A first-person vlog by Ben Greenfield documenting the pre-race morning at an Ironman event: driving to the venue at dawn, walking with other athletes to the pier, undergoing body marking and checks, preparing his bike and gear in transition, and expressing nervousness, excitement, and appreciation before the race start. The clip emphasizes routine logistics (number, weigh-in, chip check, gear setup) and the emotional build-up prior to the starting gun.
Questions this video answers
1666 (spoken as '166 6' / '943' also appears but Ben identifies his as 1666).
Sweet potatoes.
Chapters
Hey, it's Ben. It's dark out. I don't even know if you can see me right now, but I'm in the car driving down to the race from our hotel so I can park and didn't want to wake up the family and bother them. So they'll come down later on, they'll walk down and get the car. But anyways, this is it. Woke up, had my sweet potatoes and I'm off to go. Take one last look at the bike and then put on the skin suit, jump into the water. So.
I'll try and take my video camera into transition. We'll see.
Or I may just decide to focus on my race, but either way, I'm starting to get pretty excited about this. And, yeah, now I just gotta find a place to park. I can go throw it down. All right, wish me luck.
It's still dark out and there's just this long line of athletes kind of walking down the road towards transition. Me right in here along with everybody else. And it's really quiet, like not a lot of people are talking.
Which is why I'm not talking very loud with a lot of people. But yeah, this is what it looks like. Everybody trekking down to the pier.
Time to get body marked.
All right, this might be, let's see on the other side.
Here we go to body marking.
943.
What'S your number? 1666. Thank you. Straight through, thanks.
All right, here we go into body marking.
Thanks.
So now what I do is I look for my number, which is this way, it appears, exit.
166 6.
So next is a weigh in. This is right after body marking and Chip check the medical way in.
So now we head out onto the pier.
The security access.
And this is athletes only. Some media, some volunteers.
Gotta stay out of that today.
Snake all the way back down here to the pier and find my bike.
So I'm here at my bike. This is what it looks like. Kind of packed into transition area with all these other bikes. And I got some of my stuff laid out, my swim skin. I know it's kind of dark, may have a hard time seeing, but after all, it is still dark out there. Just starting to get light.
Standing out here on the pier. So this is what it looks like, folks. Now, lots of stuff going through my head right now. Lots of. Lots of prep work. Pump the tires, a little extra oil and chain, take my supplements, get the sunscreen on. Once I do all that stuff, then my mind is clear and I start to get nervous.
Okay, folks, this is it? Gotta go. Turn the video camera in now. Bike's all set up. There's really nothing left to do now except just wait to start.
This is the point.
Where it gets a little emotional. Got a lot of feelings going through your head.
