On Monday 12 September 2011, at 12:00 local-time, I was anxiously clicking my mouse over the "Register" button on the Ironman Wisconsin page. I had made the decision about whether or not I was going to try to sign-up just the night before, in a final conversation with my partner as we were getting ready for bed. I had already also made the decision that I was going to risk the possibility of not getting a spot by signing up on-line as opposed to driving down to Madison to sign-up in person.
To be honest, I'm not sure if I was hoping I'd get a spot, or find that registration was already full. However, I'd made sure that I was logged into my Active.com account and had all my information ready to go just in case I really was able to register. I even tried clicking "Register" a few times before 12:00, just to see what would happen. Of course, I was told that registration wasn't open yet. I was also testing the responsiveness of the site, wondering if it would lag too much and prevent me from getting in.
As the computer ticked over to 12:00, I clicked the mouse with a surprising amount of force. I guess I really did want this. Unfortunately, I received the same message that registration wasn't open yet. Perhaps the registration servers were using a different Internet time source than my computer. Going back a page in the browser, I immediately clicked "Register" again and the same thing happened. Getting somewhat frantic, I repeated this process several times, noting, each time, that the site seemed to be lagging more and more: others like me were doing the same thing.
Finally, about a minute past 12:00 by my computer's clock, and after a fretfully long delay, I was taken to the real registration page for Ironman Wisconsin 2012! I was amazed at how long the registration form was. They wanted to know all sorts of information about me (including why I wanted to do this, what my "story" was, where I worked, and the like). It took me much longer to fill out the form than I had planned, but finally completed it. Frankly, I hurried through it, again fearful that if I took too long, by the time I was actually going to register, all the other on-line sign-ups would have beaten me to it and I would have a spot anymore. I'm not at all sure if that's how the system works, but I was nervous about it.
After I submitted that form and was asked for payment information, I started to relax a bit, thinking that they wouldn't ask for my money if I really wasn't going to get a spot. Finally, after what felt like an hour, though likely was only 10 minutes, I completed the registration and was looking at a page saying, "Congratulations! You are now registered for 2012 Ironman Wisconsin."
Wow! I'd done it. I'd actually committed myself to doing an Ironman!
It didn't take long, amazingly, before the doubt surfaced. Thoughts like, "What did you just do?!" and "I'm not ready for this!" and "You just paid money to do this?!" floated through my head. I sat at the computer, somewhat stunned, for a few minutes, just looking at that web page. My email flashed notifications as well, showing that I already had a receipt and a confirmation email. I'd really done it. I was locked-in at this point (there are no refunds).
Well, since I'd made the commitment to myself, I might as well make it to the rest of the world. The next morning, I went ahead and publicly posted my recent folly to Facebook and Twitter. I also sent an email to family members. I guess if I was going to do this thing, I may as well create a little extra motivation to really train and do well in the event by making my intentions public. I just hope it works as I expect.
So, now I'm signed-up and looking forward to Sunday 9 September 2012. All that's left to do is train. :)
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