IMAZ Spectator Race Report

A day in the life of an ironman spectator. The AMAZING Support Crew. The group behind the ironman athlete. Who are these people?

While you have the triathlete enduring a long day swimming, biking, and running... You have the crew behind the triathlete. The support crew out there from dark ... to... well, dark.

Morning setup

The 2.4 mile swim starts at 6:50am or 7:00am... BUT, the preparation for the day really begins with a 4am wake up. Phil and I got to transition around 5:30am and it was already a sea of people!

I saw Phil and took his morning bag of clothes, helped him into his wetsuit, and then started to head back to the car. About five feet towards the car, I had a mild panic attack. "OMG! I forgot to give him a bagel!" 

So I went running into the sea of people, towards the swim start, anxiously looking for Phil. "Phil, where are you?? Phil, where are you??" 

Finally!  6:30am, I found Phil at the swim start line. "PHIL!" I called for him.  "PHIL!!" ... "I forgot to give you a bagel!" Phew... we connected... and he ate half of a bagel. My swim through the sea of people was a success. 

Now... To run through the sea of people to make it to the bridge to find the morning support crew. 

The morning support crew consisted of - Nancy and Tom (Phil's parents), Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Mike (Phil's aunt and uncle), and my parents Gayle and Richard. 

Left to right: Jennifer, Richard, Tom, Aunt Bonnie, Gayle,
Nancy, and Uncle Mike hanging off the ledge there.

We watched the swim start from the bridges and kept looking for Phil. What's nice these days is that the Ironman Tracker phone app has a MAP now. Uncle Mike found it and then showed the rest of us how to use it. We watched Phil's initials "PH" float down Tempe Town Lake and then back towards us. 

I thought I saw Phil coming back to our bridge on the swim and we followed that person over to the Transition Area.  Well, we will never really know if it was him or not because the Tracker Map froze and we never saw him make an appearance out of the water.  (Ok, wife fail #1)

So we went out to watch the bike out of transition and waited and waited... OK, maybe it wasn't him that came out of the water at that time!  😂😂 

We finally did see him come around on the bike and I know he heard us and saw some of us heading out onto the bike.  PHEW!  (Make up for missing him come out of the water.)

At that time, my parents decided to go back to my brother's house while the rest of us tried to find breakfast somewhere. 

Tom, Nancy, Uncle Mike, Aunt Bonnie, and I found breakfast at a pizza bar restaurant. We ate and hung out until Uncle Mike and Aunt Bonnie had to go to the airport for cousin Beth, Steve, Natalie, and Abigail. 

So then there were three. Tom, Nancy, and me.  We went over to the bike turn around and we saw Phil coming in from his first bike leg (there were three bike legs).  We cheered for him, took pictures, and then he was gone. 

We took that time to move the cars around. 

Fast forward now to catching up with cousin Lori who drove up from Tucson with her boyfriend Eric and kids Zayda and Vash. The three became seven! 

THEN, Uncle Mike and Aunt Bonnie came back to Tempe with Beth, Steve, Natalie, and Abigail.  Alright! Now we are picking up into full force! 7 support crew became 13! 

Around that same time, we were waiting for Phil to come back around to finish his second bike leg and go out for his third/last bike leg. Perfect! My parents are coming also... we will have a huge crowd for him! (15 count now)

We waited and waited for him and before we know it, Uncle Mike says "Jen, he's passed us already!" 

Wait. 

What??

He passed us already??

Yep, sure enough. We missed Phil passing us going out for his last bike leg.  (Wife fail #2)

But, check this out... I got a really great picture of the support crew:

Support crew at full force! Awesome!

So since we missed Phil on the bike, we decided to all go to lunch. We found a place we could sit outside in the shade. Very nice!

As we were leaving lunch, we split up so I told the crew to meet back at Ironman Village at 2pm. 

We met at Ironman Village... waited and waited for Phil on the bike. 

