Well I learned to seed yourself much faster in the swim than your actual time at Augusta. Started in the 40 min group and didn’t get into the water until 9:15. Heck the wetsuit people started at 9:30. Got bottlenecked halfway on the swim with slow traffic.

Loved the bike course but spent the entire time passing people and I’m on a shitty 500$ road bike.

Starting the run at 1 PM put away any chance to go around 5:30. It was like running on the face of the sun. Had to sit in the med tent for an hour with ice bags to cool down. Overall Augusta did a great job trying to keep people cool.
Happy with 5:50 for my first 70.3.

The seeding was messed up in general I feel. Not sure why they started with a 30-35min category when a good number of people would be in the 20s. They need 2 more categories under 30 - all they need is a few more signs. Last year I’m pretty sure they had seeding categories under 30min.

Nice job breaking 6! I was happy to break 6 there last year and then broke 5 this year, so I gotta train hard now to keep the trend to break 4 next year... lol

My run was pretty hot the last 3mi or so - I can’t imagine doing 13.1 at that temperature - that’s impressive. I was getting ice at every stop. And just chugging liquids...

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

Ya live and learn on the seeding.

I learned a lot on my first HIM, mainly mistakes in nutrition and hydration. I didn’t down enough liquids on the bike putting me way behind on the run. I didn’t want to stop at the aid stations I just grabbed a bottle and went threw. I should have made myself drink more losing a minute here or there instead of 25 on the run.
Congrats on the sub 5. Great race in that heat.

An older gentleman had a heart attack in the beginning of the swim, he got pulled out, hospitalized and is in a critical condition as of now. So sad. Another guy fell up on the hill while he was waiting for the swim and broke his ankle. A local redneck called one of athletes who is African American lady n****r on the bike course. One of the runners yelled at a 13 yo volunteer girl because he didn’t get his water fast enough. A lot of drama, good ones and bad ones in this one.

Praying for the gentleman who was pulled from the water. I’ve been checking up on his status on the Augusta Facebook page.

For all the bad apples in the race:
Rule #1 of any race (and life for that matter):
DONT BE A DICK!
I guess I was ahead of all the drama. Everyone I came across was super friendly. I did my best to thank everyone I could and cheer on fellow athletes. I did see one guy down on the bike course receiving attention, looked like he had a nasty spill.

The run is brutal, especially for those not ready for the heat. I had 96.9 degrees as the average temperature for my run portion of the race. This is to be expected though. We’re talking about Georgia in September, we don’t see cooler weather until Thanksgiving. It’s part of the race. The swim, bike, and run courses are easy...I see the heat as the equalizer.

It’s unfortunate that some people have to be Dicks. I think it’s way more the exception than the norm.

I saw none of that. I thought the volunteers and the police officers were awesome. Heck you have 10 year old kids scrambling to get you a cup of water or Gatorade in the brutal heat. Those people were amazing.

If you have the audacity to berate a kid hopefully your 5K$ bike gets thrown in the river.

Congrats to you and all of the other athletes that were still able to finish strong in the heat; I absolutely bonked at around mile 7 and just walked/shuffled it across the line. I had an excellent swim (even though I also struggled with starting ~10 minutes back despite being the top overall swimmer and having to swim over people the whole time) and a decent bike by my standards that had me in a decent position to compete for a Taupo slot. I knocked off a few 6:40 miles before everything just locked up, and I knew by mile 7 that despite how much hydration and ice I took at the aid stations there was no getting back to a fast clip. A very humbling experience on the run that I'm hoping to use as motivation for the offseason as I think about signing up for an early season 70.3 in 2020.

On the positive side, I believe my swim was the fastest on record in an official Ironman 70.3 course (at least through the results that I can find via Google), which I am sure Blueseventy will love. I recognize that it was a downstream swim, but the current wasn't nearly as strong as a couple of years ago. Let me know if anyone finds an official swim split faster than 20:35 as I've only checked domestic races in the last few years.

I thought the volunteers were incredible all day and I really appreciate their energy in the heat. I booked a beautiful Airbnb right on the Savannah River about 20 minutes from Augusta and overall had a great weekend!

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The Gram: @agyenis
My latest story on Swimswam: More than a title

Well, at least you can say you swam faster than Lionel Sanders in a race.

I pretty much did exactly as planned on the aid stations on the run. I was spending 10 seconds per mile on them. At first it was just a few sips of water, but a few miles into it I routinely got 2 cups of water, 2 cups of Gatorade, then cola or redbull followed by ice to stuff in my tri top. The ice was a big help. I didn't get any sponges that race.

I love the Bud Light and Papa Johns pizza at the end. Always tastes sooo good. I had a great time as well. I think I might sign up for Augusta 2020 as my next race. I want to get a WC slot or train for one for next year. This year my 4:48 wasn't enough and 7th with a 4:39 got it in M35-39. But, thats ok - Taupo is so far away and even if I went next year I probably wouldn't podium. So, I hope they choose a cool and possibly close location next year! But, yeah looking forward to Augusta 2020. I've been through the course a few times now and like the familiarity of the course. Also, I think the bike is pretty fun.

