With more time on my hands during taper, my mind tends to wander. Today I thought a lot about the last time I did Ironman Chattanooga. That was in 2018.

The 2018 race was my second ever attempt at the full Ironman distance.  The previous year I had become an Ironman in Louisville. This race therefore, was all about trying to improve my performance.  As it turned out, the race in 2018 was a little different.

I remember being in fantastic shape and really excited to race.  Then, while we were driving from Pittsburgh to Chattanooga, we got word that the swim portion of the race was cancelled.  It was two days ahead of race day. I guessed that the situation with the Tennessee river had to be bad.  Once in Chattanooga, we saw that it was really bad. There was no way to safely swim in that flooded river.

So my race was reduced to a bike and run.  The bike was a time trial start by race number and I was lucky enough to be one of the early riders on the course.  This meant I missed the thunderstorm that came through transition. It also meant that I had a relatively uncrowded course to navigate.  My bike ride went very well and I am still quite proud of how I executed it that day.  I started the run feeling very fresh.

I was fresh at the start of the run but that was soon to change.  The weather was extremely hot and humid (at least 95’F).  Those conditions beat me up and to survive, I made the decision to take time at each aid station, to fully hydrate and grab ice.  This meant I was losing roughly a minute every mile just at aid stations.  Even though this added up to a lot of time over the course of the marathon, I still think it was the right thing to do.  My final run time of 4:37:27 was slower than I had hoped for going into the race, but was good considering the heat.

Right now, there is a lot of rain falling in the Tennessee river valley and thoughts of another cancelled swim have crossed my mind.  The rain is due to stop tomorrow, so hopefully the river returns to normal for Sunday.  This time around, I want the full Ironman Chattanooga experience.