Ironman 70.3 Augusta - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

It stayed crowded for quite awhile before it thinned out. I had people veering me off course on a couple of occasions. It was fun to watch all of the seaweed grasses passing by underneath.



Push harder. Or should I say "pull" harder!

I pulled off the top of my wetsuit while running leaving my cap and goggles inside the sleeve. I knew there would be wetsuit strippers and elected to use them. I saw a strong looking guy among the row of ladies and went to him. He yanked my suit off in a nano-second! Wooooosh!!! I thanked him and ran to my bike. I took a little long getting into my cleats because I brought cycle shoes and had to buckle them. But I really prefer my cycle shoes over Tri shoes on longer Tris and especially on hills because I can crank them down tight for a good pull. I put on my sunglasses and they immediately fogged up. It was overcast, so I took them back off and tossed them back down. I remembered to change my Garmin to bike, then I had a really long run in cleats with my bike to the bike out.



Nothing.

Hills! Some REALLY long ones that I thought would NEVER end. There were a lot of bumps and potholes in some sections, and a lot of wayward sunglasses and water bottles too! The course was a bit crowded making it difficult to stay draft distance away. I did pretty good on the hills thanks to my crank/cog combo. At one point I got passed by a group of young bucks. I heard a male voice behind me say, wish "I could keep up with those guys, but I'm having a hard enough time keeping up with you!" I was just about to make a pass when he said that so I yelled, "Well, come on!" as I cranked it uphill. He said, "you make going up hill look easy!" (He had no idea just how much I was suffering inside). But I was pedaling away on my crankset passing people while others were moving in slow motion on gears that were too big. I wanted to yell, 'Downshift!"

I was actually very surprised that I was able to hold this average with the hills, but Tiny Roo gets a lot of momentum going especially when we have Pixie and Dixie with us (my race wheels). He's a spry little race horse.

I drank most of my infinit for nutrition. Although I had solid energy in my bento box, I could not bring myself to eat any of it. The uphills were kicking my butt and raising my breathing/heart rate, and the downhills were too fast to let go of the horns.

Probably could have pushed harder on the uphills but was afraid it would ruin my legs for the run.

Had a long way to run in cleats again! Racked Roo, put on shoes, grabbed run belt, and reset Garmin to run. I stuck a couple of energy gels in my pockets since I was not taking any Infinit with me. No fuel belt (mistake).

Nothing.

Once on the run my infamous SMILE spread wide across my face! Spectators ALWAYS comment on my smile when I run and tell me I look strong. But the smile started to fade at about mile 8. I tried to hold pace but faded a bit before hitting the finish line. There was a place downtown where i kept hearing "Go Fayetteville!" And i also saw a male racer in a jersey that I did not recognize say 'Go Fayetteville!" I had no idea who they could be!

Use my fuel belt. I am used to running with it and I am terrible with water stops. I cannot drink enough water from a cup without having to stop and walk a few steps. And every time I had to stop and walk, I lost a bit on my average pace and lost my momentum. I could have kept a more solid pace had I had my fuel belt and did not have to deal with water stops.

Walked it off, drank water, then started on pizza and BEER! We could not find our Morning Bags, so Pete went to ask someone who was carrying one. It turned out to be the very people who were from Fayetteville! Christi said she had been looking for us and took the picture below to post on FB. They were new club members whom we had not yet met in person. Then I found the guy in the uniform that I didn't recognize turned out to be our President's sister's husband! So I met our President's sister, Mandy. And a few minutes later another lady from Fayetteville found us and said, "You must be Maria!" I was beginning to feel like a celebrity! Good thing I wore my team uniform or these folks would never have known who I was.

But it was starting to rain and we were cold so we headed to the hotel to get showered and dried off. I was having separation anxiety from Roo knowing he was out in the rain, so we took the bus back to T1 to get our things. We planned on riding back to the hotel but the rain started coming down harder before we could get there! {Shrug} It's not like we've never ridden in the rain before. We were drenched when we got back to the hotel, so we dried off again and just relaxed. It would have been nice to go back and watch the finish line, but we didn't really feel like standing in the rain.

The funny thing is that I had NO idea what my finish time was. I was confused when I finished because of the wave starts and we could not find the preliminary results posted. To make matters worse, the website was bogged down and would not load. I was receiving text messages and facebook messages on my awesome finish and still have NO idea what my finish time was! All of my friends knew before I did. I first found out my time only because Scottie had posted it on Facebook! (Thanks Scottie!) But eventually we got the website to load and checked everything.






This was a pretty big PR (41 min.) over the fastest of my three previous 70.3s. My goal was <6, so I was happy to surpass that goal. I held back a little on the uphills of the bike and held back a smidge on the run. I could have handled a bit more discomfort, but knew I was going to make my goal and decided against unnecessary suffering knowing I have a full Ironman coming up in 3 weeks.


This race is at the top of the list of best races for sure.