Background
My 2022 race season went off the rails after I caught COVID in late June and then again in early August. I still managed to drag my way through Ironman 70.3 Augusta at the end of September, but I felt like shit that day and my time reflected it.
During last year’s season, I had hoped to finish a 70.3 in under six hours for the first time, but I didn’t get there. Gulf Coast lost its swim due to severe weather, it didn’t happen in Chattanooga, and it certainly never was in the cards in Augusta.
There's no reason to rehash it here since it’s already out there on social media, but I suppose it’s worth mentioning for the sake of completeness. Katy had a seizure on Thanksgiving Day that involved a terrifying few minutes where she stopped breathing, and I had to give her CPR. It took four months until we were sure it wouldn’t happen again. It was hard to keep training during that time. There were days I wondered if I should still pursue this sport.
As winter gave way to spring, finishing a 70.3 in under six hours remained an important goal, but this race in Chattanooga became about so much more. I wanted redemption from a lousy 2022 season. I also wanted validation that life had thrown a whole bunch of bullshit my way, and I’d fought through it all.
I’m not saying I’m happy I got sick twice, but if COVID doesn’t wreck the second half of the year, I don’t believe everything I’m about to write happens. It lit a fire under me that left me angry and motivated. If I’d had a moderately successful race in Augusta, I think I would have had another moderately successful race in Chattanooga.
Instead, I had the race of my life – and then some.
Pre-Race
Throughout the winter, Frank has been coaching me, Tiffany, Caitlin, Helma, and Bianca. We generally followed the same training plan structure and often rode together virtually in Zwift. Each of us would be racing in Chattanooga. On those longer training days, it helped to know that we were all working towards the same thing.
I tend to get many jitters in the week leading into a race. My brain tries to trick me into thinking I’m getting sick, I’m injured, or tries to drown me with doubt. So it was wonderful to share an Airbnb with these supportive and uplifting people.
There are two moments I’ll remember about the days leading into the race.
The first was when we were having dinner the night before the race. I actually remember the sentence verbatim. Caitlin told Katy, “I hope you realize that your husband is a really talented triathlete.”
It was incredibly kind that she told Katy this, but I’m the one who probably needed to hear that message the most. I’ve been doing this sport for almost exactly four years, but I still feel like I’m faking it. Everybody else on the team? They are real athletes. I’m just the tag-along friend.
Is that inaccurate? Probably. But for how I felt that evening, a real athlete told my wife I might be one too. That meant a lot.
The other moment that stands out to me was when Frank went through our race plans with each of us. He’s awesome. He gave us specific paces to shoot for, average watts, how to manage nutrition, and basically everything we needed to perform our best.
He also came with predictions.
My best time in Chattanooga and a 70.3 overall was 6:30. He told me he expected me to finish this race in 5:20. I’m sorry. What? When he said the number, I let out an exasperated chuckle and literally rolled my eyes at him. I agreed with his assessment that it had been an offseason full of gains, but this number sounded ludicrous. He asked me for my prediction. I told him if everything fell into place, I hoped I’d finally clear 6 hours and would probably land around 5:50.
We’ll see.
On a lighter note, for the week leading into the race, I’d been under immense pressure to shave my legs. I don’t know if it’s accurate or not, but everyone said leg hair would cost me eight minutes over the course of the ride. I finally gave in.
Shaving your legs for the first time is one thing. Doing it in front of your wife, your triathlon team, and on Instagram Live is something else entirely.
We all shared a lot of laughs throughout the process. The Saunders even included it in one of their race week episode vlogs.
Race Morning
I got some terrible news from down in Atlanta. My friend, Mark, had been diagnosed with cancer, it was likely terminal, and the timeframe was short.
I didn’t even know where to start with this. Do I even want to race?
Triathlon is a sport of compartmentalization. For example, worrying about the bike ride while you’re in the middle of the swim doesn't serve you well. As horrible as this news sounded, I wanted to approach things with the same mindset. There’s nothing I can do about this right now. I tried to put it out of my mind and focus on the day ahead as best I could.
I love the moments just before a race begins.
