Personal collective of ideas, thoughts and notes
I signed up for this 2 days before the race and took advantage to get some goo open water practice in. I wasn’t quite fit enough to compete for the top spot, but considering it was at the end of a 3 week build block, I shouldn’t be surprised. I basically was only able to swim, ride and run at around 70.3 pace (and even that felt hard!). Fun day overall, great location for a race and plan to go back again next year!
Another Ironman 70.3 race under my belt and my best overall finish to date! It was slightly disappointing that the swim was cancelled due to strong currents, but if its the same for everyone, that works for me 🙂
The race venue, people and weather were perfect. Aside from my very first 70.3 in Augusta, I think this has been my favorite. This was probably influenced by some personal bests on all fronts, however, with not having a swim, I think that could have been expected to a small extent.
The weekend started by taking a beautiful drive up to Chattanooga through the mountains on Thursday, I left early so I could get work in once I arrived and avoid some traffic. The drive alone is worth the trip, along the beautiful Nantahala river through towns like Asheville and Bryson City.
3 years of doing 70.3 IM NC. Such a fun race in one of my favorite coastal towns of Wilmington/Wrightsville beach. Overall, a great race. 6th this year compared to 5th from last year, but due to the fast swim current, I improved my swim 8 minutes. On the bike I had a major rookie mistake and forgot to load my nutrition bottle on the bike, which meant stopping at the first aid station and loading up as much as I could carry, giving up some time, but also really important. There my bike was 2 minutes slower than 2023. On the run, I was right around the same as previous years with a 1:28. The 5th place finisher was over 2 minutes ahead of me, so I needed quite a considerable improvement to catch up to them.
Year 2 of doing the Suarez Gran Fondo National Race in Boone. In 2023 I was prepping for IM WC in Nice, so I decided to use this race as some climbing prep and pretty much treated it like a 100 mile ride on my TT bike, versus a gran fondo of racing the timed segments. This year, I used my gravel bike, put on my TT bike wheels and raced it a little more traditionally. Overall, it such a beautiful Course (lots of it is on the Blueridge Parkway) and some fun climbing in the NC mountains.
Race wise it went reasonably well with 10th in my category.
Another great experience racing ORAMM (Off-Road Assault on Mount Mitchell). Some of the coolest temps but also pretty slick from all the rain we have had lately. This was my slowest time over the 4 years racing this event, but due to that it was probably the most enjoyable 🙂
3 minutes slower than in 2022 🙂
You must be logged in to post a comment.