Ironman Florida 2008

Looks a little rougher out there today, even though winds are calm. It still looks manageable, though. Anything but this.

The Ironman Florida site says, in reference to cutoffs:

"What are the cut-off times? Swim: 2h20, Swim/Bike: 10h15 (Florida Race Only - all other fulls are 10:30), Swim/Bike/Run 17hrs"

Which is the same information at the Ironman Arizona website and at the Ironman Wisconsin website, except with a 15 minute earlier bike cutoff in Florida (presumably due to the earlier sunset in November).

However, at the latter two events, apparently there was an additional cutoff added of 9:00PM or 14 hours from the swim start to reach the halfway point of the marathon (13.1 miles). Read one account of an encounter with this cutoff here.

Forwarned is forearmed. Don't be cut off.

These photos really scare me. Please tell me they never get surf like that in the Gulf.

49 days.

7 times 7.

Here we go. . . .

From http://www.trigeekdreams.com/ today - he says definitely send in your photos to him, 5 per person!!

How cool, eh!!???

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IMFL competitors: Be a movie star
This idea came from Robo-Stu, who has a big heart for a man of steel.

We're going to put together a video for Ironman Florida competitors and anyone else who is interested. We'll marry up inspiring music and with the competitors' favorite race and training photos. The world premiere of the Cecil B. Kahuna film will take place after the carbo-load dinner on Thursday night. We'll also put the video on YouTube.com for others to see.

This will be just the inspirational tool to get us all geeked up about Ironman Florida.

Here's how you can help:

1. Ironman Florida competitors: E-mail the Kahuna (trigreekdreams@yahoo.com) your favorite five (more or less) photos of you competing or training.

2. Anyone else: E-mail the Kahuna (trigreekdreams@yahoo.com) a photo somehow contains an inspirational message (written or other otherwise) for those who are competing in Florida. Extra credit will be given for creativity.

All right. Send them quickly because the Kahuna has a deadline to meet!

Congratulations to everyone who toed the line yesterday at Ironman Wisconsin and gave it their best. According to the local weather records, yesterday it only got up to 59*F, 14 degrees below the average temperature, there were 0.46 inches of rain during the day, and the wind speeds were as high as 20 mph with gusts to 23 mph. Brutal conditions for everyone! Special credit goes to those Iron Volunteers who were out there sharing the nasty conditions with the athletes, making the event possible for them, doing the dirty work without the opportunity to get a medal for their efforts.

According to preliminary 2006 results, of the 2439 triathletes who completed the swim portion of the course, at least 266 of them (10.9%) never made it to the finish line. Of 2475 starters, 302 (12.2%) got DNFs.

And yet today, the registration for next year's triathlon was completely sold out within one hour.

What kind of crazy sport is this!? There's a lot of people out there who want a chance at that challenging course and many more with scores to settle there!

The weather at Ironman Wisconsin today couldn't be any more opposite to last year's heat wave. Today in Madison it's cold, wet, and blustery.

At about 1PM local time, weather reports for Madison, Wisconsin said:
57.7 °F / 14.3 °C
Light Rain
Humidity: 96%
Dew Point: 57 °F / 14 °C
Wind: 6.0 mph / 9.7 km/h from the ENE
Wind Gust: 15.0 mph / 24.1 km/h
Pressure: 30.19 in / 1022.2 hPa
Visibility: 10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers
UV: 2 out of 16
Clouds: Few 1900 ft / 579 m
Scattered Clouds 2800 ft / 853 m
Overcast 3300 ft / 1005 m

I hope all our triathlete and blogger friends are having a great time out there and negotiating the day's challenges well!

Then again, it is reassuring to look at the actual Panama City Beach webcam from time to time and see that the ocean is occasionally as smooth as glass, as it was today. Ahh, that would be perfect, to be able to watch the little fishies swimming around to pass the time during the swim! (Thanks for the reminder, Kathy!)

Update: Here's a daytime shot from this morning. Doesn't that look like a nice spot for a peaceful refreshing swim? With 2500 of your best friends?

If I weren't worried enough about the Ironman Florida 2.4-mile ocean swm, this part of a commentary on Steve Irwin's death reinforced some of my deepest fears:

"The oceans are a rougher and more difficult wilderness for humans to function in than any encountered by terrestrial or space explorers. The sea pummels us with an unbreathable and corrosive liquid medium; altered visual and acoustic characteristics; changing temperatures, depth and pressures; upwellings; tides; currents; sudden storms and giant waves. Drowning, not animals, accounts for the vast majority of ocean-related deaths, including about 200,000 in the giant Asian tsunami of December 2004 and many of the 1,800 people who died as a result of Hurricane Katrina."

I was just over at Comm's site, where he's ranting about something-or-other, and I noticed his Ironman Florida countdown timer.

58 days to the Big Day.

*gulp*

I sort of feel like the wind was just knocked out of me.

Less than two months. That's the blink of an eye.

Good luck to all of those fellow bloggers tackling Ironman Wisconsin, a.k.a. IMMOO, this weekend! We will be watching with great interest!

Tides for Panama City Beach (outside) starting with November 4, 2006:

Day        High     Tide   Height   Sunrise    Moon  Time      % Moon
         /Low      Time    Feet    Sunset                    Visible

Sa   4      Low   3:23 AM     0.0   6:00 AM     Set  4:53 AM      96
    4     High   6:33 PM     1.8   4:54 PM    Rise  4:11 PM

So we'll have a low tide to start, and a nearly full moon on the run for those of us finishing well after dark.