My First Ironman – Chapter 1 Selecting a Race ADDENDUMI realized after I finished my reviews that I had looked at every IM North American race with the exception of Arizona. The reason for this is pretty simple, no one recommended Arizona for a first time IM race.It seems there are some fairly obvious reasons why, timing and conditions.IM AZ is held in mid-April, which means the bulk of your training is going to be in the winter and early spring. Not a great period to be training through if you’re in any kind of climate with a predilection for snow or ice such as Boulder, Cincinnati or Boston.Secondly, the conditions at IMAZ 2007 were reportedly borderline torturous, even for an IM. A wicked wind kicked up for much of the bike course and was practically sandblasting the pain off some bikes. Wind + Sand = BAD!Think I’m exaggerating? Take this excerpt from a story on Ironman.com thenhttp://www.ironman.com/columns/gruenfeld/lee-gruenfeld-recounts-a-record-setting-day-of-racing-in-tempeIt started sometime around noon with an unfortunate athlete serving out his three-minute penalty in a tent set up on the bike course. The official timer said, "Okay! Only ten seconds left! Ready? … four… three… two… one… Go!" Nothing. "Okay, go!" Zip. "Hey! You can go now! Penalty's over!" Nada. Couldn't get the guy to leave. About twenty minutes later another athlete came into the tent. The timer looked at his bib, then looked again. "Uh…you don't have a penalty." "Whatever," the athlete replied. "I'm going to serve one anyway." The conditions were so bad; racers were hiding out in the penalty tents to get away from it. When conditions are described as a cross between Twister and Sahara… well, that isn’t pretty.http://www.ironmanarizona.comEntering its third year, Ford Ironman Arizona has quickly become a top-rated event as some of the world's best Ironman triathletes converge on Tempe. The transition area, swim course and expo are all very close together, and thanks to the three-loop bike and run courses, race day viewing is nothing short of spectacular.Tempe Town Lake looks more like a river than a lake. It's relatively narrow, but is ready-made for a triathlon swim - spectators can follow the entire swim race by simply walking along the shore. While the water is very murky (you can barely see your hand in front of you), the cool water (about 64 degrees in 2005), is very pleasant to swim in!The three-loop - OK, three-loop-and-a-bit - bike course is surprisingly challenging thanks to the many (?) on the course that goes through the city of Tempe and in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community located Northeast of the city.The run course here at Ironman Arizona is the highlight of the day for the competitors. A lot of the marathon runs alongside Tempe Town Lake. This has more-than-a-few upsides: the course is very spectator friendly, is cooler because of the proximity to the water, and is also quite scenic.
Websites I love… Pandora
http://www.pandora.com
This is a great website… First of all, it’s free. Nothing on the internet should cost money. Period. If you’re paying anything for internet services (aside from an internet connection) you’re paying too much. The good folks at Pandora have set up a website where you input the name of a song or an artist and the site uses information from the Music Genome Project to select similar music.
If I’m in the mood for something loud, I can type in Iron Man and get music with similar guitar riffs, vocals and themes to Black Sabbath’s Iron Man as well as, eventually, the song Iron Man. Right now it’s piping in War Pigs after kicking off with AC/DC’s “Let me put my love into you”. I’m no music aficionado, I don’t have enough interest to dig around or put together play lists of similar music, plus I hate the idea of paying for music, but equally dislike the idea of stealing it. Pandora is legal, it’s free, it’s always on and there is a ridiculous range of music. If I want Weird Al Yankovic, then I get Weird Al and a bunch of other musicians with similarly fun/goofy lyrics and beats (though there isn’t much out there that’s really similar to Weird Al). If I want jazz, blues or classical, I can type in Tchaikovsky, Beethoven or Cat Stevens and I get it along with other similar musicians.
Unlike most internet radio stations, if you want to step away from your desk, you can pause the player and come right back to the same spot. Listeners also have the ability to give a song thumbs up or thumbs down. If you give it thumbs down, it skips the current song. Thumbs up doesn’t do anything immediate, but the ratings, thumbs up and down, help teach the program what to play in the future.
The lone drawback is that you can’t take the music with you on an .mp3 player. Personally though, the only time I really listen to music is when I’m at work or sitting at my computer. I never listen during training or races (a huge no-no for many reasons that I won’t get into now) so it works great for me.
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