Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga

Background

At this point, Chattanooga has just become an annual May tradition for me. The weekend before Memorial Day, I’ve raced Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga every year since 2019 (sans the 2020 COVID year).

Having just done Ironman 70.3 St. George two weeks earlier, I wanted to approach this race as not a B-race, but as a celebration.

It was here last year where I finished sub-6 in a 70.3 for the first time. Then that afternoon at rolldowns, I somehow ended up with a slot to last year’s 70.3 World Championship in Lahti, Finland.

On a more somber note, it was also here last year when I found out that Mark had terminal cancer. It was a surreal 48 hours to go from accomplishing so many race goals to standing in the hospital in Atlanta saying goodbye to a friend.

This year, I wanted to just race with gratitude for everything that’s happened in the past year. That might sound cheesy, but I don’t quite know how else to put it. It was at this race a year ago that it felt like so many things finally clicked. I’ve been doing triathlons for 5 years now, but it was only a year ago that I actually started to feel confident that I knew what I was doing.

I came into the race with no time goals, no Worlds expectations, and truly just wanted the weekend to be fun and stress-free. But if I’m being honest, I knew in the back of my head that the proper expectation was for me to set a new 70.3 PR. I tried to put that out of my mind.

I have a bad habit of being a worrier about what might go wrong in the days leading into Ironman events. For this trip, I wanted none of that. I just wanted it to be a fun weekend…with only a little bit of pee. 😆

Race Week

I had taken a whole week off from work for St. George earlier in the month. I didn’t want to use more vacay days so soon. As a result, I didn’t take any time off for this race. I was really appreciative of having a remote job!

Tiffany and Caitlin arrived in Nashville on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, after I wrapped up work for the day, we all drove two hours south to our Airbnb in Chattanooga.

Our Airbnb was north of town just off of Barton Avenue about two miles north of the river. I was excited to stay here because we’d be along the run course for the full Ironman. Barton Avenue has one of the biggest hills on any Ironman course out there. And we had to do it twice! But thankfully, it’s not part of the 70.3 course.

Outside of Worlds in Finland last year, nothing has had a greater impact on me in this sport than checking the box on that first full. So in the spirit of making this weekend about celebrating everything that has happened up to this point, I loved being able to stay along the hardest part of the full’s run course.

Friday morning, we went to the Chickamauga Dam for a shakeout swim. The water felt pretty good. There was a little bit of rain which got me hoping it would result in a nice current on race day. Then it was back to the Airbnb for a full day of work. Gotta do what you gotta do to save those PTO days!

I did book myself a meeting in the afternoon for about 90 minutes so I’d have time to go with Tif and Cait to packet pickup. There were so many athletes lined up well in advance of when things started. I thought we were getting there early, but there were at least 100 people in front of us.

That spiffy AWA status got us three awesome spots right next to the exit of transition. It’s a giant parking lot that stretches along Riverfront Parkway, but we would have no problem finding our bikes in the crowd. We were at the far end literally in front of the exit!

We woke up early on Saturday morning to do some running near the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge around sunrise. The buoys were already out and it looked like the water was moving right along.

The rest of the day, including bike drop off, was pretty uneventful. Parking can sometimes be a pain in downtown on weekends, but everything went easy. With the bikes dropped off for the night, I felt good about race day. I didn’t feel like I had any fatigue from St. George and I was optimistic for what was to come in the morning!

Race Morning

The best kind of race morning is the one that's uneventful. Today was one of them!

As usual, I woke up before my alarm. We headed off for transition. I set things up on my bike with plenty of time to spare.

We’re hard to miss in our bright orange.

Back in 2021, right as racing returned from COVID, this was my first race. It also was my first time being around a crowd of people without social distancing! However, they hadn’t resumed the bus shuttle to the swim start yet. Everyone had to walk about a mile and a half or so up the Chattanooga Riverwalk.

