THE FRONT ROW with Mark Nelke, June 23, 2013

Seeking a little inspiration for Ironman Coeur d'Alene today, I wandered down to City Park the other afternoon to soak up ... well, whatever was there to be soaked up. And I was hoping it wasn't rain.

Bill Buley, our resident Ironman in recent years, created most of the buzz for the event in our newsroom. But he has moved on, posting a lot of scenic photos from Hawaii, running (still) quite a bit and, presumably, sneaking in a little newspaper work from time to time.

However, his former cubicle will be represented today by Tom Hasslinger (bib No. 1541), our city reporter, co-city editor and unabashed LeBron James fan. Tom is making his Ironman debut today - and perhaps will be inspired by the Heat repeating as NBA champs the other day. Buley's oldest son, Nick, is signed up for today's race (bib No. 1012).

OUR TWO local men's pros are Derek Garcia (bib No. 9), former Coeur d'Alene baseball player, and Brian Hadley (bib No. 16), the ex-Sandpoint High runner. Viktor Zyemtsev of the Ukraine, a three-time Ironman Cd'A champ, is in bib No. 1. Heather Wurtele of Canada, the 2008 champion here, is in bib No. 35.

Until Friday, the weather this week certainly wasn't "Welcome to Coeur d'Alene" weather - rain, wind, cold, and more rain. Things looked a little more optimistic Friday afternoon. I ran into Frank Garcia, Derek's proud dad, while making the rounds down at the park. He was volunteering at one of the booths.

"As soon as the sun came out, the energy picked up," he said.

Understandable.

I went to the park also looking for the local angle, and I saw a local scurrying across the grass, over a picnic table and up a tree. I observed it from a few feet away - it even posed for a photo - before four little kids rushed over to see what the fuss was.

"Squirrels," marveled the first boy who arrived. "I've never been this close to a squirrel before."

By this time, all four kids had surrounded the tree. A staredown ensued.

"Back away," one kid said, suggesting the others give the squirrel some room.

Of course, kids being kids, moments later it was on to the next thing.

"Squirrels are so adorable," one of the girls said, running off.

I wondered how the little critters were coping with this influx of Ironman, but the squirrel wasn't commenting.

AMONG THE other locals signed up for Ironman that I recognized on the bib list (sorry for the ones I missed, no hometowns were listed) - Teigan Lockwood, bib No. 266 ... her mom, Tia Vesser, bib No. 859 ... former Timberlake High standout Tarra Tymesen, bib No. 276 ... another former Tiger, Korey Kreider, bib No. 1065 ... Cody Helander of Sandpoint, bib No. 307 ... Chrystie Hjeltness of Coeur d'Alene, last year's top local finisher, bib No. 813 ... former Lake City baseball player, Tommy Barlow, bib No. 1161.

(In between bonding with squirrels, I wondered what kind of triathlete LeBron James would make. Not sure what kind of pounding his 6-foot-8, 250-pound frame would take with all that running - then again, he takes a pretty good pounding just playing in the Eastern Conference. In any event, no matter how well he finished at Ironman, someone would nitpick about his swimming technique, or something like that).

Down at Independence Point, just past the University of Idaho booth, some triathletes were getting ready to test out the waters of Lake Coeur d'Alene. One guy was swimming in the 60-degree water without a wet suit.

"Is he crazy?" asked one woman, who was getting ready to jump in.

"It's warmer than Tahoe," the man replied.

It's funny - these athletes are competing against each other, but not really. They're all in this event together, and many have truly heartwarming reasons for competing, as you may have seen or read about this week.

So it's no big deal for complete strangers to discuss, say, whether or not to wear booties during the swim (they could keep your feet warm, but if your body gets too warm, there's nowhere for the heat to escape).

I BID adieu to the local Iron squirrel as well, and wandered elsewhere in the park. I walked past a dozen or so athletes gathered to listen to some spiritual words of wisdom ("Sometime during the race, your body might start to shut down, but remember, Jesus is never, ever, ever tired," said one woman).

Further down the walking path, a half-dozen more Iron squirrels had gathered near a temporary fence. A woman was tossing raw almonds and pecans over the fence to the little athletes.

"We ride through here and feed them every day," she said. "My husband over there has one that likes to crawl up his lap."

Sure enough, we walked by and there he was feeding more squirrels, one of them running up his pants leg.

(I imagined what would happen if a squirrel crawled up my pants leg, and it wasn't pretty.)

I did not know that there were good and bad foods to feed squirrels - I'm guessing chicken gizzards would be a bad idea. In any event, armed with this new nutritional information, I wandered back to the other part of the park to pass on the good news to my new friend the Iron squirrel, but alas, he had moved on.

Probably had his own training meal in mind.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.