There is literally nothing left to do. The training is done. The packing/traveling is done. Nobody is tired or smelly yet. The day is full of potential. It’s a unique moment, and you often get treated to an awesome sunrise over a body of water.
I hugged everybody before we set off for the swim start. DJ got this wonderful photo of Tiffany and me. She had her own pile of crap to deal with during the 2022 season. I was so excited for her to get her redemption race here in Chattanooga too.
Of all the photos from this day, this is the one that stands out the most to me. This is what this sport is all about.
Swim
Ironman places buoys along the course that start yellow and then turn orange before one final red buoy. I got excited about how quickly I got to the orange buoys. I didn’t look at my watch during the swim, but I knew things were going well.
When I came out of the water, I heard Frank yelling at me to keep kicking ass. Yes, sir!
A 36:27 finishing time at a 1:27/100 yd pace is a personal best for me on this course.
Transition 1
I ended up running right next to Bianca the whole way up to our bikes. It was the first of probably a dozen times we would see each other throughout the day. She is snappier with her transitions than me. I needed about another 30 seconds compared to her. Something to work on in the future!
Bike
Frank told me he wanted me to maintain an average power of 207 watts throughout the ride. If I’m being honest, that seemed like a high number to hold over 56 miles, but I figured I’d try to keep with his recommendations as long as I could.
I biked a personal best for any 70.3 course, clocking in at 2:43. Four years ago, when I first raced here, this same ride took 3:44. Amazing. My average power for the ride ended up almost exactly where Frank asked. He wanted me at 207, and I rode 208. He was right. I could maintain it over the whole ride and its 2,200 feet of climbing.
But most importantly, I had put myself in a great position to finally bust through that sub-6 barrier. I felt some fatigue from the ride (and the unexpected headwind over the last 20 miles!), but I felt great as I returned to town.
Transition 2
Off with the helmet, on with the shoes. Nothing eventful here to mention. The best kind of T2.
Run
My lack of confidence has probably been visible throughout this race report. But I will say this: I believed that if I could get to the start of the run without anything like a freak thunderstorm or a mechanical issue with my bike, I would bring it home and finish sub-6.
That confidence was tested early. There was an uneasy rumbling in my gut, and I had a pesky side stitch. Like in the other disciplines, Frank had given me a goal pace. He wanted me to run the first half at 8:40/mile and accelerate to at least 8:30/mile during the second half. Unlike on the bike, I couldn’t hold that pace because I didn’t feel great. I tried to reassure myself that the 9:15/mile I was running would still get me to the finish in under 6 hours, as long as this didn’t worsen.
After a little over 6 miles of trying to push through the discomfort, I’d started to realize what might help.
I emerged from the portapotty at the mile 7 aid station feeling like a new man! 💩
The cost was about 2 minutes. The result? I felt AWESOME. I ran the rest of the race in a nearly perfect negative split, starting at 8:37/mile and finishing at 7:22/mile. Maybe I was just motivated to run away from the stinkiness of that port-a-potty.
I reached mile 10 at almost precisely the 5-hour mark of the race. Holy shit! My goal is 5:59:59, and I am just 3 miles from the finish looking at 5:00:00 on my watch. Not that I planned to, but I could walk to the finish and get this done in under 6 hours now. It was surreal. I have struggled so many times on these 70.3 half marathons, but today I was getting faster as each mile went by.
I ran a 1:55 half marathon. Four years ago, it took me 2:54 on this course. Just an incredible day.
Post-Race
It doesn’t matter how many times I have done it. There’s nothing quite like running down that red carpet.
I had made a very conscious decision about what to do when I finished. I needed to stop and turn around after crossing the finish line. I didn’t want to miss my name and time on the board over the finish line. This had been a year in the making and I didn’t want to just see a FinisherPix photo of my first sub-6 70.3. I wanted to see it myself.
5:24:09! Holy shit!
Credit where credit is due. Frank had predicted my time within four minutes. Meanwhile, I whiffed by half an hour!
