Ironman Chattanooga Race Report

Ironman Chattanooga is my 3rd iron distance event.  I am writing this review for family, friends and fellow triathletes, so you may only be interested in certain aspects of this post, skip to the section you are interested in, or if you are a glutton for punishment, read the whole thing: here we go.

Travel and Accommodations

My wife and I arrived on Thursday, only a 4 hour drive from western North Carolina.  We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn, downtown Chattanooga.  Great location, only 3 blocks from all Ironman festivities and transition.  Park car and forget about it for the stay, everything within walking distance, plenty of attractions and restaurants.  Not many people arrived on Thursday, most seemed to show up Friday.  Downtown and waterfront were waiting for us:

Thursday

Walked down to Ironman village, checked in, packet pickup, no lines about 400pm.  Quick and easy.  Toured vendors, picked up some Little Debbie treats (ok, not some, a lot) at their booth (they are the corporate sponsor, more on the treats later).  Resisted urge to spend major $ in Ironman branded store, went to dinner.  This was an off day exercise wise, although we probably racked up 2-3 miles of walking.

Friday

3 mile easy run before breakfast.  Went to prerace meeting at 11am.  Moderate attendance, a lot of folks checking in throughout the day, noticeably more traffic at expo.  Water temp 75.9 degrees, meeting presenter says it is still wetsuit hopeful, but I’m thinking no way, we have 2 more upper 80 degree days ahead of us, it is not going to stay under 76.1 (for readers that don’t know, some folks prefer to swim in wetsuit: if temp is above 76.1 it is a wetsuit optional swim, and under those conditions you can still wear wetsuit but are not eligible for awards).  I didn’t care either way.  After some more walking, Maria and I decided to venture out of town to ride the incline railway up to the top of Lookout Mountain, here we are rocking the ride:

Another good meal out Friday night, then another good night sleep.

Saturday

Ok, time to begin to get down to business: up early, coffee and planned on a short bike, easy run and possibly a short swim to get my head in the game for tomorrow’s race.  Began to ride the run course on bike and ran into a group of about 8 triathletes who were led by their coach on a bike tour of run course.  He had raced IMChoo 2 other times so he knew course well.  They were kind enough to let me tag along, great group of folks from Arkansas and Kansas I believe.  Rode out Riverside Drive and made turn onto Riverwalk coming back: stopped at swim start and a few sections along Riverwalk to get a feel of the river and potential targets for sighting on the swim.  Rode across river and through hilly sections of run course.  I felt well prepared for run and swim based on this outing and decided not to swim nor run that day.

About 1pm, got all transition bags packed, bike ready and checked into transition.  I run latex tubes and my bike was racked like most in the direct sun.  It was upper 80s and my method is to pump tires to 120 psi and by bike start 18 hours later I knew they would be at race pressure of 90 psi.  I had never pumped up tires this high and left them in hot sun for 5 hours, so I had this sick thought that night of coming to transition on race morning with blown tubes…but all was good the following morning.

Did a bit more walking in hot sun that afternoon than ideal, got an early dinner about 5pm, and lights out about 10pm, ready to race.

My Background and Race Plan

I have been running since 2008 and racing triathlon since 2012.  This was my 3rd Iron distance event.  2013 Beach to Battleship: 13:23.  2015 IM Lake Placid: 12:41.   This time I really wanted to finish sub 12 hour, 11:30 would be sweet and possibly place me in top 10 in age group of 120 starters.  I raced Boston Marathon in mid-April and that left me only 5 months to get bike ready (I swim year round).

I am self-coached, swim 2-3 x per week, run 4-6 days per week and bike 4 days per week, almost exclusively on indoor trainer.  I followed TrainerRoad Iron distance medium volume build and medium volume specialty plans.  I did almost all of the rides as prescribed in plans, with a few exceptions/modifications.  My last 5 weeks were all 15-16 hour weeks, leading then into taper.  I raced 4 sprint triathlons May-July and a half Iron distance early August.

Forecast on race day called for temps in mid-upper 80s, so my plan was not to overcook the bike, take first loop of bike course easy and leave enough for the run which is my strength.  I decided to play conservative and back off my desired wattage on bike to shoot for a 6 hour split and not my original plan of 5:45.  I use Best Bike Splits and a power meter (PM), this is only the second race I was doing with PM and am still getting the hang of it (I trained with PM all 2017 though).  I wanted to keep a consistent run pace and only walk aid stations.  So this is what I scribbled on paper for my wife to keep while I was racing:

Swim: 1:05  T1: 5min  Bike: 6:00  T2: 5min  Run: 4:30-5:00??  Final 11:45-12:00

Technical Stuff

Swim: TYR Torque Pro swim skin

Bike: 2012 Felt B16, Flashpoint FP60 rims, GP Conti 4000S2, Vittoria latex tubes, Powertap C1 PM, XLab Torpedo BTA modified to hold 2nd bottle BTA

Run: my favorite running shoes, Nike Vomero 10’s

Sunday, Race Day

Slept well until 2 am, laid in bed playing over the day’s festivities in my mind until 0315, then got up.  Started nutrition with PB+J.  Dressed, coffee, walk to transition just as it opens at 0430.  Water temp: 77.9 (told you), wet suit optional, swim skin ready to go.  Back to hotel to get bag to bring to swim start, good morning/good bye to Maria, take bus to swim start, set up blanket and sit, only 2 hours to go.  A tall fellow steps in line behind me, I invite him to sit, and one of the things I like best about this sport, we strike up a conversation and a new friendship is born.  He is racing 35-39 age group and has his sister and father there at swim start for support.  More on my new friend Danny later.

