2016 Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga Recap

The 2016 Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga was my fourth official triathlon and first at the 70.3 distance. My prior racing experience consisted of a Sprint triathlon in August 2014, another Sprint in July 2015, and a longer distance (1mi/38mi/9mi) triathlon two weeks prior to the 70.3. A year ago I committed to doing this race to raise money and awareness for Mended Little Hearts of Nashville – a great organization that helps children born with congenital heart defects – and had trained consistently for a year following that commitment. A month before the race I thought I was ready to race but the Dickson Endurance Triathlon two weeks out had filled my head with doubt. This is a summary of my weekend in Chattanooga.

Friday

I rolled into Chattanooga with my support team (family) around noon on Friday. They were calling for rain late in the afternoon so we headed straight down to Ironman Village, got checked in and picked up my race packet, browsed through the Ironman Store a bit and then grabbed lunch at The Blue Plate. Their fried chicken sandwich was really good! After that we hit the hotel pool for a few hours and then called it a night.

Saturday

Saturday morning we got up and headed down to Ross’s Landing for the IronKids race. My 7-year old daughter, Ellery Kate, was racing the half-mile and my 6-year old son, Witt, was racing the mile. I was really proud of them both for stepping up to the start line. Ellery Kate was really nervous about the race and had said a few days before the race that she didn’t want to do it. But on race day she laced up her shoes and lined up to race. I was super proud that she didn’t let her fear keep her from the race we had talked about for months. And I was especially proud of Witt. Witt, a heart transplant recipient, had overcome so much just to be there that day and here he was lining up to race the 1-mile race. My wife, Alison, ran with Ellery Kate and said she had a pretty good race. She wanted to quit a couple times but kept on going. My oldest daughter, Riley, and I ran with Witt. From the start Witt ran with a look of determination on his face. Throughout the race I would ask Witt “how you feeling” and with stone faced determination he would say “GOOD!” and just keep on running. He wasn’t the fastest runner out there – in fact he might have come in last. But he never stopped. He never wanted to quit. He just kept going. As we entered the finish chute Witt kicked in one of his “speed boosts” and finished strong.

As we were exiting the finish chute we ran into 2-time Ironman World Champion Sebastian Kienle. I told him about Witt – that he was a 6-year old heart transplant recipient and IronKid – and asked if he would allow me to take a photo of them together. He was happy to oblige. Sebastian went on to win the 70.3 race the following day and I’d like to think Witt’s story gave him a little extra motivation.

Witt and 2-time Ironman World Champion Sebastian Kienle

After the IronKids race we had a great breakfast at Puckett’s and then let the kids play in the water play area outside the Aquarium. The kids played there for a couple hours and loved it! After that we went back to our hotel to rest up a bit before our team dinner that night. Around 1:00 my buddy Andy and I headed back down to Ross’s Landing to check our bikes in and hit the Athlete briefing. We didn’t make it in time for the briefing but I figured we could make the 3:00 briefing. But by 2:30 I was feeling like I had done too much walking and spent too much time on my feet so I blew off the briefing thinking I needed the rest more than I needed to be told not to draft, not to litter, etc.

Mended Little Hearts of Nashville had four relay teams and two solo racers competing on Sunday and along with our families all met up at Tupelo Honey for a team dinner that night. With a party of 37 we were offered a limited menu but everyone seemed very pleased with their food and we had a great time.

Our Mended Little Hearts of Nashville Ironman Team

We didn’t finish dinner until about 8:00 and I still needed to sort out my gear and get stuff ready for the race in the morning so we headed back to the hotel. Before we left Nashville I had made checklists to ensure that I didn’t end up missing something really important (like my running shoes). I had meticulously packed everything on the checklist into one big duffel – swim, bike, and running gear all crammed into one big duffel. After spending two hours in the hotel pulling gear out of the duffel, going over the checklist AGAIN, and then repacking it all into my race bag I realized that I should have just packed my race bag before I left home and had it ready to go. By the time I finished repacking my gear it was after 10pm and I was tired. I set my alarm for 3:50am so that I would be up and ready to meet some friends in the transition area at 5:00am.

Sunday

I didn’t sleep much and with all hope for any more sleep abandoned I ended up getting out of bed at 3:30am. On race days my first priority is to have some coffee and a bite to eat to get things “moving”. And although I was about to go jump into the river and sweat profusely for hours I need a shower on race days to wake me up. After my shower I grabbed my gear and started the two-block walk to the transition area about 4:45am. I was a bit nervous that morning – not really about the race itself but nervous that I had forgotten something really important.

I met my friends Andy Johnson and Kristen Fisher in the transition area, setup my transition area, and then we got in line for the bus over to the swim start. Kristen’s husband Johnathan (aka Fisher) came down to the transition area to be our sherpa for the day and it was great to have him along. By the time we got to the swim start (around 5:20ish) there were already a couple hundred people lined up. We found a spot in line and made ourselves comfortable for the almost two hour wait before our time to jump in the river. The wait wasn’t that bad. We had a good time and kept the nerves in check by joking around. I do wish there had been more port-o-potties at the swim start. Despite already making one trip, about 30 minutes before the pro start I realized I needed to pee really bad. I walked a couple hundred yards back to the port-o-potties only to discover that the lines were about 50 deep. I didn’t think I would make it to the front of the line in time so I just got back in the swim start line and decided that I would have to hit the port-o-potties in the transition area after the swim.

