Race day for Pam Roseman and her fellow competitors was beautiful with a high of about 70. The only problem was the water temperature of 55 degrees at the lake, but the race director said, “The participants will just have to cowboy or cowgirl up and take the cold water.”
Alrighty then.
“The cannon blew and 2,300 people were jumping in the water at the same time,” Pam says. “It was like being in a blender.”
The water was cold, numbing, the lake fed by melting snow.
Pam made two loops around the lake to complete the 2.4-mile course, and was hypothermic by the time she stumbled out of the water.
Volunteers helped the athletes peel off their wetsuits and handed them their bags for bike gear.
Then Pam was off on a 112-mile bike ride over mountainous terrain.
“The climbs were intense,” she says.
Her Little Debbies kept her going, even when she developed trouble with her gears around mile 40.
Because of that, her time was not as good as she’d expected ó around 7 hours.
“That was part of the day,” she says. “I was taking any challenge that came my way and working through it.”
During her run through several small towns, Pam encountered a celebratory atmosphere.
There were cheerleaders and marching bands and street festivals and all of it re-energized her, she says.
Around hour 13, during the marathon portion, Pam began to grow tired. Her strategy was to run to each water station, then walk through and drink water and eat orange slices.
Even though Pam was experiencing waves of nausea by this point, she kept going.
Her marathon time was 6 hours, “which is slow for a marathon,” but pretty fantastic after a swim and a long bike ride.
“I had a great time with the crowd,” Pam says. “There was always someone to interact with and I was meeting people along the way.”
Pam made it to the final six blocks.
“By this time, it’s dark, and there’s this huge glow from the city and the roar of the crowd,” she says.
Son Alden came out into the street to run the last couple of blocks with his mom.
“I was thrilled and excited,” Pam says. “It was just so fulfilling to cross the finish line.”
Pam was escorted to the recovery tent, where racers could have all the beer and pizza they wanted.
She passed, and she and her family went out to cheer on some other participants.
Then Pam went back to her room and crashed for about four hours, waking up starving.
“I was just ravenous,” says Pam, who went to McDonald’s for breakfast at 5 a.m. “I couldn’t get enough to eat.”
Surprisingly, Pam says she wasn’t that sore. She, Dan and Alden went swimming and hiking that day. They spent the rest of their vacation at Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, and saw the Grand Tetons.
Pam says she still hasn’t come off the high of becoming an Ironman, although she has no plans to do another one. She does want to log 1,000 miles with the Salisbury-Rowan Runners Club by the end of the year, and she plans to do the Seth Wyatt Cobb Duathlon in September.
But the Ironman won’t ever be far from her thoughts.
“I was something I did just for myself,” she says.
ó Susan Shinn