Kristin Korevec, You Are an Ironman!

Guest post by Karen Mittelstadt

11:15:04 (swim 59:22, bike 6:10, run 3:54)

A whole Ironman. Eleven hours, fifteen minutes. A lot ahead of schedule. A PR. Sixth in her age group. Overall 304 out of more than 2,200 athletes.

Amazing. Inspiring. But ultimately, those are just numbers. They’re what we can see by reading the results page.

What we all were privileged to experience yesterday—the heart, talent, and grace Kristin showed as she finisher her fourth Ironman Wisconsin—is the real story.

Here are just a few things I learned watching Kristin on her Ironman Sunday:

• Most Ironmen grimace. Kristin smiles. All day. The whole way. No exceptions.


• The girl can swim. 2.4 miles in 59 minutes. The 106th Ironman out of the water!


• You can wake up on Ironman Sunday with a smile on your face even though you haven’t slept for a week.


• Bathrooms are not required on race day. Wetsuits and bike seats suffice.


• You can keep running, even when you can’t feel anything below your waist except excruciating pain in your foot.


• Amazing people earn phenomenal fans. Kristin’s crew started building very early in life and hasn’t stopped yet. The fan club was large and vocal yesterday, and included:

Mama Jackie: The birth-giver
Tim and Kelly: Tracking the race and cheering from Kelly’s 100-miler in Utah
Beth: Kristin’s “oldest friend” from the Rockford YMCA days
Anne: One of Kristin’s “best high school girls”
Team Zimmerman: Royce and his pretty-in-pink support crew
Jill and Ryan: Kristin’s freshman roommate and her mountain-biking husband
Kim: The “new girl” in the office who cheered like an old friend
Bride Emily: Straight from her honeymoon onto the race course
Lauren: Coaching Brodie, cheering Kristin
Tom Reason: The balding associate director of admissions
Peg: Vacation-bound, husband idling in the car, still out to watch Kristin swim

• Some Ironmen get very hungry at 3:30 a.m. after the race, and when they do, they eat Raisin Bran.
• You don’t want to be that trash-talking guy who blows past Kristin 20 miles into the bike. You’ll pay the price for the pass later. She will catch you in the end!


• At some level, it’s easier being an Ironman than an Ironman’s roommate.


• You can’t get too much of a good thing. Kristin is already registered for Ironman Wisconsin 2008. What are you doing next September 7th?

That’s my short list of lessons. Did you learn something about Kristin yesterday—watching her in Madison, tracking her online, or just keeping her in your heart? If so, please add a comment below.

In the meantime, Kristin will have notably better and more interesting Ironman insights to share with us all tomorrow. For now she’s having a nice breakfast at Lazy Jane’s Café before heading to the Ironman banquet—much-deserved feasting.

Stay tuned for the good stuff from our very own four-time Ironman…

Teakettle Injures Ironman

Guest post by Karen Mittelstadt

I know I've only been authorized for a post-Ironman entry on Monday, but it’s like I've been given the keys to the car and I can't help myself!

Please don't get alarmed, but Kristin was nearly maimed by her own Le Creuset teakettle this morning. We can laugh now because I believe she will be fine come race day, but there were tense moments.

The Scene: Kristin is boiling water for her morning coffee. She reaches for the teakettle, engages in the lift so as to remove the whistling kettle from the stove, and the sudden upward movement, paired with the burdensome weight of the 1.7-qt. capacity kettle, caused some muscle fiber or tendon in her back to spasm and she fell to the floor in pain. Seriously. I didn't see it (I was already at the office), but I believe! Apparently there was some quality writhing taking place on our vintage parquet kitchen floor.

As I've seen Kristin around the office today, she has been air swimming, moving through the paddle wheel arm pull to ensure full range of motion for Sunday. She looks solid and comfortable. All will be well. But just in case, I think we’ll go out for coffee tomorrow.

Afterword from "Becoming An Ironman"

Close your eyes.

The water laps your toes and envelops your skin. Close your eyes. The masses become silent and your heartbeat thunders. You have planned for today, talked about today, trained for today, imagined today, dreamed today, and yet you still don’t know what to expect.

A cannon blows and you remember, as you dread the uncertainty and the harsh duration to come, to savor every second because in your memory it will be over in the minutes it takes to recount or reread from your journal.

Move, breathe, drink, eat. Move, breathe, drink, eat. Move and move. One hundred forty and six-tenths miles. Know tenderly, intimately every fiber of your being that propels you forward only because your brain says, ‘Don’t stop.’ And don’t stop. Move, breathe, drink, eat.

