Ironman<\/a> logos are popping up all over Jacksonville as athletes prepare for the triathlon on Saturday.<\/p>\nAthletes streamed into Riverfront Plaza for the opening of the athlete village on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
For some of the competitors, the course will be longer than their drive to get there.<\/p>\n
“Happy to be doing it in the place I’ve been living for the last few years, so really excited,” said Abby Bohlin while waiting in line to enter the athlete village.<\/p>\n
Abby Bohlin has done the Ironman four times already, going as far as New Zealand to do so.<\/p>\n
This weekend, she’ll be a bit more familiar with the landmarks along the route.<\/p>\n
“Get to ride on the right side of the road,” said Bohlin. “That was the interesting part about New Zealand, was on the left side, you have to turn the opposite way. That was interesting, but excited to be doing it here and recognize the sights.”<\/p>\n
Bohlin will be one of about 1900 athletes signed up to take on a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run.<\/p>\n
She’ll have a familiar face in Jacksonville City Council Member Raul Arias joining her.<\/p>\n
“Five to six months of training, so we’ll see how I last out there on the course, but the goal is to do it in under 12 hours,” said Arias. “This is one of nine full-distance Ironmans in the United States. It’s a big deal to have it in Jacksonville and hopefully there’s many more to come.”<\/p>\n
Marcus Thomas traveled more than 1500 miles from Colorado, so he figured what’s 140 or so more.<\/p>\n
“Flat and a downriver swim,” said Thomas. “I have heat and humidity I’m not normally dealing with, but I’m used to elevation and climbing, so hopefully that balances out.”<\/p>\n
The course adjusted the swim to start at Metropolitan Park and run under the Main Street, Acosta and Fuller Warren bridges to Riverside.<\/p>\n
“The current is going to go with us, yes it’ll be stronger, but it will be pushing us,” said Arias. “It’s a double-edged sword. You’re going to be able to swim easier, faster with the current, however, you’ve got to be careful not to swim past it, otherwise, you’ll be fighting the current to swim back.”<\/p>\n
It won’t only be the current pushing them along, but some race-day adrenaline too.<\/p>\n
“It’s always more fun that just a training ride when you’re by yourself when you have a bunch of people around you, it’s awesome,” said Bohlin.<\/p>\n
The Ironman starts in the water on Saturday, May 16th at 7:30 a.m. at Metropolitan Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ironman will send the athletes on a 140.6-mile trek through downtown, the St. Johns River and down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-270111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}