Kelly ‘the Iron-Princess’ Preddy

As I’m sure most of you guys have gathered – Kelly is an Ironman.  The weather was chilly the whole day making it ideal racing conditions – I think the high may have reached the upper 50′s.  It was a great course for spectators.  Every part of the race had 2 loops so we were able to see her mid-swim and post swim (she was super fast in the water, getting out before most of the competitors).  Then we raced over to the ‘bike-out’ and cheered her on for her 112 mile journey.  The bike was fun for us because the way the course was set up we could see her about 3-4 times per loop – thus, I think we were able to hold our signs up and cheer her on about 8 times during the ride.   And would you believe that she was smiling every time we saw her?  She would be smiling and waving, or blowing us kisses, or giving us the thumbs up (not the disposition as to be expected after doing so much to your body).  During the second loop of the bike the sky got a little grey and the wind picked up.  Then just about when she started her marathon the rain came.  Kelly likes to run in the rain so it was great for her – and luckily we found a bar with a patio overlooking the run course – so it was still cold but at least we had shelter from the rain.  Again, the course was nice because we got to see her go out and back on each loop (4 spottings total, with the final one being at the finish line).  I jogged along the sidewalk as Kelly passed once – I was clearly concerned and making sure she was still doing alright and still eating and drinking enough (they say you burn 10,000 calories during an ironman).  This was as she was heading out on her last loop of the run.  She still looked incredibly strong and when I asked her how she was doing she said “I’m doing really great, I feel good, I’m going to come in under 13 hours…”  Ay Carumba is what I thought – that would be insane, but she was right, she was definitely on pace to do such.  I then proceeded with asking if she had eaten enough and if she had considered drinking coke yet.  Coke is offered along the race and its a tricky beast – it’s got caffeine and lots of sugar which are two great things for a racer – but it’s one of those things that once you start drinking it you have to continue doing so  for the rest of the race or else you will crash/bonk.  Ha! she let me know that she had indeed just drank a bit of coke and in her words “IT’S LIKE SPEED!!!”

The next time we saw kelly she was in the homestretch.  She was heading down the main street of Coeur d’Alene that was lined with spectators cheering their loudest.  It’s pretty cool because the race numbers have the racers name on it – so everyone for the last 0.2 miles was cheering Kelly on by name.  In fact they were so loud that she couldn’t even hear us above the noise.  As Kelly crossed the finish line the announcer came on and said “Kelly Preddy you ARE an IRONMAN, in fact, this is Kelly’s first Ironman, she is an Iron Princess.”  It was all pretty overwhelming actually.  And she did finish before 13 hours – a feat by anyones standards.

Kelly’s body was still incredibly wired after the race so she didn’t sleep very much, but we still had our priorities to go to the finisher’s store at 6:45am.  The finisher’s store opened at 7am and it has all the clothing and garb that had “IRONMAN FINISHER” on it.  We were able to grab a jacket, a sweatshirt, a shirt, and some stickers before the crowds and cleaned the place out.  Later on in the day we also went to the photo place and bought all the professional photos taken of Kelly throughout the race – they were all great pictures of Kelly smiling, looking strong, and with great Idaho scenery in the background.

Let us also mention that we made it to the tattoo parlor where Kelly got the m-dot brand on her foot.  It’s on the inside of her left heel and is pretty small.  It’s a black outline of the m-dot and all the other ironmen in the parlor were big fans of the tat.

So the big question: is Kelly going to do another Ironman?….

Welp, as of right now I think she has decided to just do this one.  She has said that this experience was so perfect that another would never compare.  She felt so great, finished so fast, and had a lot of support – an equation that might not always be the same if she did more.