Even though the buses have since returned as the COVID precautions are no more, we have continued to make the walk each year. It takes a little bit longer, but this way we aren't waiting in line for a bus. It also takes us by port-a-potties that often have no lines. When we get to the swim start, since we are coming from the opposite of the buses, it also gives us a lot more room to put the wetsuits on and get ready to race.

Swim

As usual for this race, it was wetsuit legal for age group athletes!

As someone who isn't a great swimmer, I love this swim. Despite the fact that it’s 1.4 miles, which is 0.2 miles longer than other Ironman 70.3 events, I find it incredibly enjoyable.

This is one of the larger races in the country in terms of number of athletes. As a result, the bike and run courses can get very crowded. But I’ve never had an issue in the Tennessee River because it’s so big. With no turns until the very end, it's a great experience.

I have always wondered if it's better to cut the curves in the river or to just stay in the center and ride the current. Today I generally stayed in the center and arrived at Ross' Landing in 35 minutes, my fastest 70.3 swim time ever!

Transition 1

There aren't a lot of negatives about Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga. But if we were going to make a list, the steep climb from the river up to the parking lot probably goes at the top.

Nobody's setting any transition PRs here.

I ran up to the wetsuit stripper, had it ripped off me, and then off I ran for the far end of the parking lot where my bike awaited me.

If you look behind me, you can see Caitlin coming out of the water right behind me.

Bike

It was a great start to the ride. We couldn’t have asked for better weather.

The ride was uneventful until around the first aid station at mile 15. I found myself stuck in the middle of a giant clump of athletes. Even if I wanted to hammer down, burn some matches, and try to pass everyone, there wasn't room on the road. I was just sort of trapped.

When we reached the aid station, the athlete in front of me dropped a water bottle during the handoff from a volunteer. He abruptly stopped trying to retrieve it, and before I knew it, I found myself tumbling to the ground in a chaotic pile-up with several other athletes.

In the grand scheme of things, it all was a blur. I was up and back on my bike within 15 or 20 seconds. I just wanted to get out of the madness!

Unfortunately, as I rode on, I realized my right ankle hurt. I also was having trouble shifting. On top of that, both of my aero bars were loose. Not great, Bob!

It’s been years since I last watched Apollo 13. But I suddenly thought of a scene in the movie. Right after the explosion in the service module, everyone in mission control was trying to assess what was wrong. All the flight controllers were shouting damage reports to Gene Kranz, the flight director.

Kranz tells everyone to hush and report things one at a time. Eventually, he stops the endless list and instead asks, “What have we got on the spacecraft that's good?”

That’s exactly how I felt in that moment. Every few seconds, I was finding something else that was wrong. Instead, I tried to find what I had that was good.

Both of my brakes still worked. Nothing was rubbing against them when I pulled the levers. That's great! I know I can slow or stop safely.

Now what about shifting? I was stuck in my big ring and had only four gears I could shift between. Anything beyond that caused my derailleur to start clicking loudly. While four gears wasn’t ideal, at least they were the gears I expected to be in most of the race. The short but steep climb at Andrews Lane was going to be ugly in any of those gears, but otherwise, I’d probably be able to manage. That is at least as long as the aero bars physically stayed on my bike.

It really looked like something bad had happened to both aero bars. I wasn't sure if they were bent, loose, or both (it was both), but after a few miles I decided that riding in aero wouldn’t be an option for the rest of the day.

This photo was shortly after the crash and if you look at the aero bars and the position of my wrists, you can tell something is seriously wrong here.

I seriously considered stopping because there were some pretty big problems here. But as I pedaled on, I decided to draw the line at safety. Or more specifically, would Katy be upset with me for risking injury to try to finish this race? I didn’t feel unsafe. My brakes were fine, I had a handful of gears to work with, and while my ankle hurt, I still pedaled onward.

I can get incredibly stubborn during races, and this was another example of said stubbornness.

