COEUR d'ALENE - Late into the night, after a day of nothing but swimming, biking and running, the human spirit is still strong.

"If you have not been here at midnight to cheer on the last people that are barely going to make it after 18 hours, it's amazing," said Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce President Steve Wilson. "It's an emotional rush."

Ironman Coeur d'Alene returns next Sunday. A lot has happened since its debut event.

"Ironman was a small company, there were only five or six of them in the country," Wilson said. "The owner of that event was looking to duplicate successes that they'd had in Lake Placid, N.Y.; Madison, Wis.; and Penticton, Canada, looking for a great resort-side community that had a combination of the beauty and the ability to have a community that welcomed them, and then a good course."

The Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce is the lead sponsor of the event and underwrites the five-year contracts. The last contract was renewed in 2013.

For the 13th year, Coeur d'Alene will open itself to the international triathlon event that has grown and evolved into a multi-day community happening with a half-Ironman on the horizon.

The race

Ironman Coeur d'Alene begins with a 2.4-mile, two-loop swim in Lake Coeur d'Alene. Age group athletes begin entering the water at 6:35 a.m. Following the swim, athletes transition to bicycles and ride the 112-mile, two-loop course from downtown along Coeur d'Alene Lake Drive to Higgens Point where they turn around and head through downtown to Northwest Boulevard and out to U.S. 95, where they make the trek to just south of Setters Road and repeat the loop. Athletes then beat the pavement for the 26.2-mile running portion, which again loops them through downtown, along the Centennial Trail and parallel to the lake's shoreline until they finally reach the finish line on Sherman Avenue between Second and First streets.

"I think the finish line has something really unique and cool about it," said race director Zach Ukich. "Every single person that crosses that finish line has a story to tell of how they got there. They get the medal around their neck and they just accomplished something really cool."

Well more than 3,000 athletes from across the nation and across the globe participate in Coeur d'Alene's Ironman, a number that has just about doubled from the 1,900 who competed in the inaugural event in 2003.

Economic impact

Millions of dollars, thousands of volunteers and countless visitors flow into the Lake City when Ironman comes to town. The Spokane Regional Sports Commission first introduced Coeur d'Alene to Ironman 14 years ago.

"That relationship developed into a series of what is now the WTC, the World Triathlon Corporation," Wilson said.

The Spokane Regional Sports Commission released an economic and media impact study in 2011, stating that the average numbers of outside visitors - athletes, fans and event management staff requiring an overnight stay - is 4,300; people stay an average of six days and spend an average of $227 each day. The direct tourism economic impact was found to be $7.6 million.

"That's a significant impact," Wilson said. "You could argue that these numbers aren't right, but even if they're half that, that's a pretty significant chunk of change for a four- or five-day event."

Ironman has expanded to include activities such as the Friends of Ironman social that will take place in the Art Spirit Gallery from 4:30-6 p.m. Thursday to help support the race, athlete meet-and-greets, the family-friendly "Hoopla in the Park" in McEuen the day before the race and an entire Ironman Village that takes over City Park in the days leading to the event.

The study also found that Ironman has a big impact on media attention.

"Arguably the greatest impact associated with hosting the Ironman in Coeur d'Alene is the media exposure generated by the event," the study states. "Because of the significant media attention that follows Ironman events, positive impressions are generated about the Coeur d'Alene community nationwide (and to some degree, internationally). This exposure presents Coeur d'Alene as a healthy, vibrant, beautiful, athletic community worthy of visiting, relocating or investing in."

The study goes on to state that the advertising opportunities are worth mentioning, as well.

"The advertising equivalency this exposure represents is unaffordable through traditional outlets - literally millions of dollars to purchase ... the public relation aspects of hosting the Ironman can never be underestimated and will have lasting effects long after the visitor has gone home."

Wilson said Ironman has been such a positive event for the community that plans to add a half-Ironman to the summer schedule are being discussed.

"We are in deep negotiations with WTC to move our full Ironman to August, and in its stead, in June, they would add half an Ironman," Wilson said. "It's public information. The city, on Tuesday, directed its staff to work on negotiations that would move the event from June to August and then add a half. Both the city and the Chamber of Commerce are the two signatories on the contract with WTC."

If negotiations go through, the full Ironman could move to August while the half would take the late June slot. The current negotiation is to extend and amend through 2020, when it will be up for renewal "assuming that there's a major announcement" soon, Wilson said.

Community response

In order for the Chamber's board to renew the contracts, surveys were conducted last fall to ensure continuing Ironman was in line with the community's wishes.

"We wanted to get a pulse of the community, so we did a community survey of our membership and then The Press did a couple of enlightening stories that also had a call to action to provide some input to the Chamber, and certainly well over 90 percent of the responses out of the newspaper were positive," Wilson said. "Our members survey indicated that nearly 60 percent of our members felt that we should continue to subsidize Ironman with only 29 percent indicating that they didn't think so, so that's a relatively overwhelming response that we ought to continue it."

He said based on the information gathered in the surveys, the Chamber board "continues to support Ironman enthusiastically, thinks it's a great event for the community, brings thousands of people to Coeur d'Alene and has some real positive economic benefits."

While Wilson declined to give the exact amount the Chamber spends on Ironman, he did report that a significant contribution and partnership program cover the sponsorship fee, and "that's the only spending that's done."

"We contribute and the city contributes to provide in-kind services, and the hospital provides in-kind services and the Chamber writes a check for the sponsorship fee," he said.

"There is a significant number of folks who are very supportive of the event but maybe aren't always real active in the Chamber of Commerce. A 'Friends of Ironman' committee has been formed and it's responsible for initiating some programming that is really important, and the Hoopla in the Park, for example, is a result of this group of people banding together to create some ideas."

So prepare for the road closures, the hoopla, the cowbells, the endurance and unbreakable human spirits that will be persevering for those medals, because Ironman is now upon us.

"The community itself is greatly impacted. All the businesses downtown, the community pride," Ukich said. "Knowing that Ironman Coeur d'Alene is one of a few full-distance (races) in the U.S. ... It's a pretty unique town and indeed it's a unique event."