Wild Cower
I don't know how I'll make it through Wildflower; I barely survived the registration process.
Registration opened at 8:00 this morning and I heard that the race fills up quickly so I was online at 7:55 ready to go. I guess I hadn't thought enough about the race, and my jaw dropped when I saw that it cost $195 to register. I'm a terrible financial manager so I don't care about the money, but it hit me like a brick workout that "wow, this must be a serious race!". That made me nervous. Then I started filling out the form, and needed my USAT membership number or I'd be charged an extra 10 bucks. Well of course I couldn't find my card so I had to go to their website to look up my number. But I didn't know my username or which email address I signed up with, and had to try about 10 different combinations to get them to email me my password so I could log in and get that info.
They wanted to know your estimated time to complete the race. You could select a 15-minute window ranging from under 4 hours to more than 8:15. I tried doing some quick math and I came up with 7:15-7:30. That's assuming everything goes well, and it was just a little unsettling to scroll down that far in the list to find my time. And who the #$%! is gonna finish this thing in less than 4 hours?!
Then there was the "Festival Registration". You can pre-pay for a campsite and it turns out it ain't cheap. But I have no idea if I'm staying from Thursday-Sunday, or Friday-Sunday, or who I'll team up with at a site. Do I rent an RV? Rent a tent? Do I know anybody who I can borrow gear from? I'm not good at making quick decisions, so I just skipped that part but now I have to figure out that whole aspect of the weekend. I checked; there aren't any Holiday Inns nearby.
It took about 20 minutes to register, and 20 minutes after THAT I still haven't received my confirmation email. I'm hoping the system is simply backed up from all the traffic, but I'm worried if I mis-typed something.
From what I hear, running the race is even harder than registering for it.
posted by Wedgie @ 8:21 AM
5 Comments:
Hey Congrats on your choice. It's tough but a blast! Ironman 70.3 events are even pricier like $250, so $195 isn't bad. If you have questions about logistics, etc, feel free to contact me. There really aren't any hotels close; Paso Robles is about it; and it's a pain to get into the race site early due to congestion.
naaah, the hard part's over! ;)
Good luck at Wildflower - it's a fantastic race.
You'll do fine. The key is to be strong on the bike but pace it much slower then normal. Why, the bike is hard but the run is insane! If you keep running hills with us every Wed you'll be ready.
You are such the athlete, Mr. P!
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