Augusta 70.3
Augusta, GA - September 2019 - 6th AG
I experienced tremendous personal growth during 2019 as I edged closer to finding a career that I’m passionate about, spent my first full year as a functional adult navigating the city of Boston, and developed some life long friendships. Two of these friends, Tim and Brendan, and I became known to the Boston Tri Team as the “Three Amigos” – at socials, training events, races, etc., where one of us was… the other two were soon to follow. We decided to make a boys’ trip out of Augusta 70.3 and made a long weekend out of the race. We had a bike packing ft. slumber party at Tim’s place the Thursday before the race and then woke up early Friday morning to fly down to Augusta. We traded cool 70s for sweltering 90s and begrudgingly walked from a side street to the expo to pick up our packets and check out the Ironman store. The race finish / packet pickup is on Augusta’s “main drag” and is home to a smattering of bars and restaurants, which we eyed for our post-race feast. Our Airbnb (insert link) was about half an hour from the race venue and afforded us great cooking and R&R options. Saturday brought more of the same, plus we headed back to the venue to drop off our bikes and recon the swim course.
I’m usually calm, cool, and collected the night before races. However, I struggled to fall and stay asleep Saturday night and woke up to a dismal WHOOP recovery score Sunday morning. I tried to shrug it off and prepped my traditional pre-race breakfast – eggs, turkey bacon, & avocado with a smoothie. We made the drive to T1 to prep our transition areas, hit the Port-O-Potties a few times, and then waited in line for the buses, which took us 1.2 miles upstream to the swim start.
Swim - 24:53 (58th OA)
Thankfully, for me and Tim, the swim was not wetsuit legal. After getting a group photo with Brendan (I don’t remember how we had a phone with us?), Tim and I made our way toward the front of the swim que. The water felt fantastic – just over the temperature cutoff, I was very comfortable as I set off in my swimskin. The swim is dead straight down the river with a descent current assist until you hit the final buoy, which signals the turn into T1. I saw my watch chiming off roughly 6:00/500yds which helped bolster my confidence as I cut towards the front of the race.
T1
A flying mount would have been nice, but this was my best T1 to date. I had no problem finding my bike, likely due to my fluro helmet resting on the aerobars, and my swimskin slid right off. I made my way to the mount line and got to work on the bike. I had my first equipment malfunction as I exited the short strip of road connecting transition to the main course – my front water bottle ejected. I unfortunately decided not to stop to retrieve it, which cost me later in the race.
Bike - 2:29.13 (68th OA)
My coach and I planned for me to target 260W NP (~87% of FTP) to account for the hills on the course. The course map, however, does NOT do the Augusta hills justice. Compared to the flat, 5.6-mile lake loop I did endless circles around during training, this course had me climbing mountains. I also realized my power meter was misfiring as I made my way through the first few flat miles and hit the first climb. My powermeter read 220W, but it felt closer to what my Boston training was at (and I had the speed to support that). I roughly knew what 260W should feel like on the flats and I decided to ride to perceived effort on the climbs. I chipped away at a good number of riders through the first 35 miles while only getting dropped hard by a handful of uber-bikers.
I had the single most terrifying bike experience of my life (including several accidents I’ve had, one of which left me looking up at the front grill of a car) just after the mile 35 mark. After miles of wide-open and sunbaked roads, the course turned onto a narrow, curvy road surrounded by tall trees that connected us to the other major roadway the race occupied. I hadn’t seen anyone in front of me, so I took aggressive lines and pace through this part. Unfortunately, I encountered a cyclist riding in the middle of the road and exceptionally slowly as I came into an S-bend. Rather than laying down or slamming my breaks, which would risk flipping over the handlebars (something I’ve also done), I took the off-road option. Thankfully the right side of the road had a steep, grassy upslope I banked onto and used to gradually direct myself back towards the road. I noticed a lip between the grass and the road as I edged closer and somehow perfectly executed a small bunny hop to get back on the road. I stayed calm, cool and collected throughout this but, looking at my HR data after the race, was able to see precisely where this happened because my HR skyrocketed as soon as I hit the road and the shock of what just happened hit me.
The rest of the race went by without a hitch. I continued to douse myself with water bottles at each aid station and grab a fresh one to drink. Unfortunately, the flat 10ish miles back into transition were mostly into a headwind, turning the anticipated zip to T2 into a long slog. I kept trying to go to the bathroom, but I just couldn’t bring myself to pee all over Viserion. Coming into the last two turns of the course I started stretching out my legs and mentally preparing for what would be a brutally hot and totally exposed run.
T2
I peed! I started as soon as I racked my bike and while switching from my bike to running shoes. This reassured me that I had adequately hydrated on the bike and my legs felt good as I jogged out of transition while putting on my number belt.
Run - 1:49.22 (116th OA)
Boy did I feel great hitting the run course holding just under 7:00/mile pace. My coach and I had planned for me to start around here and hold it through the first lap of the two-loop run course. From there, I could adjust as needed on the second lap. Unfortunately, my quads started cramping soon into the second mile. It was oppressively hot and humid, and I think losing a bottle of electrolytes coming out of T1 and not having any Gatorade on the bike contributed to my salts being off. My pace slowed each mile and I was soon hovering in the 7:40-8:00 mile range. I kept myself in good spirits through the first loop as I continued to pass people and assured myself that if I was hurting, others probably were too. I saw Tim at one of the points where the course doubled back on itself and we exchanged half-assed waves at each other to conserve energy.
The first loop finished around mile 7 and brought us back to the long stretch out to the first set of turns that lead into the bulk of the run course. I came out of the turns (~mile 9) and shit hit the fan. My vision suddenly blurred; my sweat turned ice cold. I immediately began walking through the miles 2 & 9 aid station and took in some water, a banana, and an orange. I should have had Gatorade, but prior gastrointestinal issues with super sugary products stayed my hand. Enough pros walk during races and win or still run fast that I knew walking wasn’t the issue. However, waiting until you blow up to walk makes it that much harder to start running again. It took me three rounds of “okay, we’re running again at the next intersection” before I finally began to jog again. Tim passed me during one of these rounds and offered some words of encouragement, but they didn’t quite work as desired. In the end, this cost me the 45 seconds I needed to claim my first podium spot at an Ironman 70.3 race.
The silver lining in all this is that I finally wised up at the mile 11 and 12 aid stations and had some Gatorade. This initially built me from a “survival mode” pace around 9:00/mile into a closing 7:00 mile after the second round of Gatorade. Next time, Gatorade will be my best friend and I’m going to crush the run. The other lesson it taught me, or rather reinforced, was the difference between a “slow” jog and walking. For me, jogging between a 9:00/mile and 10:00/mile pace doesn’t require much more energy than walking at 20:00/mile. Even a walk/jog at 12:00 pace would have saved me 8 minutes over the mile that I walked. A slow jog would not only have given me the 45 seconds needed for 5th place (and a spot on the podium), it would have also propelled me into 4th place and the top 100 Overall.
