Ironman Chattanooga ... On My Own 😷

Background

This weekend was supposed to be Ironman Chattanooga. It was supposed to be my first full and the pinnacle of my race season. 

But this is 2020 and we’re in the midst of COVID, lockdowns, and social distancing.

As cancellations began in the spring, I kept holding out hope that somehow this race would happen in the fall. When the southern United States had the second COVID spike in June and July, it became pretty clear what would eventually happen.

The day the race got canceled, I was really unhappy. Of everything I'm proud of accomplishing this season, one of the biggest moments took place the next morning. I still set the alarm, still got up early, and still completed my training for the day. I was certainly pondering shutting things down. I was in the midst of nursing shin splints at the time too. It would have been really easy to quit. But I kept going, even without any races left on my calendar. I don't know where that strength came from.

As each and every event over the summer and fall got canceled, I replaced them with individual personal goals to try to achieve instead. Labor Day weekend went from an Olympic triathlon to my first century ride. And this weekend changed from IM Choo to IM Choo by myself. Logistically, there didn't seem to be an easy way to do the 144.6 miles without some kind of aid and support. So Susie suggested I spread the event out over a weekend in both Nashville and Chattanooga.

The week leading into my "race" was stressful. I had just bought a new car. I needed to get a trailer hitch put on. I needed to get a different pin to attach my bike rack to this new hitch. I needed to replace my bike chain. I'd never replaced the chain on this bike before. So I didn't realize the one I'd received from Amazon was defective. Some obscenities and self-doubt later, I went to a bike shop to get help. It wasn't until I opened a replacement chain from them that I realized that this wasn't operator error. 

By the time Friday morning of "race weekend" arrived, all my bike chores were finally done. I was so anxious to just get this thing going.

Friday: 2.4-Mile Swim and 10-Mile Run

Location: Nashville

My pool situation has been a mess all year. In March, the pool near work was closed for what ended up being my final week going into the office before WFH life began. The facility was used as an emergency shelter for the victims of the Nashville tornado.

The coronavirus shutdowns arrived next. I didn't swim for about two months during the spring. When my indoor pool near home reopened, it took probably two weeks to get back to where I was previously. My arms felt worthless and weak in those first few swims.

Then in July, this pool closed indefinitely. There was something wrong with the HVAC on the roof. I don't know exactly what was wrong, but it's something that still isn't repaired as of today! It wasn't all bad news, though. They opened the outdoor pool next door to lap swimmers. Swimming outdoors is far superior to swimming indoors, so this was actually a bonus.

That is until fall arrived. This isn’t a heated pool. My final swim before race weekend was COLD. The water was in the upper 60s! So as I prepared for an IM swim in a cold pool, I figured this was actually good news. If this was a race, we’d certainly be wetsuit legal, so I planned to wear mine.

I drove up to the pool on Friday and realized I had to make another pivot. They'd closed the outdoor pool because it had gotten too cold. The indoor pool was still closed. And now here I am literally sitting in my car looking for pools in Google. The next nearest pool? ALSO CLOSED. That one was damaged in flooding a few weeks earlier after Hurricane Laura moved through Nashville.

This is such a stupid year.

I ended up driving all the way to the Franklin Recreation Center Complex on the northwest side of town. It would not be a terrible drive if I'd known this was where I was going ahead of time. But now my nutrition was messed up because I planned to hop right in the pool. And not only that, when I arrived, there were 40 seniors in this pool doing aqua fitness in four of the six lanes.

Instead of looking at the cool rock walls along the Tennessee River, I spent 2.4 miles staring at the rear ends of aqua fitness participants in alternating 25-yard stretches.

The swim was otherwise pretty uneventful. It was really hard to get amped that this was my big weekend. I was in a boring pool. I didn't even have a wetsuit to help speed things along because the water was far too warm for that.

At one point, one aqua fitness class ended. My excitement was replaced with dread because a lifeguard flagged me down. I needed to vacate my lane because an EVEN BIGGER aqua fitness class was starting in 5 minutes. Fortunately, there was one lane left for lap swimming.

I couldn't have timed it better to conflict with aqua fitness by arriving at 8:20 a.m.

Dumb moment: after I started swimming, I realized I didn't know how far 2.4 miles is in yards. I'd left my phone in the car, so I just started the swim and figured I'd do the math in my head. I rounded up to make sure I covered the 2.4 miles and ended up doing a couple of extra laps.

I had a mini transition in the car in the parking lot. The plan was to run 10 miles after the swim. But having eaten more food than I had planned because of the delayed swim start, I stopped at a gas station to get more. Then it was off the trails near my house.

