Ironman Chattanooga 70.3 - Triathlon

The upstream portion of the swim was cancelled for the AGers. CAn't say I'm disappointed as the swim is my nemesis!
Jumped into the river -it was cold!, but the water was way better than the Ohio i swam in for L-ville! That was super gross!! It wasn't clear, but you could see some light and the only time i smelled fuel was when swimming near the event boats.
The first part of every swim for me is trying to get my breathing under control and settling down. I was able to do that quickly -for me, this swim and actually started to enjoy the swim. It helped that the current was my friend :) But then I wasn't able to breath . WTF? I had to do some breast stroking and realized the not being able to breathe was not my normal race thing, but a rattling in my chest. This was new. I then had to stop often to breast stroke so i could cough and breathe.
I had no idea what was going on, but hoped whatever it was would be gone once i was out of the swim. Not so much.

Not develop adult on-set allergies. I think i was going to have a good swim for me before i couldn't breath.

It is a long way from swim out to transition and part of it is uphill! But the wetsuit strippers were great!

This was very disappointing. I could not breathe and b/c of that could not ride any faster than this. Uphills were so hard. Andrews almost killed me :0 This is a short, but extremely steep hill. When i got there many people were pushing their bike uphill. I didn't have to do that, but my heart rate was out of control by the time i crested the top and it took the entire screaming downhill to stop coughing my lungs up.
I knew my pace was bad when a 72 year old woman passed me! We leaped frog back and forth for many miles before i finally stayed ahead of her when we got back into TN.
I did the full in Sept at a much better pace than this and i was pretty confident i would hold close to 18 mph for this race. Ha! That plan did not work out so well.
Other than the not being able to breathe thing and being passed by a 72 year old, the only other exciting thing to happen was riding around a rattle snake who was in the middle of the road! There was a man in the street calling out that there was a snake in the road- which was really nice as i think he was just a good samaritan and not volunteer. As i rode around the snake i realized it was a coiled rattle snake. Yikes!
Oh, and i did see a number of crashes - not as they happened, just the after math as the rider was being attended to.

Breathe without losing a lung or 2.

It was a long wayfrom bike in to my rack, then I did a pit stop and a sunscreen stop before heading out.

My legs felt great, so that is the good thing about this run. Once again the not being able to breathe thing was a hinderance. I ran the u-turn and then when i got to the first hill i had to walk. Walked the entire thing. On the way up I ran into Linda and we chatted for a bit before i decided i had to start running again.
Eventually, my breath got under control and i decided to do a 5:1 run walk to keep it that way. That worked swell until my back started to seize up. At first it was just around my kidneys- felt like a vise squeezing them, but eventually was my entire back. I don't know what this was about - bad position on the bike? the wet suit thing? something new? I would run for a bit then i'd have to stop and walk. When i ran my legs felt great and i actually had a really good pace. In fact, multiple people called out to me commenting on how fast i was running. I thanked them and assured them that i'd be walking soon enough :) I walked all the hills and ran all the downhills and as much flats as i could. it was hot, but nothing i wasn't able to cope with. Guess Florida is good for something! One really neat thing was the humidity was so low that the small patches of shade actually felt great! That doesn't happen in Florida!!

Crossed the finish line and immediately saw Janyne. She asked if i needed to go to medical - i didn't, just needed to stretch my back and get some advil in me -and stop running :) She led me to the food/drink tent where i grabbed a soda and some pretzels and chips. We then sat on a bench while i drank the soda and threw away the food. Not ready for food yet! My back was really unhappy, so I was ready to get back to the hotel for a hot shower and advil.
Janyne helped me get my gear back to the hotel. Thanks Janyne!!
Showered, downed advil, and used the normatec boots!
Then met up with Kevin and Janyne and we walked the mile or so to Milk and Honey for some dinner. My Beyond Beef burger and beer really hit the spot. I think the walk also helped flush the system.


I am rather disappointed with my race - I seem to be snake bitten when it comes to long course racing! But am happy i managed things and was able to finish running!
I really like the Chattanooga course and the city and people are amazing!! One day i hope to put it all together and have a good race here :)