Waiting for the swim start

Once the male and female pros got started and the gun went off for the amateurs the line started moving pretty fast. At 7:14 we walked out onto the dock and jumped into the water. It was a little less controlled than I expected. I had thought someone would be controlling the flow of athletes jumping into the river but the officials seemed ok with people jumping in as soon as they were ready. The first 300-or-so yards upstream were a little crazy – lots of bumping and contact. I had trouble sighting throughout the race and especially during that upstream portion. It took me a while to figure out where we were supposed to turn around. After the turn it seemed to thin out some but there was contact from start to finish. As I said, I had trouble sighting and I thought that I was swimming a good line on the buoys but it always seemed that the main line of athletes was 20 yards to my right and at one point I had a volunteer on a standup paddle board yell at me “to your right” and I shifted my course. I kept my effort level under control and controlled my breathing knowing that if I overdid it on the swim it was going to be a long day (lesson learned in Dickson two weeks prior). As I approached the swim exit I had trouble seeing exactly where the turn into the dock was and had to stop and tread water a couple times before spotting the dock. I climbed out of the water, got some help from the wetsuit strippers, hit the port-o-potty in the transition area, and ran for my bike.

Swim goal: Anything under 40 minutes

Swim time: 35:57

T1: 8:05 (a bit long but that included stopping to hug all of my family and my port-o-potty trip)

In the week prior to the race I had gone over and over the bike and run course – studying every little hill on the course. I had broken the bike section down into four segments – 1) the road out of the city 2) the first half of the loop 3) the second half of the loop 4) and the road back in to the city. My plan was to take it kind of easy (Z2 -which for me meant something like 16-16.5mph) in the first two segments knowing that I didn’t want to cook my legs early on the ride and that the first half of the loop looked tougher than the second half. But as we left town on the bike I found myself cruising at 18-20mph. My HR was just a bit above Z2 and I didn’t feel like I was working hard so I just went with it. The first 29 miles went really fast and at the half way split I was averaging 18.75mph and still feeling great. In all of my planning I never dreamed I would break 17mph so I was totally surprised at my split but only slightly worried that I might be overdoing it. In my course breakdown and plan I had thought that the second half of the loop and the ride back into the city is where I might push the pace and make up some time but not long into the second half of the loop I realized that we were fighting a head wind and the pace slowed to just above 16mph. By the time we started to roll back into the city I was ready to be done with the bike and a little concerned that the headwind had done my legs in.

Overall the bike leg was great! The road was a little congested but the scenery was beautiful, the hills weren’t bad, and my buddy Andy had caught up to me about 7 miles in and we rode most of the course together. We met Jennifer Huwe somewhere along the way and the three of us has a good time playing cat and mouse and joked around throughout the ride and just had a great time.

Bike goal: 3:30

Bike time: 3:11:15

T2: 4:51 (again slow but I stopped for a moment with my family)

Andy and I had finished the bike at the same time and left transition for the run start together. Andy is a little faster than me on the run but he took it easy and we ran the first two miles together. I often experience some pretty bad hamstring cramps in the first two miles on the run after the bike and felt one coming as we climbed the little hill up the river bank so we slowed to a walk and the cramp never came. About two miles in Andy’s calves started tightening up and he started walking again. I kept running expecting him to catch up at some point but he never did and I ran the last 11 miles on my own. When I reached mile five I was surprised at how well the run was going and started to think I had a shot at breaking 6:30 for the day. But I knew that it would be dangerous for me to start pushing the pace that early so I decided I would just run at a pace that felt good and then reassess at mile nine.

By mile seven I was starting to hurt some. I wasn’t that tired. I was just starting to have some aches in my ankles and knees. I blocked out the pain by thinking of my son Witt. Thinking of him at 5-months old – only hours after his heart transplant. Remembering the image of him with his chest laid open. Witt’s precious new heart failed a couple times that day and the doctors had to perform chest compressions to restart it. But Witt refused to give up and fought for his life that day. THAT was the inspiration that got me through the pain and by mile eleven I was feeling pretty good again. I looked at my watch and felt like I still had a shot at 6:30 so I started to pick up the pace. I ran through the last aid station and started up the Walnut Street Bridge running uphill at a pretty good clip but realized that if I pushed too hard and came up short that I might have to walk the finish chute and I decided that it was more important to finish strong than to beat 6:30. So I walked up to the peak of the bridge, got my legs back under me, got my heart rate under control, and then took off with a strong push for the finish. It felt SO good to peal off to the left and head down Riverfront Parkway towards the finish line. I finished strong – my last split was my best of the day – and with that a year of hard work had paid off.

Overall my run was pretty good. I had expected to walk some. But I was pleased with the amount of walking I had done. By the end I had walked most but not all of the aid stations, walked up Battery Lane both times, walked the Barton Avenue hill on the second lap, and walked two other times for less than a hundred yards each time.

Run goal: 2:45

Run time: 2:33:54

Overall goal: to finish – anything under 7 hours would be awesome

Overall time: 6:34:02

When I signed up for this race a year ago it scared the heck out of me. I’d only been swimming and biking for a year and only had two Sprint triathlons under my belt. I went into my first Sprint race undertrained and by the end of the race swore I wouldn’t do another. I was more prepared for my second race but they ended up canceling the swim that day due to dangerous currents. So I signed up for the Chattanooga 70.3 knowing that I had my work cut out for me. But that is what Witt’s Warriors is all about – finding inspiration in Witt’s story and pushing myself far beyond the limits that I’ve imposed on myself. I trained HARD for a year. I rarely skipped a workout and kept going even when the finish seemed so far away. And on Sunday it all paid off. My parents, my wife, my kids, and my friends supported me throughout my training and were there to cheer for me on race day and it meant a lot to me and seeing them on the course kept me going. I had a great race and we (all our relay teams and athletes combined) raised $11,000 for children born with congenital heart defects. I can’t imagine how it could have gone any better.

I’ve taken a few days off to recharge my batteries and tomorrow it is back to training. There is only 117 more days to Ironman Chattanooga – twice the distance I did this past weekend.