Again, very hard to get excited. I run on these trails weekly. This run didn't feel like something I’d been training all summer for. If anything, it felt weird. I usually am not lacing up the shoes at 11 a.m. on a weekday. I occasionally battled a random side stitch. But this was about as uneventful of a run as you can have.

I planned to do 10 miles today, but instead did 10.2. I decided I didn't want to worry about that pesky .2 at the end of 26 miles on Sunday! From there I went home, packed, and headed south to Chatt for the weekend.

From the hotel room, I had a great view of the river that I wouldn't be swimming in.

The prep the night before went perfectly. I had brought everything I needed. The hotel room looked like a mess, but this was organized chaos!

Saturday: 116-Mile Bike and 6-Mile Run

Location: Chattanooga

I woke up earlier than I expected. I had a hard time falling asleep too. This is pretty normal for me the night before a race. Even though this was being spread over the course of a weekend, this was obviously the big day.

There was a lot more prep for this ride than a usual race since I wouldn’t have the luxury of aid stations every 15 miles. I had to scout out Dollar Generals and gas stations along the route and plan when/where to stop.

I set off at dawn from what would have been transition. It was sad to see empty streets instead of what should have been crowds of athletes.

I loaded the IM Choo bike route onto my Wahoo Bolt bike computer. But I didn't look precisely at where the starting point was on the route. When I set off to start the ride, I was slightly too far up the road. My Wahoo got confused and actually thought I was on my final mile instead of my first! So I'm cycling up the first hill and it keeps telling me to make a U-turn. It took me a whole mile before I realized what had happened. Being stubborn and wanting to have a ride that was actually the whole course, I cycled back to start again. What's 2 more miles when you're already doing 116, right?

The weather was truly incredible. It wasn't until the second loop that the sun came out. I spent the first 75 miles under cool temperatures, clouds, fog, and even some mist. The first 30 miles are generally all uphill with plenty of rollers. Having biked this course in a single loop form three times before, the familiarity was great to have. There's a steep hill around mile 30 before you begin the second half of the loop. It sucks, but the first time through, it wasn't terrible.

Lookout Mountain was covered in fog for hours.

I passed two cyclists who seemed to be doing the same thing I was doing. I said hello to one as I passed her. We both lamented that the rolling hills were starting to get old. The other I trailed by about 1/10th of a mile from the start of Hog Jowl for about 10 miles. She pulled into a random parking lot where her husband and kids were waiting for her. It looked like they were out there as a mobile aid station. I never saw either of them again, but it was good to know I wasn't the only athlete still doing the bike out on the course!

I struggle with how to feel about the back half of the loop. It's definitely overall downhill, which is fantastic. Turning from Cove onto Hog Jowl is a truly happy moment. I love this section. But once I get to GA-136, it has always weirdly turned into a bit of a slog to me.

The course here is still generally downhill. But every single time I've biked this loop, it feels like the final 10 miles to get to the town of Chickamauga take forever.

On the first loop, this also included a pre-planned stop at the Dollar General on the south side of town. I still had one full bottle of Powerade, but I wanted to play these stops conservatively. Better to stop and refill bottles too soon than the alternative. Being a Seminole, I was less than pleased that this Dollar General only had Gatorade.

Chickamauga always makes me happy when I cycle through. I don't quite get why there's such a sense of anticipation for me to get there, but it's always so fun to go through downtown. It’s also nice to see civilization for the first time in 45 miles! The obnoxious false flat that awaits on the other side of town is stupid. But the reward is amazing. After a joyful ~35mph ride down the big hill, it was time to begin the second loop.

The fog had lifted, but the skies were still mostly cloudy. It never got hot, but it was noticeably warmer.

I dreaded the front half of the second loop. Revisiting the uphill section and the rollers for another 20 miles was always going to be the hardest part - physically and mentally. Every time I've done this ride before, I turned right to head back to Chatt. Now I was turning left to do it all over again.

This section was a battle. Try as I might to compartmentalize, the idea of 20 more uphill miles was not the most pleasant thought. I knew if I could just get to the turnaround on Hog Jowl Road, I'd be home free. But these 20 miles were as mentally taxing as anything I can recall in my cycling career. I actually started to feel a little nauseous in those first few miles after the left turn. I managed to shake it off, but the nausea came back on the final 5 miles or so before the big hill.

I'm so glad I had done my first century ride three weeks earlier. It gave me the confidence to know that physically I was fully capable of finishing this ride. Being nauseous may be a physical symptom, but I knew it was probably all in my head. I expected to be unhappy here, but I didn't expect this level of dread!

When I finally crested the hill the second time, it seemed like a huge weight was lifted off me. It's rather ironic. I was as far out of Chatt as I would be at any point on the course. But I never felt more confident that I'd breeze through the final 35 miles and wrap this thing up.