I went looking for Katy. When I found her, the tears started flowing for a minute or so. It wasn’t just that I’d obliterated my sub-6 time goal. This weekend was also her first trip away from Nashville since getting a clean bill of health following her seizure.
I came dangerously close to an alternate reality where she isn’t here, much less waiting at the finish line. But she IS here and healthy. 🥹 When I started thinking about that, oof. There’s that lump in my throat again. Suffice to say, as elated as I am over how the race went, compared to her health, it doesn't matter at all.
This comparison is slightly misleading because COVID wrecked my training plan leading into Augusta last September. But in the seven months between that race and today, I went from a finishing time of 6:43 to 5:24. It’s beyond anything I ever could have imagined was possible.
My previous personal best in a 70.3 was 6:30 here in Chattanooga one year ago. Compared to today, it’s a 66-minute improvement.
What an incredible day. It wasn’t over, either.
Awards Ceremony
I’d completed my goal of finishing in under six hours, but we still were waiting to see if Tiffany and Caitlin accomplished their goals of snagging slots to the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Finland at the end of August.
Tiffany got a slot to Worlds! I am so happy and excited for her. She’s battled through so much crap in the past year. To get to be here to witness her redemption race capped off with a world championship slot? I’m elated for her.
Unfortunately, Caitlin missed getting her slot by just one athlete and six minutes. For all the work she’s put in through the winter, I hate the way that this played out. I don’t know what was going through her head. But for me, it’s much harder to be that close to a goal than to miss by a wide margin. Six freaking minutes.
I spent the whole winter thinking about what would happen today. In all that time, I never envisioned a scenario where only one of them would punch a ticket to Worlds. And I never imagined a scenario where I would find myself getting a slot during the roll down.
I’m so glad DJ had his camera. It was a surreal blur in the moment.
We are all in different age groups. It’s not like I took Caitlin’s slot, but this was bittersweet nonetheless. This is not what the photo was supposed to be:
All winter, Tiffany and Caitlin wore blue wristbands that said Finland on them as reminders of what they were working toward.
They got back to our Airbnb before I did. When I walked in the door, Caitlin was waiting for me. She hugged me, told me how excited she was for me, and then said she wanted me to have her Finland wristband.
All the feels. Again. What an incredible and selfless gesture. I will never forget it.
Here's something a bit more light-hearted to wrap up the day. This is a screenshot of our group chat. Even after an expected slot to Worlds, the conversation still quickly shifted to every athlete's favorite thing: food. 😆
Final Thoughts
We’d long planned a team visit to Chattanooga Whiskey the day after the race, but I admittedly had my mind elsewhere on what was going on with Mark down in ATL.
Things had gotten even more dire. We weren’t talking about months or even weeks now. It was only a matter of days. I pondered just driving south for Atlanta instead of heading home to Nashville, but I wasn’t packed for a longer trip.
As I drove home, I thought about everything that’s happened. From my two rounds of COVID, to Katy’s seizure, to layoffs at work, and now Mark’s cancer diagnosis? How in the world did the race go as well as it did?
The following day, I got back in the car heading for Atlanta. The last time I had been to St. Joseph’s Hospital was in middle school when my mom had a heart attack. I wasn’t thrilled to be back.
On the elevator ride up, I found myself biting my lip, trying to hold my shit together. Thankfully, I visited him with a couple of other friends. They helped deflect the growing lump in my throat. I think we were with him for about half an hour. There came a point where it was apparent he needed to rest, and we should head out.
As we were all about to leave, he asked me to hang behind for a minute. Gulp.
Mark told me I looked good with shaved legs, wanted me to kick ass in Finland, and told me he loved me. He asked for a hug, and then we said goodbye.
He passed away a week later on June 1st.
Normally, I put all my metrics, rankings, and times for each discipline and overall in these race reports. They're out there on Ironman's website if you're curious. But it just felt wrong to put them here. This is less a race report and more a journal entry of one of the more memorable weeks of my life - both for the good and the bad.
Life is fragile.
Up next: the Ironman 70.3 World Championship on August 27 in Lahti, Finland. It’ll be the trip of a lifetime.
