Augusta, Georgia United States Premier Event Management Precipitation

Total Time = 5h 40m 39s Overall Rank = 1326/ Age Group = 25-29 Age Group Rank = 0/

This race report is kinda hard to write, I wish I could encapsulate all of the emotions I felt during the day but I am not sure it is possible. To say this day was epic is an understatement.

The day was 9 months coming, I got the race entry as a Christmas present from Scottie last year, I was excited but 9 months seemed SO far away. I competed in my first HIM in May with decent results, but at least I knew I could do the distance. I spent the summer working specifically on the bike. I cycled 3 days a week and mostly with groups of guys that were always much faster. I was constantly discouraged by always ending up the last one in the group, the one everyone was waiting for. But near the end of the summer, I started getting better. I could feel I was stronger, I was comfortable on my bike and I knew how to handle hills. I did lots of long rides, a 60 miler and an unexpected 70 miler, both of which helped me mentally in this race. Oh and did I mention the heat I trained in? This summer was particularly brutal heat and humidity wise. I was prepared for (almost) any kind of weather that this weekend would bring.

The week leading up to the race was sorta stressful. I had some issues with a dog sitter so my mind was not on the race but more on the logistics of the dogs being taken care of, then there is the whole packing for a trip and making sure we brought all of our gear and nutrition, then my birthday was Friday which meant lots of junk food!

We were up early on Saturday to meet our friend Alan and drive to Georgia. Thanks to the open roads and a radar detector we made incredible time. We parked and checked into the Ramada. Now a word to those doing this next year...try your hardest to get into the Marriott because the Ramada is not one of the better hotels I have stayed in. It's old, right next to the train tracks and a handful of strip clubs which may suit some but I wasn't thrilled. I will say the people were pretty nice, even if I was back and forth with the front desk lady on the phone after we had checked out and they lost the copy of Scottie's credit card...they hand enter credit cards wtf!

Once we dropped our stuff in our room we walked to the Marriott to get our packets. The line was long as expected but moved fast. Lots of different tables and lots of extra steps, like a medical waiver form and the whole wristband thing. Once we all got our required parts we wandered through the 'expo" that I was kinda disappointed with. I really expected more in terms of vendors and free stuff. We got a Gatorade water bottle that’s it! Not even a free gel? Weird. I bought a Headsweats visor then we went to grab lunch at Mellow Mushroom before dropping off our bikes.

Transition was huge as expected but I had a great spot! Just near the swim exit, 5 rows up and on the first rack. I left Lucy and found the guys for our swim. At this point it was really hot out and I was in no mood to fiddle with the wetsuit so I decided to swim in just my 2 piece Nike swim suit. The water was brisk but it felt great! I figured if I could swim in just a suit the wetsuit would be amazing! We met some people from Texas and chatted with them about the full IM races they had done...yet again another person recommending CA over FL...oh well. After swimming around Alan and I jogged back while Scottie enjoyed the stroll :)

Once showered we met up again for dinner, the choices were limited as we didn't want to chance it with burritos for dinner so we went to the Pizza Joint for dinner...yep pizza again...oh well. We were all pretty tired so we called it a night. Once in the room Scottie and I filled bottles and I used my Mom's trashcan trick in which you fill it with ice and use that as a make shift fridge. Seemed to work well. I slept surprisingly well...I got about 5 hours or so and it was solid sleep, very unlike the 2 hours of sleep I got before White Lake!

The first alarm went off at 4:30am, I laid there for a bit because the room was so frigid but then jumped into action when I realized all I had to do! Ok it wasn't that much but I wanted to eat and get the first bathroom break done before we left. 1 cup of double strength hotel coffee and oatmeal with almond butter was breakfast and I filled up a water bottle which I sipped on all morning. We then met up with Alan and decided to walk to transition instead of wait for a shuttle from the Marriott. Once in transition we gave ourselves 30 minutes to get set up then meet for the shuttle to the swim start. As I was setting up it starts to sprinkle. We had watched the weather reports all day and it was the first thing we looked at in the morning, we knew we were going to get wet it's just a matter of how wet. I had grabbed two dry cleaning bags from the hotel and decided to set things up IM style, bike stuff in one bag and run stuff in another then I put my transition bag in a garbage back to try to reduce how soaked everything got. This may have been one of my more brilliant moves.

I quadruple checked everything, I was paranoid I would forget something. I wanted to make sure I had enough nutrition, had all my socks, had every last thing. Then I just had to walk away or I would make myself crazy. I met up with the guys and we decided to get body marked there and stand in line for the porta potties. Then we stood in the shuttle line which again moved fast thank goodness.



The swim start area was kinda chaotic, lots of athletes, spectators, kids and some dogs. Seriously people, don't bring you dog to these things! We grabbed our timing chips then started to pull on the wetsuits which is always a workout in itself. By then the pros were about to go off so we walked to Scottie's corral (wave 5) and saw them off. I was starting to get super nervous and said I was gonna head to my corral to start to calm down a bit. This was another great move on my part because the girls in my wave were awesome. I found 3 other girls, all of whom were 70.3 newbies, so we chatted the whole time. They were awesome and totally calmed me down. The time flew by and before we knew it we were walking down to the dock. Most of the girls were pretty pumped up...others looks scared shitless and some looked like they meant business. I stayed away from those girls, I didn’t need a kick to the face. Our wave was rather large, it encompassed women 29 and under which felt kinda big to me but because we didn't have to turn I wasn't terribly concerned. I jumped in, peed in the wetsuit and took my spot on the back right. Away from any craziness. Then it was GO TIME!