Augusta Race Report (long).
The Good – all the people!! Friends, the Base team, people I’ve only talked to on Facebook, the volunteers, the sherpas/cheerleaders…it’s like a big party all weekend long.
The Bad – that dang hot weather!! Today it’s cooler and overcast with rain sprinkles.
The Ugly – the new bike course and the rolling swim start.
I headed out Friday morning with Lisa (race newbie) and we arrived in time to get to the first athlete briefing. Cue mass confusion as mis-information was reported – where morning bags went and collected, and many comments on not swimming in the river before the race. I asked about the train tracks – when you work for a railroad safety is a huge concern. I was relieved to hear that carpets would be used on most of them, and the promise that no trains were scheduled to pass by during the race. Thankfully after Jeff being his usual Mayoral self, we were cleared for the Friday practice swim.
The swim went the usual way for me – 41mins (i have been within 3-4mins every single time and that was my 6th time swimming it!). Felt good to be in the water. Afterwards, we had the Base team dinner which was great fun – so many awesome people and good to see some familiar faces from 2017. Tiffany did an amazing job corraling us all.
Saturday we dropped our bikes off after a Base team photo at the expo (also drooled over the shiny QR bikes) and then I chilled out and prepped before having pasta dinner at St. Pauls – first time I’ve done that and I highly recommend it.
Sunday dawned early. After being quite calm I suddenly got a bad case of pre-race nerves – thank goodness for Stacy, Lucy and Jeff calming me down. This year was the first year of the rolling swim start for Augusta – basically you seed yourself by the time it takes to complete 1.2 miles. I lined up in the appropriate slot (37-40mins) but it was already obvious that people were seeding themselves in the earlier slots in an attempt to beat the heat. The start time for age groupers rolled around – 750am – and the line didn’t move. A few of us glanced over at the river and there were only a few people swimming. The line still didn’t move. It took until well after 8am for us to move about 2 feet. By this time, I’m figuring I won’t be in the water until after 9am. I was in line with 6 other ladies from the Base team and that helped calm any remaining nerves and pass the time. Finally the line started moving a little better and it seemed more people were in the river. Sure enough, it was 904am before I jumped in. I don’t know what directions the volunteers got, but I assumed that a rolling swim start meant everyone had to jump in and get going…some people were sliding in and then waiting to go – which is all fine it that was the intent…we never got any direction.
Swim went fine except until the very end when two kayakers blocked my route to the final buoy and said I had to go more left…I’m sure that 25yds I had to move over made ALL the difference. Anyway, I PR’d the swim by just under a minute! I’ll take it. Transition went smoothly and I remembered to take off the swim skin this time!
This year Augusta had a brand new bike route that is all in Georgia. I had driven the course Saturday morning and wasn’t all that enthused – long stretches with no shade, railroad tracks galore and plenty of long climbs and false flats. I set off and almost immediately lost any kind of momentum as we rode around in a rectangle crossing railroad tracks at every turn. This made for large clusters of cyclists all boxed in as they wanted us to cross single file. Finally we got onto Gordon Hwy but the cyclist traffic just would not thin out. It was not the best situation. My late start also meant it was getting hot fast. I blazed through the first 12 miles fast and took the first big hill quite easily – as I went past another lady on a fancy tri bike she said “Damn”. Best moment of the bike hands down! We had been told that the new course was “easier” because it “had less elevation”. Not true at all. So many turns, so little shade, so many cyclists bunched up – seriously, if the officials had been more active they would have had so many penalties to hand out. Maybe they realized it was that way and ignored it? I think I was spoiled on the old course with the first few hills easily thinning out the crowd. By mile 28 I was out of liquid and counting down those last 2 miles until aid station 2. I grabbed a bottle of water, which wasn’t cold but by then I didn’t care. I saw so many people with flats or who had crashed – way more than in previous years and I was hoping very hard I wouldn’t get a flat. I had one hairy moment coming down 4-H road (think badly maintained country road with no markings) where I flew over a big bump. Thankfully I didn’t do any damage to the bike. I grabbed water again at aid station 3 – yay, that one was ice cold – and tried to hammer down for the last 11 miles. I was burning up (I sunburned on my arms, legs and face – not even in the heat of 2016 did I burn) by the time I got to dismount and my time was much longer (about 12 mins) than 2017. I ran into T2 and quickly changed for the run. I knew the run was going to suck but I wanted to try and run it all. It was brutal but I was slogging through it. I saw so many familiar faces – athletes and cheerleaders!! I got past mile 10, with ever increasing splits, and had shortness of breath, so I stopped to walk. I caught up with Lisa and we decided to finish together. Those last couple of miles were very hard but finally there was the chute and it was over!! Not an Augusta PR this time but a new bike course PR – third time I’ve done this race and the bike course has been different each year!! I’m so thankful to have finished again under very difficult circumstances.
I hope the Ironman organization can figure out the issues with the rolling swim start and maybe review the bike course? I’m sure there are better routes they could consider that aren’t so industrial and would give a better bike flow. I really missed last year’s course. Now I get to pay it back by volunteering this Sunday at IMCHOO!!
Swim Bike Run - Tri Mum 