Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Forgot to start my watch so I rolled over after about 50 yards and started it. I found 2 sets of feet that I tried to draft off of but they where too fast. So I spent the rest of the swim where you should not: no draft.

Sighting was good. I pushed hard from beginning to end. I got a side stitch about 2/3 of the way to the end. This swim seemed long to me and I was ready for it to be over with after the second bridge.

Find some fast feet to draft off of. Still, a good hard swim. I wanted to go sub-24 and I did that. I thought if I found some feet or if the current was strong, a 20 or 21 minute swim might be possible but I never found them and the current wasn't there.

Ran hard from swim stairs to bike. No issues with T1.

Had a gel, thrown on helmet, grab bike and go.

Nada.

Pushed the bike hard (notice a theme here?). Long hills so quads where burning on some of them. As I passed folks I knew, I tried to say hi; I might have missed a few folks - I was trying to push pretty hard.

On the long downhill, I hit 40.6. It was raining, I was in aero and I was flying. This was probably one of the scariest moments on a bike for me ever!

I wanted to do the bike in 1:15. This is where my extra overall time was . But given the rain and wet roads, what would I do differently?

Not much. At one point, I let my HR drop down to low zone 3. This might have been a mental lapse. Overall, I maintained high zone 3 the entire ride. I think if anything I think I have a ride in me where I ride in Zone 4 (guess that will be next year's task).

Coming back into T2, the guy in front of me bits it at the line. I was already off my bike (but running) but I had to slam on the breaks so as not to run over him or worse trip and fall.

By slamming on my breaks, this caused my bike rear end to whip around in front of me. It was a very weird moment.

However, with catlike reflexes, I picked up my bike, jumped over the fallen guy and motored into T2.

Some of the guys running into T2 commented that it was the coolest thing they had seen.

Once into T2, socks on, grabbed hat (with race number belt attached to it - thanks $1.79) and ran out.

Not have a guy fall in front of me.

Wanted to maintain sub 8:00 pace. I got close.

I did Peachtree 10K in 47 so I thought I could do a 50 min 10K here and that would be a good drop off from stand alone 10K to Oly 10K. I felt that if I could run a 50 min 10K, then I had paced the bike about right.

I ran steady for the first 3 miles and pushed hard the second 3 miles. Had a gel at mile 3.

Came down the last hill and heard the NAMC cowbells ringing. Damn loud - NAMC peeps rock!

Nothing really.

Jogged for 5 minutes. Then after an hour stretched the legs out a bit.


The long training for IM, even though it's zone 2, is paying dividends for the shorter races.

Last year, this race was a wake up call for me. I naively thought I would go 2:30 last year. Ha, I finished in 2:51.

My swim was top 13% of the field, my bike was top 22% and my run was top 32%.

Last year my swim was top 19%, bike was top 54%, and my run was 58%. Definite improvement across the board. But I still have work to do, especially around my run. Since my first race, I've been a better swimmer than biker and better biker than runner (and I'm supposed to have a running background). One day I'd like to change that trend.

My A goal was to break 2:30 this year. My B goal was the break 2:51. I don't think I could have gone faster given the rain and I think I could have broken 2:30 without it (I think I gave up at least 1 MPH on the bike due to wet roads and rain - but we will never know). I felt strong the entire race.


Other than Gulf Coast, this is probably the closets you can get to IM atmposhere and not be at an IM.

This just might be the best race in the southeast.

Everything about this race is A+ quality.