IRONMAN Chattanooga: What to Know Before You Race

If you’re thinking about signing up for IRONMAN Chattanooga, here is everything you need to know about this challenging long course triathlon.

Packet Pick Up: Occurs on the Thursday and Friday before the race. If you are interested in getting race specific merchandise, I would recommend arriving on Thursday. Picking up your packet on Thursday also gives you a day to decompress after traveling. The athlete village was well stocked with any supplies you may have forgotten (pineapple Skratch in my case).

Pre Race: There is a parking garage next to transition that is very easy to get in and out of before and after the race. The only issue I experienced on race morning was waiting for other athletes to cross the road, which only delayed our entry into the garage by 5 minutes. Parking for the entire day only cost $8.

Photo by Jeff Kingfield. Follow him on Instagram @kingsfield_photography

Swim: The swim at Chattanooga, hands down, is one of the best swims on the Ironman circuit for two reasons:

1. It is a time trial start downstream (very comparable to Ironman Louisville) – You form a giant line, first come first serve, and jump off a dock 3 to 4 athletes at a time. The swim is 2.4 miles in the Tennessee River and downstream, making it one of the fastest swims on circuit! Plus, there are no turns until the swim exit. For comparison here are my times for all of my Ironman swims: Louisville 2012 (1:23:51), Madison 2013 (1:25:24), Madison 2015 (1:11:06), Chattanooga 2016 (1:02:10), Chattanooga 2017 (53:24).
2. You are able to spread out – Once in the water, the athletes are able to spread out. The time trial start and width of the river allow athletes to spread out. Both years I have completed this swim and did not bump into another athlete until swim exit going up the stairs.

Other information of note: The only way to get to the swim start is via bus from transition. Once you complete your final check of your bike and gear bags, you hop on a bus and head to the swim start. There are porta potties at the swim start; however, the lines for them are vey long. I would recommend making your final pit stop before getting on the bus unless you have to go #1. There is an actual park structure with restrooms located at the swim start, so if you are male and need to go #1, the urinal in the men’s restroom is always open. Just politely ask those in line and you should be able to walk right in 10 min before you start and take care of business.

Swim Practice: To my knowledge, there is no official practice swim on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. However, this year athletes were able to access the river and do an unsupported practice swim. Access was obtained through Coolidge Park off of Tremont Street.

T1: Once out of the water, you have a short run (about 0.2 miles) to the changing tent. Make sure to check your number on your gear bag if a volunteer hands it to you. The last thing you want to do is get into the changing tent and realize you have the wrong bag.

Bike: This course is 116 miles, NOT 112 miles. This is a 2 loop bike course and is open to traffic. It is mainly rolling hills with very few flat sections (If something seems flat, chances are it is a false flat). If you are using power, make sure to keep an eye on your watts if you think you are on a flat section. The power meter doesn’t lie. You want to make sure you have legs to run on when you finish the bike! Based on my Garmin (935xt), the course had 4,300 feet of elevation gain. For comparison, my Garmin bike computer recorded about 3,700 feet of elevation gain last year.

T2: Once you reach bike dismount, a volunteer takes your bike and you have a short run (less than 0.2 miles) to your gear bag and the changing tent. Both years, there has been plenty of cold water right outside the changing tent before you get to the volunteers with sunscreen.

Run: Hilly! Outside of trail races, this is one of the hardest run courses I have experienced. Based on my Garmin, I had about 1,100 feet of elevation gain. This is also a 2 loop run course (you get to experience Barton Hill twice!). One feature of this course that I like is that when you start the second loop, you do not see the finish line (unlike Louisville and Wisconsin). The run course can be split up into two sections:

1. The out and back: The run starts with a 4 mile out and back (4 miles out on the highway and 4 miles back along the river walk). There is very little shade on the 4 mile trip out. The trip out also has a couple hills and false flats to contend with. Once you loop back around, you are on the Riverwalk path. There are several places along this path that consist of wooden bridges. I mention this because as you become more fatigued and shuffle your feet more, it could be easy to catch your foot and trip on some of these sections. This Riverwalk section is also poorly lit if you are still on course once the sun goes down. At the end of the Riverwalk path is also a fairly steep hill you have to climb to the mile 8 aid station. My watch said it is about 0.25 miles at a 5% incline. Of note, there is very little crowd support on this portion of the course outside of the aid stations. There are also 2 Base salt stations set up about 2 miles into the run and at about mile 8 before you cross the first bridge.
2. Across the river: The bridge crossing the river is basically a long up and over. Once you get across the bridge, the fun begins. This is about a 3.5 mi loop that does nothing but go up and down. Much of your elevation gain/loss will be on this side of the river. Some of these hills near a 7% incline. This section of the course had much more crowd support in addition to the aid stations. Once you cross the pedestrian bridge for the second time, you have about a half mile to run to get to the finish line.

Post Race: Hi-five Mike Rielly, get your medal, have your picture taken, then eat all the pizza!

How I Trained: I wrote my own training plan for this Ironman. The general format of the plan was having a short interval, long interval, and tempo/TT for the swim, bike, and the run. I also utilized workouts from Power Speed Endurance. My work schedule only allows me to get in all of my swim/bike/run workouts every other week. On my work weeks, my workouts consisted of two Tabata style (short and long) bike workouts and a hill workout ranging from 2.5 to 5 miles. You can download my full training plan here: Ironman Chattanooga 2017 Training Plan.docx