Background

The last time I wrote a race report was back in June. I’d just completed a five-week stretch that included two IRONMAN 70.3s in Panama City and Chattanooga, then followed it up with an Olympic distance tri here in Nashville. I’d intentionally left July and August open because I wanted to put all my focus on Augusta. I was thrilled with how the summer was going and had high hopes for what awaited in this race.

But I got COVID in mid-June. And then, six weeks later, at the end of July, I got COVID again.

It sucked. The scariest moment was after testing positive a second time. My doctor told me I should be worried about pneumonia, since the two infections were so close together. He said this was serious and I should have a bag packed to be ready to go to the ER at a moment’s notice if my symptoms got worse.

Gulp.

In the grand scheme of things, I certainly could have had it worse. I never went to the hospital, and I’ve mostly recovered. But I’ve battled brain fog on and off since July. It has only been in the last couple of weeks that my heart rate has returned to normal. As it relates to triathlon training, I went from hoping to finally cross off a sub-6 hour 70.3 to wondering if I would even be able to race Augusta at all.

Letting the remainder of the season turn into a pity party was tempting. I had gotten vaccinated and boosted, but I still caught it twice. Both rounds of COVID came from work-related exposures where I realistically couldn’t have avoided them. If I’d gotten it at a sold-out Braves game, at least it would have happened from something fun.

On top of that, my grandma died while I was positive and quarantined with round two. There was unfortunate and unnecessary family drama that followed in the days afterward.

I don’t want to dwell on any of this other than to reiterate what I kept telling myself as the weekend approached: Whatever happens on race day, I should celebrate that I’m even showing up.

Pre-Race

Katy has always been my sherpa for IRONMAN races. It’s a real luxury not to worry about morning parking and to have her support out there during the bike and run. However, a few hours before we were supposed to head for Augusta, she realized she needed to stay behind in Nashville.

Her bags were already in my car. Pulling them back out was a real bummer. Normally when I leave for races, I am really hyped and excited. I didn’t feel that way for the first hour or so of the drive. But I tried to remind myself that I wouldn’t be solo in Augusta. I knew four other people who would be there. That doesn’t make up for suddenly being without Katy, but I was in search of positives wherever I could find them!

The drive from Nashville to Augusta takes me through Atlanta, which greeted me with several areas of gridlock. By the time I got to the Airbnb that I was sharing with Tiffany and Caitlin, aka Team Saunders, it was a little after midnight.

Saturday was uneventful. I’d never been to Augusta before, much less even seen the bike or run course. I joined Tiffany and Caitlin on a drive of the bike course and proceeded to head to registration. I ran into Brian and his family at the Augusta Convention Center, which was nice. I went back to the house to grab my bike and take it to transition. For all the craziness that led into this race, I was relieved today was calm and easy going.

The Saunders and I went to a pasta dinner at St. Paul’s Church near the start line. We brought back a monumental amount of carbs to our AirBnb and watched college football before heading to bed around 8 p.m.

Race Morning

I tend not to sleep well the night before races because my mind is in overdrive thinking about tomorrow. But, I actually slept well this time.

I think it’s because I’d come to peace with what this race was and wasn’t.

I likely wasn’t going to be proud of my times (spoiler alert: I wasn’t), but I mentally did a good job of keeping everything in perspective. As an example, without Katy to drop me off, I had to find parking - always a stressful task on race morning! As I hunted for a parking spot, I tried to focus on how grateful I was to be even at the race. Just six weeks ago, I was in COVID quarantine, and now I’m at an IRONMAN 70.3.

I had a few moments throughout the weekend where I briefly cracked, but I put a lot of effort into keeping those negative thoughts at bay.

That might sound forced – maybe it is. But I genuinely was happy and thankful to be there. I wanted to race with a very specific mindset: full of gratitude.

I got my gear set up and then waited with Tif and Cait until it was time to seed ourselves for the swim. Despite the crowds, Nate somehow saw me and came up to say hello. I forgot about any lingering pre-race jitters while we talked about Apple Watches and the new iOS release that had come out last week. 😂

Swim

Time: 33:51
Distance: 1.2 miles
Pace: 1:37/100 yd
AG: 130/179
Men: 804/1216
Overall: 1133/1986

Weather: Scattered clouds
Water Temperature: 75°F
Current: Oh yeeeeeah
Suit: Full-sleeved wetsuit

Game time.

I got goosebumps jumping into the river, and it wasn’t from the cool water.

So much shit went wrong this summer. But here I am, swimming down the Savannah River. How awesome is this?

In hindsight, I probably didn’t focus on my form or sighting as much as I should have. I spent all 33 minutes (!!!) just basking in being out in a river, watching the sun rise up over the bridges, and thinking how far this was from things like the taste of Paxlovid or COVID tests up my nose.

ALSO! MY TIME! 33 MINUTES!!!

Augusta’s downstream swim held true to its reputation. I set a PR for a swim in a 70.3!

Transition 1: Swim to Bike

Time: 6:31
AG: 119/179

Not to make this sound too sappy, but I thought about my grandma when I came out of the river and headed to transition.

Whenever my grandparents visited when I was a kid, she always said the same thing before leaving to go back to Miami. She had a third eye that would watch out for me after she left.

I hope she had her third eye in Augusta today to see this incredible thing about 2000 of us were doing.

Let's ride.

