Ironman 70.3 Augusta - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

With weather in the area the RD cut the intervals down to 2 or 3 minutes. It was a deep water start but you walk out on this long thin dock a rowing club uses so you could pretty much pick where between the start buoys you wanted to be and hop in. I wanted to start close to the front so I finagled my way to the front of our corral. In the end, this wasn’t necessary because even with 150 people in the wave, there was plenty of room.

My plan for the swim was to get to T1 as easily as possible. I knew it was going to be fast and figured I’d probably swim somewhere in the neighborhood of 32 taking it easy. So, that’s what I did but I was even faster than I thought. Ha!

I’m not sure why, but the air horn didn’t register to a lot of people up front that that means you start swimming. It went off and everyone just sat there. I yelled something like get you’re ass moving (in a nice way) and off we went. It was pretty funny.

I was surprised how clear the water was. A bit of seaweed floating around made for a good reminder to take it easy... just watching that stuff effortlessly float around was relaxing. Not sure what went down at ~500 yards in but my wetsuit started to feel a bit constricting. Not a good feeling. A few hundred yards later I felt better, but it was odd.
The rest of the swim was fairly uneventful. Siting was fine. There wasn’t much contact but when there was it was solid. And when I got caught by the first person in the wave behind me I had to look up o and watch this guy go. I’ve never seen some swim so fast in my life. He was a freakin' rocket. Cool to watch.

Well executed swim. Especially since the day before was the first time I’d been in the open water since Lone Star 70.3 in April.


not much.

I wanted to take this smooth and controlled which meant a little slower than normal mainly because it was a long transition. Not just getting to it but getting out of it. Exit was at a steep boat ramp that I planned to walk and then jog to my stall. Well when I got out I felt awesome so I ran the boat ramp. It actually felt really good. Got to the top and walked/jogged to my bike. I probably could have sped this up by a few seconds but I’m good with the effort and plan execution.

Here we go. I know by now that unless I manage the bike properly, the run isn’t going to be a run. So, the plan was break the bike (and run) up into “boxes of miles”. 0-10, 10-20, 20-30, etc… Focus on nothing other than getting to the other end of the mile box feeling as best as possible. I don’t care who is passing me, how slow I’m going or any of that crap. This is my race, not yours. I also decided to wear my regular watch for nutrition timing and forgo the heart rate monitor. I was thinking that I’ve done this enough to know how I feel and more importantly to know how I’ll need to feel at mile 56 in relation to right now. I didn’t want too much data streaming in…. uh-oh you're 1 beat over z2, you’re screwed. I also decided not to look at my watch at or close to the mile markers because I didn’t want any indication of my speed. How fast I was going Did. Not. Matter.

So I came out of T2 feeling really good. Roads were wet but in good shape. I got to the bridge crossing the river sat up and just “coasted” over it. Great! Here’s where riding the course a few weeks ago and driving it the day before really helped mentally, I knew the 13 mile or so stretch before the Savannah river site was mostly flat. It was going to be a little boring and monotonous but stay in that mile box and you’ll be good. Then something unexpected happened, I passed a five mile sign and got a good mental boost because I was half though this box. All systems good.

Hit the 10 box and was feeling good. Very good actually. Had a brief letdown at mile 13 when a bike with pink tires passed me and all I could think ways holy crap, Tracy caught me already! Thankfully it wasn’t her. Ha! Started getting into the hills around here. I had to take a leak really bad but getting hit in the face with water off other riders tires made me realize someone might get a face full so I pulled over at the first aid station. Which reminds me the map in the athletes guide is wrong; it shows two aid stations not three. Really feeling good about running.

Got to 20 and was still feeling great. Nutrition was going just as I’ve been training. The rain really started to come down here and things got a little sketchy. I did make a really dumb move flying down a hill at one point. There was a long curve in the hill and I had to much speed so I had to use the oncoming lane briefly. Thankfully Sunday morning country roads don’t have too much traffic. Really feeling good about running.

30 was good but could begin to feel the mental side kicking in. This is where breaking the course up into sections really helped. Just get through this block, punch that ticket. We were out in the horse farms so lots of good scenery. Lots more rain, no lightening though so we’re good. Really feeling good about running.

40 was the toughest but still a lot more fun and a lot “easier” than at this point in any other race. I used to complain that the fourth set in the 5 x 300’s (or something like this) was always the hardest set. A buddy back in Houston that is a crazy swimmer said yep, ya gotta work that fourth set. This flashed in my head somewhere just after passing 40 and really helped.

The 50 mile box just flew by. I don’t even remember much other than the road surface was just perfect. I’ve always stopped taking anything in at this point but today I cut everything a bit past 50, maybe 52. Not sure why I decided to do that but I worked out. And then somewhere close to the end I crossed an intersection and the volunteer yelled good job just three miles to go just as I was looking at my watch. I had to recalculate my average speed so far (and I wasn’t slowing) down 7 or 8 times to believe what it was. Ha!