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.had the front tire blow out on Saturday during my shakeout and laid the bike down, ended up being okay and was able to swap out tires and tubes and nothing was broken. Just lost some skin on my outer thigh. I really had some GI issues on Sunday. I’m guessing Because I only had one bottle of water while on the bike, instead of my normal 1:1 water to nutrition ratio. But by the time I hit mile 5, my stomach was in distress. I hit every port a potty from mile 5-10 and it wasn’t pleasant.
Race day goal:5:30/ Was on pace for 5:40 (was fine with it, felt good, knew leg was gonna bother me a little.) ended up with a 6:05
Swam: 32:00
T1 5:00. (Sunscreen/ had to poo)
Bike: 2:50:00
T2 8:00( sun screen/ really had to poo)
Run: 2:27
first 5 miles pace 8:30 then stomach blew up.
My results are a direct relation of my preparation and execution. I’m not thrilled but I’m happy I fought through it.
What I want to know is who decided to put the last aid station right before the downhill around the cul de sac back up hill. That’s a great idea to have people juggling stuff going both ways and then going down hill and turning. They had all of airport road to put that aid station and they put it 30 yards from the culdesac. Someone didn’t think that through, could have been ugly.

Was I the only one who got my Garmin showing 3 minutes faster than my official time? Official results showed 5:41, my Garmin showed 5:38 even with a 70.43 distance (I suck at swimming so got se zigzagging). I turned it o. Right before getting on the water and turned it off after crossing the finish line. Just curious!

My Garmin showed 4:48:34 vs official 4:48:40, so pretty close.

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

I had a 2 min difference from my Garmin "faster" than the official timing. Not that it matters given the circumstances, but yeah, it's odd.

Garmin said 5:10 and IM said 5:12.

Look at the time of day you started on IM results vs. Garmin activity. I think my time started about a minute early on the dock, I might have got too close to the line or something. And a couple of aid stations when I was filling up my handheld with ice, Garmin I think auto-paused and had to start back up.

Ahhh the auto pause!! That's it! Those were my 689 stops to get ice all over my body!!! Got u,did not think if that. Thanks for the reminder!

Still check the time you started. IM tracker has me starting at like 8:01 and I didn’t start my watch until 8:02

I had a similar issue with a discrepancy in times between Garmin and IM at Steelhead this year.

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IG: NCGregory8778

So...looking at the results, there's like 4-500 DNSs...what the hell?

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Congrats on the swim. During the briefing they said the slowest swim last year was 53 min. TO swam 20:36, so you were even faster than him. If LS can swim like you in Kona, he has a big chance he can be on the podium.

Someone mentioned that Augusta historically has a lot of DNS. Speculation is that it’s a beginner friendly course so maybe a lot of people back out if the conditions aren’t just right. I don’t know about that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks saw the forecast, wetsuit optional water temp, and slow current speed and opted out.

I was more surprised by the number of DNF on the swim: 67

Congrats to all those who had a good race. I pulled off a 30 minute PR. The heat acclimatization i did paid off well.

I want to say it's the *largest* or second largest 70.3 also which might mean higher absolute numbers pulling out, esp. in imperfect conditions.

I ended up having a great race and came in 1st Amateur Female and 7th including the pros in 4:34:07. After having a very average day in Nice owing to my gross lack of bike handling skills, I was itching to race again and Augusta fit the bill.

It was a perfect swim to rip the NWS band aid off, as I've always got nervous on cuspy swims and it was nice to have a bit of current aide. Swam a 29 which was ok, about 3-5 mins faster than a typical swim for me, nothing to write home about.

The bike was more honest/legit than I had imagined... I don't know what I was imagining, I think pancake flat, but really enjoyed it and it's rolling hills. l went 2:27:33 based on an average power of 230w (NP 236w) – this had me as 1st AG and 5th including the pros (I'm about 155lb). I was super focussed on nutrition and down 4 gels (3x SIS Tropical/Pineapple and 1x Cliff Double Espresso), 3x 750ml bottles of 1.5x concentrate ScratchLabs oranges and 2x 500ml bottles of water from the aid stations (2 successful hand ups for the win!).

I literally had no idea about the run given the heat though to be honest, it wasnt as insane or brutal as I'd built it up to be in my head.One thing I did do though was I made sure I took the extra 5-10s to get two cups of water and two cups of ice. Some aid stations didn’t have ice in cups, but instead the volunteers had it in their hands, the first time I encountered this I was terribly British about it and just took a few cubes, the next time I opened my suit and had them put the ice right in; quite the experience for me and them! Pacing wise I hit the first 4 miles at 6.54, 6.56, 6.56, 6.56 like a human robot, then the cracks started to show. I think I took over the lead of the amateur race somewhere between mile 4 and 5 but hard to be sure with the rolling start. The next 4 miles came in at 7.09, 6.58, 7.02, 7.07, i.e. I was holding it together but just. Mile 6-7 was actually OK from a pacing perspective but nearly broke me mentally was so desolate! Miles 9, 10 and 11 were rough at 7.18, 7.05, 7.27 but having learned at mile 8 I had about 3 mins on the lead I just stayed focused and tried to hold the effort. After that I put into practice my fast finish training pulled back a 7.12, and a 7.05 finishing down the shoot at 6.17 pace… somehow always have something left for that red carpet. Overall finished in 1:32:39 or about 7.05/mile average which I was pretty stoked at given the heat and humidity. Fastest AG run, 2nd fastest amateur run and 8th including the pros. Fueling wise I did a good job again with 2 SIS Salted Strawberry gels at mile 4 and 8.

Overall a good fun day of racing. On to IMAZ next for me!

I don't know why but I feel like Galveston transition area was way bigger than the one in Augusta.
Good job! It was a hot day and props on your incredible run.
I had so much fun I'm thinking about doing it again next year.

Well, last year Hunter Lussi swam in 20:09 in Augusta. Current was way faster than this year.
Anyway, I hope you will get better soon.

https://www.ironman.com/...tail=1#axzz61E9JL3LQ

Nice job! Sounds like a great race. Yeah I always throw down as hard as I can on the red carpet. It’s proper race training.

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

For sure, also, got to have good form for the run pics [face palm]