Remember those Little Debbie’s I mentioned above??  Well I broke a cardinal rule of racing: never try something new on race day.  I downed an oatmeal cream pie along with a gel right before swim start.  Good stuff.

Swim 55:29, 15th AG (Age Group)

Once they started us, the line moved pretty quickly, first swimmers were in the water at 0730, I was in about 0745.  Water was clear, plenty of room with little-no contact.  Tried to stay to middle of river while also trying to swim tangents if that makes since.  I think I had a good line.   About 300 yards into swim, began to note a pain that I have NEVER had before, in my left hip flexor region.  It was sore enough to get my attention and plant a small seed of concern as there is still 144.2 miles to go.  I tried to forget about it and it turned out to be nothing, but it is funny how on race day, you are constantly watching your dashboard lights.  I could tell it was a fast swim based on speed of buoys passing by.  I exited swim and looked at my watch and thought they must have turned up the flow at the upstream dam from rain the night before.

 

T1 7:35

Took my time to get on cooling sleeves for the bike and run, ready to roll.

Bike 5:59:45, 20th AG

Temp about 66 at start, 85 at completion, sun with high clouds.  Little wind.  Data: 145 AP, 159 NP, VI 1.10.  IF 0.60, TSS 215.  Overall, I was happy with the ride.  Held back first 15 miles until I hit the rollers.  2nd loop just tried to keep pace up, HR ave 117 and I was getting nutrition down well: total of 2150 calories, solid food first 80 or so miles, then gels last 40 miles.  About 2.5 bottles of Gatoraide Endurance too.  350 cal/hour, which is about max for me.  Peed at mile 40 and bike finish/mile 1 of run, so hydration was good.  Last 15 miles, saw that I could go sub 6 hour so picked up the pace a bit without burning any matches.  Thoughts overall on bike course: beautiful, scenic, love the rolling hills.  Need to spread out my effort a bit: less effort on hills and more on flats to bring down the VI.  No traffic on course.  Saw more fire hydrants than cars (and more livestock than people).

Somehow, my lunch wasn’t as tasty as Maria’s:

My Lunch

Maria’s Lunch

Hey, Is That Gatoraide?

T2 5:39

Quick, no wasted time, sunscreen and out the door.

Run 4:32:24, 13th AG (2:13, 2:19 splits)

Temp 85, partly sunny.  Thank goodness for a few clouds.  Started run feeling strong.

Saw Maria for the first time that day at mile 0.5…yea!!  It was really nice to see her, she had been following me on the tracker all day.  Settled into a 10ish min/mile pace, felt like I could run 9 min, but I knew better with the heat.  And hills to come.  I used course nutrition and fluids for the run.  Walked quickly through every aid station to get gatoraide, water and ice in hat.  Poured water on cooling sleeves, those things worked great.  Felt good through mile 8 when I saw Maria again, our favorite picture of the weekend:

Maria was trying to figure out where she was on the run course and went up to “some man” with a microphone at the run turn around to ask where she was…that guy was Mike Reilly who was announcing runners at the 13.1 location.  They had a nice conversation and she made him laugh, “I told him that he was the best”.

Took a total of about 700 cal. on the run.  As the run progressed, I relied more on bananas and coke…the caffeine helped keep the energy up and I lost my taste for gels.  A pain developed in my right lower calf about mile 13 that I had to keep an eye on, it kept me from pushing the pace which was probably a good thing given the heat.  Worked to keep HR at average 130 or so.  About mile 20, the smiles always go away and it is time to work:

2nd loop hills ground me down a bit, but I kept on running and at mile 24.5, crested the last hill, saw that I had a chance to break 11:45, put my head down and was determined to finish strong.  Ran about 8:40 pace to finish the last 1.5 miles, felt like I was running 7 min pace, fed off energy of crowd and finished.

Final Time 11:41:02, 12th/108 AG, 269/1978 overall

I was really happy with this result.  Took another hour off the last Iron distance event.  PR on the bike.  Ran about the same time I did at Lake Placid.  Felt terrible for first 30 min after finish, this has happened to me after each event at this distance.  At first I want to eat, then I don’t, not quite nauseous, but not hungry either, a little dizzy.  Even with temp at about 80 degrees, due to being soaked, I needed that heat blanket to keep warm.  I guess that is my body’s revenge for what I asked it to do all day.

Thanks

Maria, thanks for letting me practice my passion.

She is so flexible and puts up with the 0500, after work and long weekend training sessions.  Thanks for cheering me on at times when most other people are still sleeping and in the rain/hot weather.  Thanks too to my children, Emily and Jacob, and my dad who sometimes put up with my absence because I am training.  Finally, my running buddies: Gordon, Gary, Tim, Mike, Ray, Bud, Bill and Bill.  You guys have taught me about true training, grit and how to become an endurance athlete.

Congrats

Back to that tall guy I met at swim start with his family.  Danny Royce.  He has been dreaming and working to qualify for the world championship Ironman race at Kona for 10 years.  This year, he did it, qualified by a minute!  Maria and I came to awards Monday morning to congratulate him and his family:

What’s Next

Well, I never gave up on my dream to qualify for Boston, and I had another  breakthrough performance in this race, so I still have that dream of qualifying for Kona myself someday.  I’ve signed up for Ironman Chattanooga 2018 as I think this course suits my strengths and minimizes my weaknesses.  I intend to put some serious effort into improving my bike performance further.  There will be no bike offseason/marathon training so I am hopeful.  I don’t think I’ve had my best ironman run yet.  I’m afraid I may have to go to that place where I am not smiling for pictures as often as I race, but I will still have fun with this.

In a month, I race SwimRunNC at Hanging Rock State Park, NC with Gordon.  I’ve taken this whole week off and going for my first run today, so time to get going.  Thanks for reading.