I've got my first IM coming up in a few short weeks. I've trained hard and got a fairly good handle on swim/bike/run now and i'm reasonably confident of getting around it. The part that worries me the most now is what to do with the family on race day.
I'm middle-aged with a wife and 3 school-aged kids. In a couple of years i've gone from being a typically dull & overweight office worker to being quite a sportyhead so my family has had to get used to "Where's dad?" "He's out for a run/on the trainer/swimming/eating the entire contents of the food cupboard*" *Delete as applicable.
So far I've done a handful of running races, Olys & 70.3s and i've learned that the family's attention span is limited to (very) short events. Typically I would cross the finish line beaming, and tell them my awesome time to which they'd reply "Great, you've been ages, can we go home now!?". One of my kids even nicked my water off me at the finish of my first 70.3. So I don't tend to take them with me anymore.
So.. the Ironman. This is the culmination of months and months of training, a massive life goal and all that, and i need to take them with me if only to prove to them that it actually happened, and to involve them in the spectacle and scale of the whole undertaking and to provide closure at the end of a year of putting up with dad's new all-consuming hobby. There is a risk that if i just go off by myself and come back in a couple of days looking tired and broken then it will diminish the whole thing for me in relation to the family and it'll be a case of "Hi family, I'm an Ironman!" "Great, now can you mow the frickin' lawn". But on the other hand taking them with me and making them stand around for 12 hours is going to test their love somewhat.
Unfortunately the IM in question is September in Wales, so it might well be raining, so sending them off to the beach is not necessarily going to be an option..
What do you all usually do with your families at Ironman? Just point them at the park and ride and let them get on with it, or manage them like a family day out and add a ton of stress to an already ton of stress situation...?
I'm middle-aged with a wife and 3 school-aged kids. In a couple of years i've gone from being a typically dull & overweight office worker to being quite a sportyhead so my family has had to get used to "Where's dad?" "He's out for a run/on the trainer/swimming/eating the entire contents of the food cupboard*" *Delete as applicable.
So far I've done a handful of running races, Olys & 70.3s and i've learned that the family's attention span is limited to (very) short events. Typically I would cross the finish line beaming, and tell them my awesome time to which they'd reply "Great, you've been ages, can we go home now!?". One of my kids even nicked my water off me at the finish of my first 70.3. So I don't tend to take them with me anymore.
So.. the Ironman. This is the culmination of months and months of training, a massive life goal and all that, and i need to take them with me if only to prove to them that it actually happened, and to involve them in the spectacle and scale of the whole undertaking and to provide closure at the end of a year of putting up with dad's new all-consuming hobby. There is a risk that if i just go off by myself and come back in a couple of days looking tired and broken then it will diminish the whole thing for me in relation to the family and it'll be a case of "Hi family, I'm an Ironman!" "Great, now can you mow the frickin' lawn". But on the other hand taking them with me and making them stand around for 12 hours is going to test their love somewhat.
Unfortunately the IM in question is September in Wales, so it might well be raining, so sending them off to the beach is not necessarily going to be an option..
What do you all usually do with your families at Ironman? Just point them at the park and ride and let them get on with it, or manage them like a family day out and add a ton of stress to an already ton of stress situation...?