I felt my same Chickamauga blues after crossing GA-136. The mile markers just feel like they take forever! Eventually, I got into town before riding the false flat and steep hill for the second and final time.

I thought this was my last challenge. But there was more traffic than I would have liked getting back into town. I had three different losers feel the need to honk as they passed me, even though I was in the newly constructed bike lane on GA-193. There's no reason to do that, but some people are just assholes. I tried to shrug it off and not get upset. Since this wasn't a race day, I had to wait at traffic lights. It seemed like I had to wait at just about every single one, which kept killing my momentum!

It was really exciting to get back to what would have been transition. Not only had I just finished the longest bike ride in my career, but I'd also made it back 15 minutes before the 3:30 p.m. SEC/CBS football game.

DONE!

The day was not quite over. Susie wanted me to run 3 miles. I watched some of LSU lose to Mississippi State (lol), put on my running shoes, and set off for three miles. I didn't really have a planned route but figured I'd just do a loop over the Market and Walnut Street Bridges.

I actually felt better than I expected after 116 miles of biking and 3 miles of running. So I went off and did the loop again. I realized if I did 3 more miles, I'd have only 10 to do tomorrow. That was extremely appealing! It was a pleasant evening in Chatt too.

With the day finally complete, I took a glorious shower. I was kind of surprised how I wasn't all that hungry considering my watch said I'd burned over 7,000 calories. I got some dinner from Chili's in downtown. It was my first time getting alcohol to go. Thanks, COVID! I had planned to spend my evening watching Florida State play Miami. But that ended up being less than desirable to watch. I didn't want the Canes to ruin my evening. I ended up on TBS with Big Bang Theory reruns.

It took a long time to fall asleep. Even though I'd been finished for hours, my resting heart rate sat at around 90-95 bpm all afternoon and evening. There were a lot of toxins to clear out! Eventually, I fell asleep.

Sunday: 10-Mile Run

Location: Chattanooga

Susie's original plan for today was to have two runs split up during the day. But with the extra running I did yesterday, I had no desire to drag this out. I wanted to finish! When I woke up, I was surprised how good I felt. A little tired, a little achy, but I felt good to go on this run.

One of my goals with this makeshift race weekend was to try to make things as realistic as possible. So I knew I needed to include Barton Avenue at some point over these 26.2 miles. Barton includes a hill that lasts for over half a mile at like a 6-7% grade. Then there's a loop through some really fancy neighborhoods, a country club, and back for the big hill one more time.

I don't have much to say here. It was a muggy morning with a few showers. I pounded out the hills and finished Barton without too much stress. I planned to cross back over on the Walnut Street Bridge and then run down the Tennessee Riverwalk. I'd even done the math ahead of time to know where to turn around so that I'd finish my run at the actual finish line.

One last obstacle. The Riverwalk was closed for "urgent guard rail repairs."

WHAT? Can something just go to plan?! So one last pivot. I ran back towards downtown, did another loop over the two bridges, and then did the final mile running down Market Street before turning back towards Ross's Landing and what should have been the finish line.

Last year, when I finished the 70.3, I got a medal and a finisher photo. I obviously wasn't getting any swag today. But I wanted some kind of finisher photo. I didn't have a medal to hold, but it seemed appropriate to hold up my mask that I'd brought in my pocket if I needed it in a store or gas station.

I had to do this selfie quickly. There was a line of storms heading towards Chatt. It started pouring rain on me as I walked back to my hotel a few blocks away. 2020 really is a total jerk.

Final Thoughts

As the weekend approached, I was curious about how I would feel when I got to the finish line. I felt some goosebumps as I ran the final tenth of a mile. But the prevailing feeling was a mix of emotions that I didn't expect. I certainly accomplished something I'm proud of. But it wasn't an Ironman. I simultaneously wanted to celebrate what was and grieve what wasn't. I didn't get to experience what it was like to enter an Ironman chute. I didn't get a medal. I didn't get to hear my name called out. Instead, the whole weekend was spent churning out miles alone, often without seeing another person for long periods of time.

I hope this doesn't sound negative. It's not. There were so many opportunities to throw in the towel on this season. While I think it's natural for me to want to grieve what wasn't at the finish, it's equally worth celebrating what I did accomplish.

The swim I did this weekend was more challenging than the swim I'll do a year from now in IM Choo 2021. There was no current in the pool. Had I been in the Tennessee River, it would have even been wetsuit legal this year! The bike I did this weekend was also more challenging than the bike I'll do a year from now. There were no aid stations. There was traffic. There was the added mental stress of knowing if there were any mechanical issues with the bike, I was on my own in rural northwest Georgia.

I can’t wait to be back here in a year and do this thing for real. You suck, COVID.