Bike

Time: 3:10:02
Distance: 56 miles
Pace: 17.6 mph
AG: 124/179
Men: 800/1216
Overall: 1071/1986

Weather: Partly Cloudy, in the 70s, and a light breeze
Road Conditions: Less than ideal. Lots of construction and potholes.
Terrain: Scattered false flats mixed with six bigger climbs

I am so dang glad I scouted the course with Tif and Cait the day before. My Wahoo bike computer will tell me about all the turns and elevation changes. But having seen the course gave me a good bit of ease.

The first 10 miles and the last 10 miles are pretty flat. In between, there are six climbs. That’s how I decided to divide the race up in my head. I didn’t count miles. I counted climbs – six climbs to go, five to go, etc.

I felt remarkably great for the first 20 miles or so, but I knew at some point I was going to start to tire. I hadn’t biked longer than 30 miles since all this COVID nonsense.

Ironically enough, the hardest part of the ride was the final 10 flat miles. It was an easy part of the course, but my stamina just wasn’t up for this kind of ride. It left me slightly concerned about the half-marathon run that loomed next.

But all things considered, I’m pretty happy with how this went.

Transition 2: Bike to Run

Time: 6:40
AG: 144/179

At some point, I need to get a bit quicker at my transition times. However, after the experience of somebody crashing into me at the dismount line at Gulf Coast, I’m happy to say T2 in Augusta was wildly uneventful.

Run

Time: 2:33:59 (minus the train), 2:46:07 (official time)
Distance: 13.1 miles
Pace: 11:48 / mile
AG: 144/179
Men: 873/1216
Overall: 1212/1986

Weather: Mostly Sunny, temps warming into mid-80s
Road Conditions: Good except for a rogue train that crashed the party
Terrain: Flat

Ho boy, these first couple of miles sucked. It’s always a bit of a challenge for the legs to switch from biking to running, but this was much harder than usual. With my lack of recent fitness and conditioning, I started to get worried that I had a 13.1-mile death march in front of me.

But thankfully, I began to pull it together around mile three. I didn’t feel great, but I’d gotten into a 10:30-ish pace. Given the circumstances, I was thrilled by this.

I missed Katy. In my other half and full IRONMAN events, I always knew she was somewhere out on the run course or at an aid station. Seeing her always gives me a boost. When I raced Gulf Coast, I saw her three times, and my mile splits after each are noticeable on Strava.

Thankfully, I wasn’t totally alone out there.

One cruel thing about the run course is that early on, you run next to the finish line long before getting to finish yourself. But as an upside, I got to see Brian finish an incredible day with a time of 4:34!

Around mile six, a train arrived in downtown Augusta. Not only did it block the run course where I was, but it also blocked athletes in two other places. According to my watch, I ended up standing there for a little over 12 minutes. Crazy stuff.

I’m grateful I wasn’t going for a specific time (or maybe someday…chasing a world’s slot.) I would have been really upset. I sympathize with anyone who lost out on a goal time, a world’s slot, or a podium slot because of the train.

I had seen Tiffany earlier on the run and knew she was right behind me. With nothing else to do, I ran backwards towards her to tell her about the train up ahead. I have never run backward in a race before!

Eventually, the train moved on, leaving me with seven miles to go. Much like on the bike portion, my lack of recent training because of COVID began to show. Since June, the farthest I’d run had been only 10 miles. The final three miles of the half marathon were a SLOG.

I tried not to focus on what hurt but instead appreciate the lingering final minutes of my 2022 race season. My performance was forgettable, but the day was not. I’m really proud of what happened here today.

Postrace

Overall Time: 6:32:12 (minus the train), 6:43:12 (official)
AG: 144/179
Men: 872/1216
Overall: 1212/1986

Caitlin was waiting at the finish line for Tiffany and me. She took my chip for me and pointed me in the direction of pizza and Coke. I scarfed down some carbs, sent Katy a text that I was done, and Tiffany crossed the finish line shortly afterward.

I looked up my times and found myself rather unhappy for a few minutes, but I wanted to push those negative thoughts away.

I tried to remind myself that I battled through so much shit. The takeaway shouldn’t be that I faded on the end of the bike and run. It should be that I went from a double dip of COVID to the finish line of an IRONMAN 70.3 in just six weeks.

The #BattleATL koozie seemed more than appropriate.

Next Steps

My first reaction after finishing was that this was the forgettable race in a wonderful, but weird, 2022. This season included the ATL Marathon (in a monsoon), three IRONMAN 70.3s, and a handful of other regional events around the Nashville area.

As I write this, I’m now a bit kinder towards how Augusta went. This race made me realize how much I like this sport. Three seasons down, and I enjoy it more now than I ever have. When I finished my first full in Chattanooga a year ago, I relished the idea of taking a couple of months off from anything resembling structured training. I certainly didn’t want to quit, but I couldn’t wait for a break.

Before the race day in Augusta ended, the three of us were already talking about IRONMAN 70.3 Chattanooga next May. During the drive home, I thought about that race quite a bit, particularly because I drove through Chatt on the way back home to Nashville.

I plan to take a few easy weeks during October, especially with Katy and I heading to the beach to celebrate our 10-year anniversary. (I’m not sure I know what a vacation without a triathlon even looks like anymore.) But when we get home, I can’t wait to get back to work. My first sub-6 triathlon is still out there. Hopefully, it’s waiting for me in Chattanooga next spring.

Go fuck yourself, COVID. I finished the race anyway.