Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga

Background

As long as I am physically capable, I’d like to do Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga every year. It’s only two hours away from Nashville. The course is split between Tennessee and Georgia, my two favorite states, and there’s a Taco Mac with all the beers only a couple of blocks away from the finish line. 

I’m admittedly biased, but Chattanooga is such a fantastic host city.

One quirk of the Chattanooga race is that it’s actually 70.5 miles. We swim an extra 0.2 miles in the Tennessee River. So despite having two 70.3 races on the calendar in May, the distances ended up being 70.5 and 69.1 after storms wiped out the swim in Ironman 70.3 Gulf Coast.

Someday I’ll do the standard 70.3 distance again!

Race Week

One of the more stressful parts of these bigger Ironman races is trying to find parking, particularly on race morning. Since I had signed up for this race a year ago, I was able to snag a hotel room in the heart of downtown. When we checked in, the view from our room actually looked out onto the river and the race village!

Everything went smoothly leading into the race. I checked in, dropped off my bike, and then got a chance to catch up with Brian. He’s the one who peer pressured me into a sprint triathlon a few years back. So cool that we’re now racing our second Ironman 70.3 together! Races are always more fun when you have friends out on the course.

The only hiccup was the threat of storms on race day. After storms damaged bikes in transition before Ironman 70.3 Gulf Coast, the threat of even a drop of rain or gust of wind made me nervous!

Race Morning

I woke up on race morning before my alarm, as always. I have never actually slept to the time I set on my watch. Those pre-race jitters and excitement are always too much for me. I say this every race report, but it’s like being a kid on Christmas morning.

It was a truly glorious experience to ride down the elevator, walk across the street, and be in transition. I got everything set up and returned to the hotel for some breakfast. No port-a-potty stop for this race!

I must have been a little too relaxed about being so close to the race site. I made a careless error and forgot my water bottle for my bike in the hotel fridge! On top of that, I didn’t realize my mistake until just before we all had to board the school buses to be taken up the river to the swim start. I called Katy on my Apple Watch, which is as awkward as it sounds, and she ran down with the bottle for me.

From there, it was onward to the stinky bus, and a number of lines. There’s a good bit of waiting around before bigger races, but I always have enjoyed the calm and sense of anticipation.

I heard the cannon go off for the pros, and then about 20 minutes later, I made my way down to the edge of the dock. Let’s go!

Swim

This is such a fun swim. We get the whole river to ourselves, so crowding is rarely an issue. It’s also all downstream.

The night before the race, we had some storms move through the area. As a result, the Tennessee River definitely had a nice current this morning. I swam a 1:37 pace compared to my average of about ~2:10 in a pool. Despite this course being an extra 0.2 miles compared to other 70.3 courses, I finished the swim about a minute faster than my previous 70.3 PR from last season at Blue Ridge!

The swim portion is my weakest discipline of triathlon. But, at least on race day, it’s my favorite part of the event. It’s not often you get to jump off a dock into a vast river at sunrise. I always try to take a moment to look around and appreciate where I am. It was a truly stunning morning in Chatt.

Especially in the COVID era, I really try to soak in moments like these. You don’t jump into a river to swim over a mile if you aren’t both physically and mentally healthy. And in 2022, that’s worth celebrating.

Last fall, when doing the full Ironman here, I tripped and fell as I came out of the river, injuring my thumb. Nobody has ever taken a set of five stairs more carefully than I did at the end of this swim.

From there, it was a quick jog down a sidewalk to the WETSUIT STRIPPERS!!!

COVID social distancing protocols kept the wetsuit strippers away during the 2021 season. But for the first time since 2019, they were back! Maybe I’m weird, but I always love this part of Ironman races.

Their job is to help you out of your wetsuit quickly. You unzip your wetsuit to your waist. Then you run up to one of them, lay on your back like a beached whale, put your legs in the air, and they rip your wetsuit off. It’s really satisfying to feel that thing go flying off in just a couple of seconds.

Transition 1

It’s a pretty good jog up a hill to get to transition. Nobody’s setting transition personal records here compared to other courses.

Wetsuit down, helmet on, and off I went.

Bike

I know this course quite well. Over the last three years, I’ve probably done this loop about 10 times between races and training rides. While my Wahoo will show me upcoming hills as I ride, I don’t really need that. I’m really familiar with this area and know how to pace myself. It’s a course of a bunch of rollers with a couple of punchy climbs. But overall, it’s a great ride.

I’m disappointed that this ride was about five minutes slower than my 2021 race, where I finished in 2:59. With this being my second 70.3 in two weeks, I expected some fatigue, but I’d hoped to at least match last year’s time.

Rather than dwell on that, I want to spend a moment talking about…the Chickamauga Telephone Corporation. They have some sort of office around mile 45 on the course. About two months before my first 70.3 back in 2019, I came down to Chatt for the day and rode the course.  

It was a brutal ride and far harder than I expected. I was gassed as I came into Chickamauga. I pulled off in their parking lot to take a break.

It was a lonely and helpless feeling standing in their parking lot trying to catch my breath and find the strength to continue. It’s probably the closest point I ever came to giving up on triathlon and spending my time doing something else.

It took me 4:10 to finally finish that training ride. A month later, when I completed my first 70.3, I managed to do the ride in 3:43. Today, I finished in 3:05 as I rode right by this parking lot.

I’m trying to do a better job of not constantly fixating on the next goal, the next time, the next whatever. I also want to appreciate the journey thus far. I’m still new to this sport and proud of the progress I’ve made!

Transition 2

Two weeks ago at Gulf Coast 70.3, somebody crashed into me at the dismount line. Fortunately, nothing to write about here. I racked my bike, put my shoes on, and set off for the run.

The only hiccup…a slight bathroom situation to tend to. There was somehow a LINE at the port-a-potties in transition! I’ve never seen this before, and it’s not like there was a lack of options. I guess we all had to go at the same time.

Run

While it does have some hills, this is a pretty fun half marathon. There are about five miles where everyone just bakes in the sun out on Riverside Drive/Amnicola Highway. That’s not so fun. But you also get a lot of miles on the Tennessee Riverwalk, and crossing over the river is always a treat, even if that dang Walnut Street Bridge is uphill.

Good news: The bad weather stayed away until about an hour after I finished.

Bad news: It was mostly sunny and a bit warmer than expected.

A year ago, I flamed out on this run in the heat around mile seven. I went quickly from feeling pretty good to needing to walk. Basically, I hit a wall and ran out of gas that day. I wanted to avoid that this year, and I did!

I finished in 2:28, which is admittedly about half an hour slower than my best half marathon time. But it felt like a well-managed run. I pushed myself, but didn’t flame out. The sun was rough on the highway, but I handled it well, and held roughly a 10:30 pace in between walking through each aid station.

There is always room for improvement, but I’m happy with how this went!

Post-Race

Doing a 70.3 is always fun, but it’s better when you do it with a friend who qualified for worlds this fall! So excited for him!

I’m already signed up for the 2023 race. I can’t wait to come back and do this all over again! I know I’m biased, but Chattanooga is the best venue.

It’s been an awesome month of May. But I'm pretty tired.

Next Steps

I’m taking a few days off around Memorial Day weekend to head to the Smoky Mountains with Katy. 

And after that, I have my third triathlon in six weeks. Fortunately, this one is not a 70.3. It’s just an Olympic distance, and it’s also in Nashville! The Music City Triathlon is always a good time. We start the swim by jumping off the side of the General Jackson Showboat! I can’t wait.