Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga Race Report, TN USA, 19 May 2019

Preparation

I had a 21 weeks training period leading up to this race. Training went pretty smooth, only had to stop running for about a week and a half due to pain in my left ankle, most likely caused by my bike shoes closing up a little higher than my previous pair, putting pressure right on a tendon. From a race equipment point of view everything remained the same, from a training equipment point of view I started using Zwift. As always I read some race reports to get an idea about the race in past years, they basically all said the same: fast (mostly) with the current swim, rolling bike and a hilly run. Only had one goal going into the race, control the bike part to have a good run of the bike.

Location

I selected the Chattanooga race as it was relatively close by and as I hadn't done it before it would be yet another addition to the races I can check of. 

Credit: Jillian Ewel

Everything is conveniently located near the center of Chattanooga: Ironman village, T1 and T2 are located at the Riverfront, swim start is about 1 mile up stream on Heritage Landing Dr. So from a logistics point of view this race is pretty easy, especially as they provide shuttle services on race morning from T1 to the race start. The swim is in the Tennessee river, first part is against the current, followed by a turn around and then with the current to the swim exit. Bike course is one big loop located to the south of Chattanooga, run course is a 2 loop setup in and around downtown Chattanooga. 

Stay

Arrived on Friday afternoon in town, grabbed some pasta lunch at Olive Garden and headed to the check in. Afterwards I took the bike to discover a part of the run course and shake out the legs after the long car ride. On Saturday had more pasta at Olive Garden for lunch, dropped of the bike at T2 and did as little as I could.
Stayed in the Wingate hotel about 25 minutes out from downtown Chattanooga. It was convenient as there were multiple restaurants and stores close to the hotel, and the drive to downtown/convention center/transition was pretty straight forward. On race morning when I walked to my car and looked through the window, I think they had breakfast setup, but I already had my breakfast so didn't really checked it out.

Swim 0:17:20 AG-41/231

• Waiting lined up I asked a few athletes if we were going to do the upstream swim or not, and basically nobody seemed to know for sure. It was once I saw them move some buoys around I was pretty sure the upstream part got cancelled. 
• Jumped in the water and like within a minute I knew I was going to have an issue really soon, my goggles were fogging up really fast, been ages this happened to me, but yep race day and there it was! Soon I couldn't see at all where I was going, so grabbed the first kayak I saw to hold onto, pulled of my goggles and clean them out a bit. Didn't took to long, but yeah was frustrating for sure. Never felt like I could get into any rhythm, arms and legs felt really heavy. Its a wide river, but I still managed to swim all the way into the left bank of the river, guess my sighting / straight line swimming are not on point. I never even saw another swimmer, so I probably was off course pretty much all the time. Anyway I was pretty happy when I saw the stairs to get out of the water!
• AG 17% is not great compared to my previous swims, I was just happy it was over with. Maybe it was to warm in my sleeved wet suit? Not sure what was going on. Tried to set it aside and got on with my race, it was just the swim after all.

T1 0:04:12 

• Went for the wet suit stripper option, quick and easy solution. Pretty decent distance run out of the water to the bike, managed to pass some athletes on that section. If result details are correct I passed 16 athletes of my AG in T1! Seems unrealistic to me, but I will take it.

Bike 2:30:30 AG-29/231

• Previous race reports I read talked about one ugly climb, for the rest rolling terrain. Went into the race trying for once not to blow up on the bike to have something left on the run.
• Rolling out of T1 I tried to not go out to fast, as I did in Augusta 2018. For the first hour I managed to keep myself under control, never really going full out. Didn't feel great at all though, sluggish, stomach not to happy, just not top it seemed. The ugly climb wasn't so darn ugly after all, ok it was kinda steep but pretty short. From there onward I knew that it was mostly downhill, so I tried to pick up the pace a little. I actually started to feel better the further we got into the race, guess that's better than the other way around! 
• During the first part of the race quite a few people passed me, I am totally not used to that, but yep all part of the plan. I managed to pick some of them up later on in the race. Looking at the bike splits I did manage to pick the pace up every split, so I should be happy with that. AG 13% which isn't to great for me (5% best) but yeah stuck with the plan of keeping it controlled on the bike. For the first time ever I even lost 2 places in my AG on the bike! From 25th down to 27th. 
• Nutrition wise I went back to a previous plan: 4 GUs and 4 bottles with Gatorade Endurance/2 scoops of Base Salt and some additional salt licks in the last half hour. 

 

T2 0:02:49

• Going into T2 its downhill on the bike, I came in harder than I wanted and was close to crashing on the dismount line. When trying to put my running shoes on I noticed that I left my CO2 canister in my shoe! So never mounted it on my bike in the morning. Sun blocker on my shoulder by some volunteers and ready to go!

Run 1:36:54 AG-13/231

• From the race reports and athlete guide I knew it was a hot, humid and hilly run course. I think we got lucky with the weather, because it didn't feel that hot nor humid to me, but hilly it was!
• No cramps running out of T2 this time, actually felt pretty good even up the first serious incline half a mile out of T2. Got into a good rhythm pretty fast, and tried to hold a 7:30ish minute per mile pace. Looking at the run splits I managed to do that relatively fine. First time ever I could actually start to pick people up during the run, normally get passed over and over. Really happy how I felt during the run! Didn't even have to walk up the steepest climb on the course. Even had something left for the last half mile to come in blazing. 
• Run AG 6%, which is by far my best result, as well the 1:36:54 was a PR.
• Nutrition: GU at mile 3, 6 and 9. Licking Base Salt every 4 minutes and grabbing at least one cup of Gatorade every aid station.

Overall 4:31:42 AG-14/231

• Very happy with my overall race, especially because I stuck with my race plan! Got an overall PR, even if I add like 10 minutes because of the shortened swim. 
• Swim: in one word terrible, with the goggles fogging up, swimming out of direction, clearly not my day. Although within my AG it seems like the damage was not that big, 41st out of the water.
• Bike: kept it easy as per my race plan, was frustrating to get passed so much though, even lost 2 AG spots, so next time might need to push a little harder while still keeping it under control. 27th position after the bike.
• Run: best run to date, especially taken into account that this was a very hilly run course, 13th run split within my AG bringing me to a 14th place overall, very happy!

Some lessons learned

• Nutrition plan works!
• Holding back on the bike resulted in a way better run, maybe can push it a little harder on the bike and still run great?
• Loved the run course with tons of people cheering everybody on!

Result

• Swim   0:17:20     AG-41/231
• T1       0:04:12
• Bike    2:30:30     AG-29/231
• T2       0:02:49
• Run     1:36:54     AG-13/231
• Total   4:31:42     AG-14/231

Tags: HIM Chattanooga race report, race report HIM Chattanooga, 70.3 Chattanooga race report, race report 70.3 Chattanooga, Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga race report, race report Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga