46 - Kim Ristow AKA The World's Greatest Sherpa

Everyday Ironman Podcast

It’s been said that no race can happen without the volunteers but there is another unsung hero that is critical to making any athlete’s race experience a success. In this episode we hear from Kim Ristow who has been called The World’s Greatest Sherpa.

Kim is the wife of Jim Ristow who was on Episode 3 back in July 2021. Jim is an accomplished triathlete having completed in over 40 events of all distances. Since Kim has served as his Sherpa in almost all of them, she was gracious enough to share some of her experience.

If you are being asked to serve as Sherpa for a friend or family member or if you have an important race on the calendar but don’t know what to ask your Sherpa to help you with then be sure to have them listen to this episode.

Kim shares some of the fun things that she did at the first few Sprint races all the way up to passing her knowledge on to her “protégé” Holly. Kim’s level of understanding is amazing considering she has never raced a triathlon herself.

She explains that the support that she provides doesn’t start an end with the race itself. She reviews her involvement during training, reveals the origin behind the painted rocks that she hands out as souvenirs, talks about how she makes sure Jim has everything that he will need as they pack up, talks about what she needs to be on course all day and how she manages to collect the bike and all the gear bags.

We talked about race-cations and how she would prepare when Jim races Kona.

I can’t thank Kim enough for sharing her knowledge with us and hope that this episode will help your Sherpa ensure you have the best race day ever!