Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon - Triathlon

Everything soaked from rain.

Should have bagged stuff.

I just love the internet. They’ve already got the results of this morning’s triathlon posted. Bottom line up front is, I finished and am pleased with my performance. The fact that I finished mid-pack in my division is nice too. I placed 16th out of 26 in my division which was Clydesdale Master (fat old guys). There were over a thousand finishers to today’s race!

The kids and I drove up Saturday and checked into the Hampton Inn. I realized after I got there that I had forgotten my front wheel at home! (insert string of golf terms here) I Left the kids in the hotel and called Casey who started driving towards Chattanooga while I started driving towards home. We met about ½ way and I got the wheel. I owe her one for this!

That night we went to the Imax theater and saw Grand Canyon 3D and then went out for pizza. The hotel was only about 2.5 miles from the race site so I rode my bike to the race site this morning so the kids could sleep late.

While we were standing around waiting to start it started raining. I overheard someone say they had put their transition clothes and biking shoes in a plastic bag. I wish I’d had this foresight. The swim start was a time-trial start and they put us in on 3 second intervals. Since I was #888, I started about 45 minutes after the gun went off. The swim was nice! The water was 82 degrees – very comfortable.

When I got to my bike, everything was wet but it didn’t matter because a great deluge came when we were on the bike. The bike course had some pretty big hills – I hit a max speed of 41.25 (in the rain too) on the way back in. When you’re going this fast the rain really stings your eyes! It’s also little scary going that fast in the rain and passing the cars in the adjacent lane. I averaged a little less than 16 mph on the bike. I’m not sure why I was that slow but I guess some of the long, slow climbs really took their toll on my mph average.

I came back in and put on soaking wet socks and running shoes and took off on the run. The rain had really cooled things off and I had a wonderful run. The run course is really neat as it goes along the TN River. My run pace was 10:23 per mile and that is typical for me.

I had taken all my splits including each mile split. As I was walking to retrieve my bike I thought I was pushing the ‘save’ button on my watch but I was hitting the reset. Darn!
The kids were waiting for me near the finish line and we loaded up, grabbed some lunch and drove home. I let Jamie drive most of the way home as I was so sleepy. My Sunday-nap-on-the-couch was especially welcome today.