St George Ironman Strippers

Awhile ago a friend of mine asked if I wanted to volunteer with her at the IronMan this year and of course I said all in. It just happened to be the same weekend my sister was in town so I drug her along with us and I cannot even tell you what an amazing experience it was.  We were volunteers at the transition between the swim and the bike. Our job was to off dry the women athletes and get them dressed and ready for the bike. We were called strippers because originally we were going to be stripping their wet suits, but we actually ended up in the tent helping them get dressed. 

The St. George IronMan is notorious for being an extremely hard course, but you add in extreme winds and freezing weather and you have yourself a very scary and very difficult  2.4 mile swim.  Just after the age group division started the winds really picked up causing what some people were saying were 4 foot whitecaps on the water. The women came in from the swim just frantic. Even the first few pros came in saying that was the scariest thing they had ever done and that they needed to get more life boats out there. Apparently people were going crazy thinking they were going to drowned. In fact people were out there drowning each other just doing whatever they could to stay above water. It was complete mayhem.  The life boats were frantic making sure they were gathering up everyone who needed help. They had two scuba diving teams under the water watching for  falling people. Thankfully no one was seriously injured, but 500 people were pulled from the swim and the medic tents were full of people with concussions and hypothermia. The women that did make it, came into the tent freezing, wanting to throw up, exhausted, in shock, frustrated and some were just down right mad.  Most said it took them at least 30 minutes longer than the swim normally does. One lady described the experience as "an hour and a half roller coaster ride, and not the fun kind." Dispite how they were feeling or what they just had just gone through there where several who came in with smiles on their faces. They had just accomplished something amazing and they knew it.  They were happy to see us. We did our best to encourage them and they were very grateful for our help considering their exhaustion. 

It was emotional watching them come in after such an amazing accomplishment and I was in complete aww by their motivation and strength as they trekked on to the next two events. I can't even imagine how disappointing it was for those who got their chipped clipped because it either took them too long or they were pulled in a boat. They had trained really hard for months and months for this and it was all because of the weather that their time didn't count. The officials changed the rules once they realized how many people wouldn't be able to continue on due to loosing their chip and let anyone who wanted finish the race. Several of the women weren't sure they even wanted to, but it felt good when we could encourage them and they made the decision to continue on. It was an amazing experience and absolutely inspiring. 

After we were done we came home for naps and then went back downtown periodically to watch the bikers and runners. My sister had family friends that were competing and between the swim and the bike I think only 3 of the 6 of them were finishers and only 1 of them made all their time limits.  

The very end of the night was the very funnest. We were in the stands cheering on the last of the competitors and it was awesome to see them cross that finish line after 17+ hours. I was there and watched a guy who was finishing his 137th Ironman. I can't even imagine that!! It was an incredible day and I loved being apart of it!