And as we came around the final corner there was a guy changing a flat. I couldn’t believe it. Dude you’re 100 yards from transition. I yelled at him to run it in. I wondered if he was just that flustered or if he didn’t know the course because the line was around the corner…damn.

This was by far the best ride I’ve had in any race. Each half so far I’ve been so relieved to get off the bike. Today I was happy, but I would have been fine to keep going.

The hills helped out in the sense that they kept me honest. Meaning you're going up hill so take it easy. Where on a flat course its easy to forget to throttle back.


nothing. well, train more. HA!

Slow. Way to slow. A lot of it had to do with the size of transition and that I had my shoes and sock in a garbage bag in hopes of keeping them dry, it worked! Even starting out in dry shoes and socks is nice. They got soaked at Buffalo Springs 70.3 and that sucked. Racked the ride pulled the gear out of the garbage bag threw it on, helmet off, turned my belt around and the bib ripped right where the elastic holds it in. I looked at for a second before I realized the other one was still good to go. Duh. Grabbed the Garmin and took off. For some reason I couldn’t get the watch band on and was starting to get flustered. So I stopped, took a big boy breath and put the strap on.

I lost some time here making some dumb mistakes but overall it was ok. Good job controlling the level of flusteredness with the watch band.


Relax and stay focused.

Pay up sucka!

I talked to some folks in the MG about what happened at Lone Star, in particular coming out of T2. I started to believe, and now am fairly confident, this might have been my biggest issue. The bike plays a bigger role in the grand scheme of things however, the biggest thing I can do wrong for a short period that will have a huge impact on the day is to come out of T2 blazing or even close to it. “Glacial pace” is the name of the game. So, I needed the Garmin for this one. In past training and even races I’ve had a very hard time controlling my run pace off the bike. I think I’m moseying along yet I’ll look the watch and it’ll read something stupid, for me, like 7:50 or close it. That can’t happen today, or ever again for that matter.

So my most important goal for the day was to average 10:30 for the first mile. Then the night before the race I decided to make it the first three miles.

The first ¼ mile I had I a bit of a time controlling my emotions, I was so freakin’ pumped. I knew I nailed the bike and nutrition. My legs felt great, but we still have a long way to go. Man, for someone who said earlier they didn’t want all that streaming data; I looked at the watch probably 5000 times the first three miles. I’m NOT blowing this.
Again, my plan was to manage this in blocks, one mile at a time. Control myself in that block. Really it was easy… just watch the pace and monitor how it felt, reminding myself what I do now will play a big role down the road.

At mile three I decided to hang on to the current pace and re-evaluate at mile five. At mile five I decided to stick to the plan for another few miles. By mile eight I was beginning to get fatigued a bit mentally. This was also when I made the decision that I wasn’t going to walk today. Not through an aid station, not because the person in front of me is. No, I’m not walking today.

Mile seven was out in am empty part of the course. I recall one of the few spectators saying this is the worst part, from here on there's lots of support. It was a little tough mentally. But then the timing mat showed up and I figured the people watching the computers knew I was running and having a good day so far. That was cool.

Mile ten was the toughest part of the day. Thankfully it was on the out and back along the main street where the crowds were. And man were they out. This was by far the best crowd support at any race I’ve done. I’m not sure what happened to mile eleven sign but I missed it. I met up with Harlold. We were bs’ing when he told me we’re coming up to mile twelve. Sure enough there was the Mile twelve sign. Man, was I happy.

Coming down the chute was the first time all day that I had some sort of idea where I was time wise on the course.

And then I was done.

I ran the whole thing. Nice.

Nutrition wise, I skipped the first two aid stations. Then started with water. At the fourth I chugged a Gatorade. At the fifth I felt a little hungry so I grabbed some bananas. Worked like a charm. Then it was all Gatorade and water for the rest of the run except for a gel at mile 10. At mile 13.2 I stopped and hung around the beer truck.

Good to have Tracy's husband Doug there cheering us on. Odd racing for the first time in a place where I knew so few people.



NOTHING! well, train more. HA!

Drank a couple beers. The grabbed a beer and walked over to mile 12 to wait for Tracy. Ran with her for a short time, didn't spill my beer, smacked her in the bootie and off she went.


We moved to Georgia a month ago so its been a little crazy.


Drill instructor cop was awesome. Clemson flag holding guy was cool but he would just pop up in the weirdest places.

I loved the course. All the volunteers and law enforcement were great, especially considering the weather.

I was concerned about the number of people racing, over 3000, but it seemed to be ok. The couple of pace line's I did see were all women on high end bikes. Pretty lame but they have to look in the mirror, and I got to look at their butts.

Did not like having to walk back to the hotel to catch a shuttle to go back to transition to get my bike then the mile and a half back to the hotel. Same with dropping it off on Saturday but after a race, this sucked. Just not sure how this can be fixed with a river swim.

I heard they ran out of medals....lame.

I'd go back and race here again. But it looks like Rev3 might have a race here in the Atlanta area around the same time next year. We'll see.