Ironman Wisconsin-The swim

Your supposed to have very little sleep the night before an Ironman, but Tac managed to get in about 5 1/2 hours so when that alarm went off at 4:00 am he was feeling as ready as any iron virgin could. The previous 3 days had been filled with meeting up with new bloggers, eating and basically waiting for the inevitable. One thing Tac will never repeat for his next Ironman is arriving too early. There's no doubt that getting into registration the hour it opens, with virtually no line is nice, but standing in line is a good trade off to sitting around and fretting about a race of this enormity. Hounddog and resident superhero arrived on Wednesday night, next time the earliest Tac is coming in is the day of the carbo-load dinner. That way he can occupy his time until departure with comic book like heroics and other stuff until the last moment.
It's funny, Tac has never really enjoyed those feelings leading up to a race. They are the most irritating emotions he experiences in triathlon. Ironman is that much more exaggerated. Instead of being nervous the night before it's literally the WEEK before. My point is that when that alarm went off on Sunday morning, it was business time....Thank God!

Taconite Boy and Greyhound sitting for the last time on Iron Day. We arrived down at Verona Terrace around 5 am and waited for Trimama and Iron Steve to show. After saying our goodbye's Tac went back to his T1 bag because he forgot SOCKS for the bike ride. OOps. Before you knew it, it was 6:30 and we all were instructed to get on the helix and head down for the swim. Walking down, Tac looks to his left and there is Tri Shannon! We talked a little strategy said good luck and headed towards the water. Of course Tac forgot his wetsuit was still around his waist until he was about 100 feet from the water. The quick zipping of a fellow iron-athlete and a hefty pat on the back fixed all of that.

Entering the water. Surreal. No other word can descirbe this experience. I moved to the middle back of the swim pack (a mistake I would soon learn). Treading water I started to look around. The water temperature was perfect, the sun was rising to our left(east) like a burnt orange orb coming over the lake, in front of tac was 2400 swimmers treading water and getting ready to go. Tac looked to his right on Monona Terrace and easily could see 5000+ people watching from the shore line all the way to the top of the terrace. Suddenly Tac's heart was racing and the feeling of being a rock star started overwhelming him. Mike Riley was 'strongly' encouraging the remaining athletes to get in the water...

ACDC begins to boom over the lake...

Mike Riley "30 seconds....Are you ready to be called Ironmen today?"

2400 swimmers "Yeaaaahhhhhh!!!"

Heart racing.....Smile as big as Christmas morning

Booooom!

Ironman Wisconsin 2007 had begun and Tac was swimming...