Finally!  

We saw Phil!!

We had a loud, awesome, group and he looked great coming off the bike. 

Ok.  Let's try to go find him on the run!  PHEW!  This is exhausting!

We walked along the side of the transition area to find the run path. Finally we found the run path. We estimated his appearance to be around 30-minutes. 

30-minutes later...

Oh wait. We read the map wrong. We think he will be 30-more minutes. 

I think at this point is when Uncle Mike and Aunt Bonnie left with Beth and Steve and kids.

But then about 10-minutes later... 

OMG!! THERE HE IS!! Crap! My camera wasn't ready!  

But I did ask him if he changed socks and he said yes.  Ok good.  Hopefully no blisters.  😂😂

After that sighting, Lori and her crew were leaving.  They still had to drive back to Tucson!

At that point, we had mom, dad, Nancy, and Tom.  My parents were trying to figure out what my brother and his wife were doing... so I decided to hop over the bridge to try to find Phil on that side. 

Tom and Nancy were up for the haul, so I'm pretty sure I dragged them across the bridge with me, made them climb over the railing, and then scale down the side of a hill... 😂😂 but hey, they were troopers! They did it! 

We did get to see Phil on that said AND Tom and I got to walk with him a little bit and talk to him.  He said he had some pain in his left hamstring and he was just going to walk it out at a fast pace. 

We waited to see him again, but my brother and his wife were closer to Tempe and we were going to have dinner with them, so I had to work my way back over the bridge.  This was around 4:00pm. 

I walked back over the bridge, while Tom and Nancy stayed to look for Phil. 

Hey - there's James!  But first, let me take a picture of this pig:

Seriously.  Now I've seen everything.

We caught up with James, Caitlin, and Abigail for dinner and it felt SO GOOD TO SIT DOWN. Wow. Chairs. 😂😂

The entire time we were at dinner, I felt guilty for sitting in a chair, eating yummy food, and drinking a beer... while Phil was still out there making his way around the Ironman course. 

My brother James, his PREGNANT wife
Caitlin, and Abigail. 

To make up for my previous fails and guilt over dinner, my parents and I decided to pick up Phil's bike and transition bags. (YES! Wife Win!)  😂😂

After putting the bike and the bags in my car, my parents and I went to the finish line about an hour before we expected Phil to come around.  We sat in the stands and watched finishers come in... 

Ironman Arizona finish line

One of the funniest finishers was a man wearing all white long sleeve shirt and pants and a sombrero... At the finish line, he took off the sombrero and danced around it.  😂😂

When Phil made is way around, my parents and I were at one wall and Phil's parents were across from us. We all saw Phil come running down the finish line chute excited about his very first Ironman finish. 

Guys. It doesn't end there.  😂😂

Where does our Ironman finisher go after the finish line???

Into a long line of volunteers carrying them through - finisher t-shirt, finisher hat, finisher pictures, finisher foil to keep warm, finisher food and drinks. And then out the other side of that tent. Some where.  😂  Good luck finding them in a sea of volunteers, Ironman finishers, spectators looking for their finisher, etc...

We (Tom, Nancy, mom, dad, and me) made sure Phil got into some warm clothes and let him talk all about his day.  It was so great to see his excitement!

We all walked to our cars - which were in the same parking garage on the same floor - and continued to hear about Phil's victorious day.

Phil and I drove to my brothers house. When we got there, we hung out a little, let Phil take a shower,  start watching a movie, but Phil and I couldn't stay awake.

Guys. It doesn't end there.  😂😂

This morning, Phil and I woke up at 5:45am to go BACK TO IRONMAN VILLAGE... Because Phil needed to purchase his Ironman Finisher jacket.  We waited in a long line that started moving at 6:50am... We got into the Ironman merchandise store around 7am and we were walking back to the car at 7:15am.

Congratulations Phil!! 🎉🎉

Journey complete.  The end. 💗💗💗