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All I’ve got so far is the photos to show. My plan is to do a proper race report in the near future…So for now, enjoy some photos from the weekend and race itself.

Final Preparations have begun! We have officially entered the Ironman taper. No more long training weekends or tune-up races; all that remains is the day itself when we find out what exactly we are made of. For those that do not know, the race comprises of the following events/distances:

Swim: 2.4 miles

Bike: 112 miles

Run: 26.2 miles

Yes it is a very long way (140.6 total miles), yes it’s going to hurt, and no, none of us are planning to win.

I’m mainly writing this post for our friends and family who are interested in what we are doing, so below you’ll find links to the official Ironman webpages where they’ve provided an athlete tracker, and even some live video.

Official Ironman USA (Lake Placid, NY) Website

IronmanLive Webpage (The day of the event (7/20) they will post the live “Athlete Tracker” and live video of the event to watch.)

For tracking an athlete, follow the “Real Time Athlete Tracking Instructions” from the link above. Use the following names/bib numbers to track us.

Jeremy Dixon: Bib# 233

Tiffany Dixon: Bib# 1990

Dale Brown: Bib# 183

I’m hoping to post on this blog while we are there (starting this thursday, july 17) with updates and photos, so check back towards the end of the week and throughout the weekend.

Wow, even typing it takes a while. I’m not trying to say that I didn’t enjoy my Independence Day weekend, just that it was very full. We kicked it off Friday morning with a 65 mile bike ride during which we met up with a group from the toledo area and rode to Grand Rapids, OH for breakfast before finishing the ride. Then, later that afternoon, we went to Toledo for a wedding…Congrats Jon and Missy…and back to Bowling Green for the reception over at Stone Ridge GC (Speaking of weddings, I wrote a post over at my work blog about weddings…read it if you like here).

On to Saturday where we woke up and ran a short/easy 4 miles (after which I took a long nap…happy day!!!) About noon I started packing for Sunday’s race while also preparing for our second wedding of the weekend. There is a certain trick to packing bikes and wetsuits while dressing for a wedding (the key is the order in which you do things…I know I’m a bit slow sometimes). Our plans were to leave the reception early and get to a friend’s house mid to late evening and spend the rest of the day with them, which we did…

Sunday Morning…5:30 wake-up and 6:00 out the door, we arrived at the park just before 7am. I’ll cut this short because there are a few things I want to hit on before i lose everybody with the length of this post…

1. I successfully completed my first triathlon on my new bike setup (converted to a Time Trial setup) Yay!!!

2. Tiffany won her age group…again…but I think she enjoyed this race a bit more because she was trying to take this one a bit easier and enjoy the race…Must be nice to take it easy and still win…but I’ll never know that.

Anyway, we go from that incredibly busy weekend and now we’re officially on our taper for IRONMAN… I’ve only been tapering for two days now and already I’m starting to feel anxious about it…

So if you happen to be in Lake Placid for the race…congrats and hope you enjoy it…

I’m going to keep this really short because a lot is going on right now, and everything so far this year has been prep for Ironman.

Maumee Bay is a fun race for us because it is so close and it has some of our favorite elements.

Firstly the swim is very wide open which means you can see the entire course from anywhere on it. It’s nice to have a feel for where you are and how far is left. Also of note is the beach start that is actually a beach…complete with sand and no rocks to send waves of pain shooting through your legs as you enter or exit the water.

The bike course is basically a big box, so if you are into the wind you know that a tailwind isn’t far away.

The run is, in my opinion, very well designed. It’s a pretty flat open area right up next to Lake Erie, so the fact that they were able to squeeze in some shaded areas along the way was very appreciated. The sprint run course has absolutely no coverage (mostly because it is so short and doesn’t get into the trees at all).

Tiff and I had great races, and are looking forward to our last tune-up race before the big IM. So if you’re going to be at Ceasar Creek this weekend (of July 4th) we’ll see you there.

Another one in the books… With an overall time of 2:29:26, I secured the second position in my age group…Yay! If you don’t already know this about me, I am usually the person who takes 4th place in my age group, so it is a happy day when I place within the top 3.

The race itself was well run and more organized than I would have expected. The layout of the park was such that two transition areas were needed, so logistics become a bigger issue. We first setup T2 with our run gear and then rode our bikes (with wetsuits & swim gear in bags) up to T1. Honestly I half expected to get to one of the transitions and not have gear, so the fact that everything was there was wonderful.

A couple of notes about my efforts: I had a pretty good swim, and my bike ride turned out pretty good despite some wind gusts, but my run was decidedly awful. I’m not sure if I expended too much on the bike or I had my HammerGel at the wrong time, but I had no energy left during the run. I was simply in survival mode, which shouldn’t happen during an Olympic distance tri…In any event, I had a good finish time and am now looking forward to the Maumee Bay Tri this next weekend. The courses for these two are fairly similar, so I should be able to find out if I was just having a bad run day or what…Link to results here.

I’ll make this post short as this is a busy week for my family. It’s Jeff’s (my brother) wedding weekend.

So Triple-T or more formally, the American Triple-T (America’s Original Triathlon Tour) is a very serious race for serious people. As far as I’m concerned they could rename this race…The hardest, most challenging, potentially hazardous race in America. If you’re inclined to ask why I would say something like this, well…

* There are 4 races you complete in 3 days that total the distance of a full Ironman (2.4mi swim, 112mi bike, 26.2mi run).
* You complete 2 Olympic distance races in one day, with 3-4 hrs break in between.
* The last day is a Half-Ironman distance race, which is difficult on its own.
* The water temperature for the swim was in the low 50s…think brain freeze for 35min.
* The bike courses were very very challenging for us flat-landers (extended uphill climbing at 4mph and some serious technical descending with switchback turns and speeds approaching 45mph.
* The run course was on a packed dirt/gravel fire trail complete with washout areas. Not only that, but there was really no flat parts there either. The course started out uphill for 2-2.5 miles then crested a hill and down for 1/2 to 1 mile. You then turned around and did it in reverse. The last race (1/2IM) we did the course twice.

