, I headed down to the finish line to act as the back-up timing system for each finisher. In my opinion, it’s the best places to be on race day…cheering for each kid as they cross the finish line and run through the finish tape.
All the IronKids finished, the photos were taken, and the awards were distributed by noon. The IronKids crew (or Carnies as they like to call themselves) know what they are doing…they can tear down the race site and load the truck in under 2 hours! Unfortunately, I was unable to stay and help because, again, I had to get back for some training. The return drive was much faster…and I finished off the day with a bike & run brick session.
The weekend was a lot of fun and I’m so sad that I won’t be able to attend any of the other IronKids races this year…I have my own races to compete in! But there is talk about maybe 18 different IronKids races in 2007…I’m sure that I will be able to help at more than 2! For the national championships in Tempe, AZ on October 1st, 2006…Hunter is going to be the spokesperson…so I’ve left the kids in good hands:)!