What ended up happening was that I sent all the frustration into my pedals! Starting from the moment of the crash, TrainingPeaks said I had my second highest power output ever. The highest was a training ride on Zwift, so this was my highest output ever riding outdoors.

Not only that, of all the years I've done this race, I turned in my fastest bike split. Even crazier, it's the second fastest bike of any 70.3 I've ever done. I was only four minutes slower than pancake flat Indian Wells last December.

I've never been more relieved to roll into transition. I kept waiting for something else to happen that might end my day. When I dismounted, I was eager to see if that pain in my ankle would impact my ability to run. But even if I had to pull out of the race, I was really proud to have gotten my bike back to transition.

After the race, I snapped this photo of my aero bars. They were both facing the wrong way and quite loose. I kind of can't believe I biked another 40 miles on that.

Transition 2

As I racked my bike, Caitlin came up next to me with her bike. She asked how my ride went, and I just muttered an “it was okaaaaaay" before asking how she was doing. Transition was not the time to recap my bike drama!

She said she was feeling great, so I told her to go crush it out on the run!

Run

As I set off on the run, my ankle didn’t feel great, but also didn’t feel terrible. Hey, I’ll take it! I decided to approach the run similarly to how I had handled my bike ride. If things got worse, there was no shame in stopping. But I’d come this far. I wanted to finish!

Caitlin and I set off from transition at almost the same time. We spent most of the run course within a few minutes of each other. With each out-and-back, it was motivating to see her moving right along, especially since I knew she'd battled some nutrition issues on the run in previous races. It looked like she was feeling great today!

I really enjoy this run course. It can get a little steamy when you're running on the highway exposed to the sun. But the shady Riverwalk is pretty flat and it's easy to find a groove.

In spite of the ankle issue, this ended up being my third-fastest half marathon ever, including non-triathlon races! It was my second-fastest in an Ironman 70.3. I'd run a 1:47 at Indian Wells last December, but that's a much flatter course.

Post-Race

A year ago, I was overjoyed to have completed the race in 5:24. Today, I finished in 5:13! It's my fastest ever 70.3! It's hard to believe a PR came two weeks after having raced St. George. Not only that, this happened in spite of the drama with my bike.

That's all great, but my mind pretty quickly turned to Caitlin, who I knew was right behind me. I didn't know her previous best time off the top of my head, but I had a pretty good feeling this was going to be a PR day for both of us.

Katy happened to be lurking off to the side and recorded Caitlin finishing along with when we saw each other.

This right here. This is why this sport is awesome.

If you look closely at the photo, you’ll notice that I wasn’t fully weight-bearing on my right ankle. After this hug, it was off to the medical tent for me.

They gave me a bag of ice, told me to stay off it as much as I could, and to visit my doctor when I got back to Nashville just to make sure there wasn’t anything seriously wrong. (Thankfully, there wasn’t!)

Final Thoughts

A year ago, Tiffany and I qualified for the 70.3 World Championship here. Caitlin narrowly missed out by a few minutes. This year, Tiffany and Caitlin both qualified together!

Just like two weeks ago in St. George, had I been in the 30-34 or 40-44 age groups, I would have qualified with them. Unfortunately, 35-39 has continued to live up to its reputation.

As I write this, I have a decision to make. I have until the end of June to qualify for this year's championship in New Zealand before the calendar turns to the 2025 race in Spain. Having just done two races, it would be pretty stupid to go try to do a third in a few weeks.

But I’m also inspired by what Caitlin did a year ago. She left here disappointed, turned around, and went off to Boulder where she snagged a slot. There are a handful of races to pick from with Ironman 70.3 Iowa being the closest to Nashville.

I don't have to decide anything right now. Right now, it's more important to get my bike fixed up. And also, I need to celebrate what I just did! Two 70.3s in just two weeks, one in St. George and the other here in Chattanooga, with my best time ever!

The progression of my time in this race is remarkable. I'm really proud of it!

2019: 7:21
2021: 6:35
2022: 6:30
2023: 5:24
2024: 5:13