We did have fun…maybe the weird painful kind of fun, but it was fun. Going in we wanted to treat this as a training race series for Ironman, and it certainly did that.

If you care to look, race results are here.

Lots of time was spent racing so pictures were at a minimum, but here’s what I have…

Like the proverbial elephant in my backseat, the Triple-T looms ever closer. Not that I’m nervous or anything, but so far I’m convinced that packing/preparing for this race series is going to be more difficult than Ironman. Here’s why…The Triple-T is 2 olympic distance triathlons, 1 half-ironman distance tri and one prologue. Out of fear I’m packing pretty much all my racing gear: So far I’ve got 3 Pairs of Tri-Shorts, 2 Pair Low Mileage Shoes (Yankz included), 6 Pair Socks, 2 Bike Helmets, 2 Pair of Sunglasses, and that’s just the duplicate stuff…

That said, I’m really looking forward to this weekend and all the races we’ll be doing, so check back next week for the race report…

I suppose this is a bit slacker of me, but I’m rolling two race reports in to one post on this blog. First off I’ll just say that I bested my times (year over year) for both races, so anything else I say must follow that stat.

Race #1 – 2008 Couch Potato 5K
My Time: 21:28 (6:50/mile pace)
Overall Place: 25th
Age Group Place: 3

Though windy, the race went pretty well for me. I felt strong the whole time and was able to come in about 15 seconds faster than last year. Tiff did really well considering she was 4 days out from the Boston Marathon, so if you happen to talk to her keep that in mind as she tells you she wasn’t completely happy with the race(ie, she did great)

Race #2 – 2008 Bluffton May Day 4 Miler
My Time: 28:59 (unofficial)

Going in to the weekend the weather reports for saturday were not the best. Forecasts called for heavy rains and possibly some thunderstorms. Turns out, it did rain, but about a mile in the rains died down and made for a cool race. I decided for the race that I was going to take it a bit easy since we did our first outdoor ride on wednesday and have been racing a lot lately. My finish time was around 6 seconds faster that 07, so I guess I should take it easy more often.

The Boston Marathon is certainly one of the premier marathons in the world. People come from all over the world to run and watch this race. Celebrities run right alongside everyone else and they all get to run in the footsteps of the greatest runners of our time. In a time when endurance sports is experiencing exponential growth in popularity, the Boston Marathon has held its place near the top of a very exclusive list.

Here comes the but…

You need to do something about the transportation of the spectators, it was out of control how hard it was to get downtown.

After dropping off the 3 runners I came to Boston with at the end of the Green Line(Riverside terminus), I returned to the hotel to get in a short 5mi run, shower, eat and then return to watch the race.

I began my trek to the train station at around 8:30am where I was met with a total traffic stopping in the middle of the highway approx. 1 mile from the exit for the train station. After around an hour and a half, I finally got into the parking lot (at least the line for it), when I found that the lot was full and I would need to find alternate parking.

To this point I’m just a little frustrated as anybody would in waiting this long for a non-existent parking spot.

I turn the car around(did I mention I’m driving a friends car) and start looking for a parking spot…Finally I come upon a side road where another couple was just getting out as well. I walked with them to the train station (.5miles away) and get on the train…I arrived at my first destination after…1 stop…Woodland.

My heartbeat starts to return to normal as it appears that I will have no problem seeing my wife and two friends, which I do. Having walked a fair distance down the course I decide to find the next train station (Newton Center) and take the trains downtown…Mind you I still have more than enough time to make it downtown to see the finish…or so I thought.

After arriving at Newton center train station I proceeded to wait through, I think, 7-9 trains (about 12-20 minutes between) with out being able to get on (I even tried to be that jerk who forces his way on), to no avail…Finally along with a bunch of other people I decide to ride the train all the way back out to Riverside and then turn right around and come back…

By the time I reached the end of the line, I checked my phone and found that everybody had finished…I called Tiff’s phone and left her a message…

After stopping at every train station from Riverside to Downtown(Arlington) and picking up around 4 people (the only brave souls that could fit on) I arrived downtown…Tiff and the others had been finished for about 30-40 minutes by then.

I understand that running a race like this is very difficult, but come on…seriously. It was near impossible to move around the city just to watch my wife and friends. Maybe you should run more trains, or change the schedule some…I don’t know, I’m not a transportation expert, but do something. This race is far too important to lose people just because you can’t get them to watch the race.

All I can say is Aaaaaaaargh!

But I still love coming to Boston, and someday I still hope to run your race…Let’s not get into how fast I have to run to qualify…I’ll do it someday…or time will catch up with me and I’ll qualify when I’m 50.

Along with our friends Mark, Kristin and Joe, Tiffany ran this year’s Boston Marathon. We had a lot of fun watching the Olympic Trials the day before the race, and despite what they’ll all say, Tiffany, Kristin, & Joe all ran great. It seems that no matter what happens Boston Marathon always wins in some way. Whether it’s the temperature or the wind or just the downhill pounding, this race proves year after year why it is a premier marathon to run.

Instead of rambling on more, I’ll just direct you to the Boston Marathon website and you can read for yourselves…Results are here…I may try to post again with my own experience with the race, which I assure you is a good story, but I digress…for now.

The photo below is right after our dinner at Legal Seafood two nights before the race. You’ll notice I am trying to start a new fashion style with the one half of my shirt tucked in and the other half hanging out… (From left to right: Me(Jeremy), Tiffany, Mark, Eric (of RunningAhead), Joe, & Kristin)