Manage your day. Stick to your plan. Be flexible. Just finish. Float when your mind and body detach and watch your body move without you—pushed by the crowd, the volunteers, who lust for your finish as if it were their own.

But it hurts. And you don’t know for sure why you’re doing this and what it will mean when you do. And then you see it. A banner, a clock, a frenzy of applause. And you know you made it happen through whatever means and power source you draw strength from.

Ironman will trivialize past hardships and prepare you to minimize those to come. It makes dreams come true. You have what it takes to bridge aspirations into accomplishments. Crossing that line embraces self: confidence, sacrifice, reliance, invention, worth. Finishing makes you your own hero.

Thom, Kara Douglass. (2001). Afterword. Becoming An Ironman. New York: Breakaway Books.

Bag Lady

Yesterday afternoon, I checked in for the race at the Monona Terrace, which serves as this weekend's IM WI race headquarters. I received my bag of goodies, along with other important race information. Each year, the athletes are given several bags (pictured, right) to stuff their gear into. Two are special needs bags for the run and bike. These are given to athletes, if needed, at the half-way point of both the run and bike. You have to think of the things that you just might happen to need at that point: spare bike tubes, Vaseline for chaffage relief, food, Aleve, extra CO2 cartridges for the bike, additional clothing layers, etc. You just never know. I've rarely had to pick up my bags, but it's always good to be prepared.

The second two bags are for the two transitions (swim to bike and bike to run). On Saturday afternoon, we turn in both of our transition bags, and rack our bikes in our designated spots. Our transition bags are then organized by race number, and placed in conference rooms at the Monona Terrace, which is where both transitions take place. Unlike other triathlons, the transition area isn't in front of your bike, so everything has to go in the bags.

I'm currently in the process of stuffing the bags and getting everything all ready to turn in tomorrow morning. It's sort of a stressful process to try to remember everything you might ever need for the race (but certainly not more stressful than thinking about meeting and having dinner with Royce's parents tonight...). Although I have until 4 p.m. to turn everything in tomorrow (the race is on Sunday), I'm hoping to get it all done pretty early so I don't have to worry about it.

Tomorrow morning, I'll also be registering for next year's race! Which, I'm sure, comes as a big surprise to all of you. Luckily this year, for the first time, athletes who are competing in this year's race have the opportunity to register early on Saturday morning (from 9-11 a.m.) for next year's event. This because registration for next year's event opens to the general public at 9 a.m. on Monday, and fills within hours. Ironman finally recognized that athletes who just finished an IM are in no condition to get up early the next morning to fight the crowds and register. So this is a great relief. Karen is registering again for next year's event, so it will be fun to have a training buddy again!

Which brings me to my final point. I won't be in the office on Monday, as I'll be recovering from the race, so Karen has requested the opportunity to write a guest blog so that she can fill you in on Sunday's inside scoop. Karen is a phenomenal writer, with a great sense of humor, so it should be good stuff! Enjoy!

Getting In: The Not-So-Secret Admissions Process

Fantastic article about undergraduate admissions at UW-Madison in the fall issue of On Wisconsin, the university's alumni publication. Karen helped Michael Penn write the article. Read this and you will understand a lot more about college admissions and many of the myths associated with the process. Very interesting stuff. At least I think so. And, I might add, the longest article ever to be published in the magazine. The article is posted online at www.uwalumni.com/home/onwisconsin/onwisconsin.aspx. Enjoy!

Kristin's Crew!

Full-view, back

Close-up, back

Left, front

Here are the amazing “Team Kristin” t-shirts that Karen designed for my race! She surprised me with the unveiling at dinner on Tuesday night with my mom and grandma. It’s an incredibly special gift and words cannot express my gratitude. I've never had real t-shirts before. I love them so much and I can’t believe that my friends and family will be wearing them and cheering me on this weekend. It makes me feel very official to know that I have a real crew!

Seif and The Fishbowl

Eww...I'm so not going to drink that.

OK, Seif, but just one sip.

A few too many sips later.

Captain Morgan!

Last Saturday night, one of my closest friends from college, Seif (Katie, pictured above, right), came to Madison for the night from Chicago. Wanting to relive our college days, we went to Mondays for a drink, and then to Wando's, where things quickly became ugly. Seif somehow convinced me to drink from the fishbowl (damn you, Seif), which contained a lethal blue concoction that left my head pounding through the next evening. Cheap alcohol is not a good thing, my friends. And neither is drinking alcohol with a straw. Stay clear. You've been warned.