On April 5th the Ironman 70.3 was held in New Orleans. Teamwannabe South worked it as volunteers and Debi's sister, Julie completed the Ironman event. The event consisted of a 1.2 mile swim in the cold waters of Lake Ponchartrain, a 56 mile bike ride along the windy Lake Ponchartrain shoreline and then a 13.1 mile run through the streets of New Orleans with an ending at Jackson Square in the French Quarter. She completed the course in 7 hours-4 minutes-15 seconds beating her estimated completion time of 8 hours. Her swim was completed in 51 minutes, her bike ride was 3 hours and 21 minutes (16.7 mph average) and her run was 2 hours 43 minutes. Julie was all smiles at the end and stated that this was one of the most enjoyable running events to participate in and that this is another event that she can strike off her “Bucket list”.



Six members of Teamwannabe South also volunteered as “athletic supporters” in this Ironman inaugural New Orleans event by first doing the “Body Marking”. We started very early, around 4 am (dark early) on the morning of the event. There were 30 markers and 3000 participants that needed arms and legs marked with their race numbers and ages. So “do the math” …we estimated that we each did at least 100 bodies each and that’s a lot of “touching”. After the early morning “doodling” we were then “walking and talking traffic cones” stationed to guide the swimmers exiting the lake through the transition area. The transition area was a large parking lot that consisted of 3000 bikes set on racks with everyone’s “stuff” in their organized piles for the three different events. Let me tell you, it was like herding cats with these wet and dazed people scurrying through us as we tried to guide them on the right path through the maze of bike racks.