And now, what you've been anxiously waiting for ;

The Big Anouncement !

Rather than re-type everything, I 'll just cut a and paste some slightly edited e-mails I sent to a few close friends.

Subject: Oh my God, no he didn't!?!?!

Greetings friends of Ultraman,

Or should that be Ironman Joey?

Hold on to your hats people, I have lost my mind and made myself out a liar. Anyone want to go to Ironman Couer d' Alene with me next June? Well sign up now while there are still spots.

Click here and go to participants list

Waiting to hear the response?

Ultraman

Subject: re: He was kidding wasn't he?

No, boys and girls, it was not a joke:

So what happened? We know he wasn't drinking and there were no drugs involved, so explain to us how he got himself into this mess.

Well, thats what I was wondering this afternoon as I splashed my way through a 900 yd swim with weary arms that are revolting against this new demand being place upon them. So what did happen?

Well on Monday as I was swimming for the 4th time since re-joining the Y a week ago to get ready for this little sprint coming up Sunday, the Devil was sitting in the lifeguard chair at the end of my lane. I know it had to be the Devil because I kept getting these evil thoughts of actually swimming 2.4 miles even though I was struggling to swim 200 consecutive yards for the first time in 3 years. Yeah, do it Joey. Sign up for an Ironman. You know you've always wanted to do it. Nobody has to know. So what if you told everyone that you hate swimming more than 20 minutes and you'll never ride a bike more than two hours. Who cares you've only ridden your bike twice in 3 years?

I resisted as much as I could. After I got home and sat in front of the computer the evil voice, still ringing in my head was telling me to google Ironman. But I was able to control myself and went to bed but nightmares of never ending lake swims and hours upon hours of pedaling and pedaling with severe bicycle butt haunted my dreams. Finally I awoke Tuesday morning and realized it had all just been a bad dream. I did no workouts all day and just decided to rest.

So then Tuesday I'm sitting in front of the computer and it was like my hand became possessed. It typed in Ironman and the next thing I know there is Active.com on my screen waiting for me to give them my credit card info. But wait! I'm not ready for this I need more time to think! I don't like swimming that much! I hate riding a bike half that long! Noooooo! But then uncontrollably like some zombie, I arose to get my wallet and the next thing I knew I was entered! Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Ok, maybe it wasn't exactly like that.. Yes, I have told all of you repeatedly of my decision after one half-ironman that I wanted no part of it. But after an absence of 3 years from the sport and the upcoming tri this Sunday I had been giving some thought to entering more tris. And with the injury and the need to cross-train for a while as well as having just renewed my Y membership I've been thinking maybe I need to cut back on the ultra's awhile too. But it is true that the idea to do an Ironman popped into my head while swimming Monday. I just didn't have time to do anything until Tuesday as far as looking into it.

Well it must have been destiny. I had no idea that Cour-d'Alene had just been held over the weekend and was open for registration. That is the one I really thought I would want to do anyway but as fast as most Ironman events fill up I figured I would have to pick a non branded event. In fact when I first looked at the Ironman home website it said Cour-d'alene was closed already but when I went to the race site it said click here to register and I did. Bam ! Reality suddenly set in. Here was a chance to get in and I hadn't really had time to seriously consider if I really wanted to do this. And there was my opportunity waiting for me to commit a year ahead and spend way too much money on something I wasn't sure I wanted to do. Well, I said what the Heck. Just Do it! You know you really have always wanted to do an Ironman since you first saw it on TV in 1982 and if you wait it probably will be full within hours . At first I wasn't going to tell anybody until just before the event next year and surprise everyone but then I decided that I really wanted to share the whole getting ready thing with all of you. I guess you are all surprised anyway huh?

So, I was thinking today whether I need to look up some training programs. But then I thought, how silly of me. Just do as Master JuJu Yoda (Jerry) would say. Train Not! Just Do!

So I'm going to piddle around the house until next May and then I'll have a few weeks to get ready. Ok, not really. I'll do copious amounts of swimming and ride as much as I can and kick some butt next June 21st. I've got a year to decide where to put the tattoo.

Ultraman