I’ve had a fairly rocky season, what with Flatting out at Rev3 Knox and being sent off course at Amica Knox. My plan was to finish up my year doing the Atomic Man 1/2 however after it was cancelled I was looking for a race to fill the space, in a hurry. The choice came down to either Augusta or Rev3 SC, and the date for Augusta (the same as the Atomic Man) lined up better for when I had off, so off to Augusta I go. (and just barely before it sold out) In my taper I did manage to get a little overzealous during one of my strides, setting me up to have almost an entire week of nothing but swimming leading up to the race… which, of course, made me just a bit nervous. Anyways, dumb@ss mistakes aside, I felt pretty good.
Got there Friday morning and searched out the hotel (in Aiken) and the host hotel to sign in. Saturday I spent driving the bike course and just being lazy. Sunday arrived uneventfully and it was go time. I got on site early and gave the bike / transition a final once over (I had an excellent spot in rack 11, towards the bike in/out) and caught the bus to swim start. I was in wave 5 (M25-29, second half) so once things started rolling there wasn’t much time before I was in the water attempting to stay behind the start bouy’s (a task in itself)
Swim (27:48) - My swim was uneventful to say the least. I found some feet and sat on cruise control the entire way. I’m fairly certain I could have just stopped swimming completely and float down the river and still have a decent 1/2 swim time. There was quite a bit of “seaweed” about 3/4mi in, and by quite a bit I really mean that I looked like Swamp Thing… still, besides being a bit gross it surely isn’t a problem…right? (Cue ominous music) I’d guess the current sped me up somewhere in the range of 6 minutes. Yeah…PR…haha.
T1 (3:18) - It’s a long way (all the way around Transition) to run from the swim exit, so although it looks like I passed out / read a book somewhere in here, I was actually making pretty good time. I skipped the “strippers” as I’m fairly good at getting my wetsuit off myself. As I pull my suit off my left leg however, I’m struck with a massive calf cramp! OUCH! Still not sure what caused it, but man was it painful. Grabbed the bike, got the lid on, and out the door, even managed to avoid the “pileup” at the mount line.
Bike (2:27:54) - The first couple of miles I really fought with my calf, trying to “spin” the cramp out of it. It worked fairly well and eventually I was able to focus on the ride. Augusta is pretty flat for the first half of the bike, and of course that translates into one really long line of athletes as far as the eye can see. I will say the ref’s were pretty johnny on the spot and more than willing to card people. For the most part there wasn’t a lot of foolishness going on, and eventually things thinned out. That’s good, because I was having some issues. My taint was on FIRE. I’d sit up, stand on the pedals, get back down in aero, immediately back in pain. WTF. Never had this kind of issue before. Finally, I find a bit of flatland, stand up, and reach down to “get a feel for things.” I retract my hand with a fist full of… seaweed(!)… holy crap, this stuff has been exfoliating the hell out of my crotch for the past 15 miles… still no idea how it even got in there! Besides that little mishap, things were pretty uneventful on the bike, and before I knew it, it was time to jump off and run into T2!
This course is pretty hard to screw up, with the only thing keeping you on your toes is the one U turn. We sort of lucked up in the fact that the sky was overcast for all of my ride, and I was hopeful that it was going to stay that way. I had planned on holding a 200w avg, and ended up with 191w.
T2 (1:31) - Bike in (I did avoid swinging my leg over the saddle as I figured if my calf happened to cramp again I’d look pretty dumb flat on my face.) and got everything taken care of pretty fast. Thankfully uneventful 
Run (1:44:33) - The first couple of miles I felt pretty good, holding a 7:3x pace. I hit the first aid station feeling good, and then it seems to happen… the clouds part, the sky opens, and the sun begins it’s merciless assault. It seriously goes from feeling “a bit uncomfortably warm” to “F*(&#ing hot” in what seems like an instant. Great. I start dousing myself in water at aid station two, but like an idiot completely miss grabbing something to drink. Doh. I start really feeling rough, like I’m burning up (duh) and decide that I need to start walking the aid stations to make sure I get enough “stuff” to keep me moving. This strategy works pretty good for me, although when I stop to stretch a few miles later my calf immediately revolts again. I get it under control and back on the road fairly fast and eventually start feeling good again. I continue walking the aids nonetheless and take a moment or so at the last one to get myself “cleaned up” and ready for pictures. I run it in and have my momentary scare when I see that the “clock” is showing 5:0x! I’m brought back to reality when I realize they keep it running from when the pro’s started, and so I am again happy that I made my “goal” of breaking 5 hours!
Final Time - 4:45:04 (13th AG / 104th OA)
So, I get a massage, drink a beer, and jump a couple of streets over to “Beemies” (or was it Beamies?) for a post race binge.
It was a great time, I’m hoping to come back again next year and give a go at having one of those nice trophies (and a slot to Vegas) they gave to the top 5.
Thanks for reading, sorry if this was all over the place!
(This picture was of a wall in downtown Augusta… it was really cool)
