2024 Chatt 70.3 Race Report

First tri on the season is in the books. I was really looking forward to Chatt, and it is one of my favorite courses. The weather was perfect and suited me well with a little heat and humidity. 

Pre-Race: This was one of my tougher pre-races in terms of travel and arrival time. We drove the first 4 hours Friday evening and stayed with my mom in St. Louis. She had my Taco Bell ready to go when we got there! 5am we were back on the road and drove the remaining 6.5 hours to Chattanooga. I ended up checking in around 1pm, rode my bike for 5 minutes, slapped on the stickers and dropped it off. I jogged back to the car and considered my shakeouts done.

We checked into the hotel, got my gear ready and it was already time to grab Firehouse for dinner at 4:30. My Cousin and her husband came up to watch me race, so we got to visit as well.

Race Morning: This went off without a hitch. Everything was smooth, I got my bike ready and hopped on the shuttle with a few of my Dynamo fam. We got to the swim start with an hour to kill and just hung out until it was time to throw on our wetsuits. I started the furthest up I’ve ever been and was very happy with that positioning.

Swim (26:56 - 9th AG / 34th Amatuer): Possibly my best swim, but it’s hard to judge being down river. Relative to a strong field, this was the best position I’ve exited the water in. Unfortunately I misread my watch and thought I swam upper 27 minutes, so it wasn’t until after the race that I appreciated how good my swim was. During the race, this would have motivated me a little more on the bike knowing where I actually was. The only real note is I spent more time on feet than I normally do, which ended up being about half of the swim. I had to work to stay on them, so I knew I was getting a strong benefit from being there as long as I could. 

T1: (3:10): I felt like my T1 was solid other than the wetsuit peelers struggling. I probably would have been faster to take it off myself, but it’s nice getting it off early to help cooldown while running to the bike. Everything went smooth and I moved up 23 positions and into 11th overall. At the time, I had no idea I was that far up. 

Bike: (2:19:50 - 7th AG): Unfortunately this is when my race started going downhill. From the start my HR was 170bpm. It took about 30 minutes for it to finally settle down, but I was never able to get it into the zone it was supposed to be in. I lost my rear bottle somewhere in the first 5 miles, but that only cost me 1 slow down at an aid station to replenish. My power was ok early on, but I had to keep it a little lower with the elevated HR. From mile 10-20 I was riding in with a strong pack, but got too close and decided to pass everyone. After taking about a 5min pull at the front, everyone went around me and I got spit out the back. Watching them ride away, I knew I lost my ticket to the front of the race. From there on, I picked off a few female pros every couple of miles. Each time I was hoping it’d be an age grouper but alas, they all stayed away. On the 2nd half of the ride, I just wasn’t able to hold my power numbers and my quads started cramping similar to mile 10 of the Boston marathon. This is a very new issue that I’ve been experiencing, and everything seems to point towards my new bike fit from February. I’ve noticed the higher heart rate since then as well. Needless to say, I will be looking into it and working on some adjustments to avoid it in the future. Overall I was 4-5 minutes slower than I would have liked, and I dropped down to 18th amateur going into T2.

T2 (2:15): Very smooth and efficient moving up 2 positions. I have been practicing a different dismount on my new bike that I tried out. I didn’t eat it, so that’s a win.

Getting passed by the beer mile champion Corey Bellemore

Run (1:20:33 - 3rd AG / 5th Amatuer): Not the run I’ve flashed in the past or what I know I’m capable of. Overall I think I ran a little too conservatively, by using my HR as a guide without actually racing. I was told 8 minutes to the lead at mile 1, and based on my pace early on I wasn’t confident I’d close much of it. It was very spread out and there was no one within ¼ mile of me up the road. Around my 3, I saw some competitors at the turn around and measured my gap around 7 minutes. I planned to see how much I closed (if any) when we got back there on lap 2. I saw the pro men as well with Matt Hanson just FLYING. I knew he was running low 5’s. Around this time, I heard footsteps from behind and just felt defeated being passed. Instead of trying to go with him, I opted to stay within my HR plan. Looking back, I think I should have tried for a mile just to see. Bryan ended up running a 1:17, so I have a feeling I wouldn’t have lasted long. The rest of the run was pretty meh, and I was getting updates bouncing between 5th/6th in my AG. This was very disappointing when I thought I’d be top 5 overall. At this point, I just waited for mile 10 to up my HR to 175 and hold it until the finish. I did see my gap drop a bit at the turnaround, but it wasn’t nearly enough. When I hit mile 10, I feathered the gas some more and held my HR above 175. The final mile I was right at 180. 

Finish (4:12:42): My first thought across the line was failure. 10th Overall and 5th in the 30-34 AG was disappointing and felt like a step back to where I was finishing in 2019. My time was certainly faster, but the competition was just better. I dumped some cold water on myself and tried to find a positive before sulking. When I saw my wife, she told me I swam under 27 minutes and I knew that’d be my key take-away from this race. 

In the end it’s just a race, but I am determined to figure out what I need to do with my bike to get back to where I was in previous years. Once I get that worked out, I really think I can compete. I also believe that whatever is going on with my fit is impacting my run as well. I can feel it a bit in training, and this is the 2nd race where that same pain has occurred. Needless to say, I will be back in 3 short weeks with a vengeance at Des Moines.