Chattanooga Ironman 70.3 Race Recap

Jill Bartholomew (00:00)
Welcome to episode seven of BeFearest Multisport podcast. I'm Jill Bartholomew, host and owner of BeFearest Multisport. And I'm here today with Thomas Skelton, head coach at Merge Multisport. And the topic we're going to talk about today is we were both down this past weekend at the 70.3 Chattanooga race that happened.

⁓ And we wanted to provide a race recap and kind of give our thoughts on how it went. Some things went well, some not as well. And we were just talking beforehand about some of our observations. So ⁓ Thomas, you wanna introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more?

Thomas Skelton (00:43)
Yeah, you know, Joe, you said, my name is Thomas Kelton. I'm the founder and head coach at Merge Multisport. We are Western North Carolina based, but soon to be back Greenville, South Carolina based coaching company, but with athletes kind of all across the country and in Canada. we were at, Chattanooga was one of our team races for the year. So we had nine, or had nine athletes racing and overall it was a great day. was a great race as Chattanooga always kind of does. We've been there.

gosh, over the last probably six years, I'd wager somewhere around eight to 10 times for the half and the full. So pretty familiar with Chattanooga, the course itself, et cetera. So, but yeah, it was definitely, we were talking a little bit about a little bit of the different energy that it had. ⁓ And so yeah, we can kind of get into it however you see fit, but. ⁓

Jill Bartholomew (01:31)
Yeah.

Yeah. So it's interesting because you were there as a coach and you had several athletes there. Uh, I did, I did enjoy seeing all your social media posts. Mine were from a completely different angle because you know, I was there as an athlete. Um, for me, this was a redemption race. Uh, I raced Chattanooga last year and my chain broke at like mile 21 on the bike. So I sat there on the side of the course for an hour and a half waiting for sag with a chain breaker so we could spend two and a half minutes to fix my bike.

can get me running, right? So it was completely different angles. So I think this is a good conversation. But yeah, let's start off with, so the swim was canceled, right? So you drove in from North Carolina. I drove in from outside Philly, 16 hour drive. And then as we're pulling into

⁓ As we're pulling into Chattanooga is when the message popped up that said, Hey, surprise. TV. can't control the water, ⁓ in the river, which is already generally fast flowing on a normal day. Right. And, ⁓ the swim is canceled. So how did you re how did you react to that? How did your athletes react to that?

Thomas Skelton (02:40)
You know, I think everybody reacted really well, you know, and not to get into like, you know, philosophical type stuff, but you know, we try and talk a good bit about, you know, managing what you can manage, right? Yada, yada control. You can control all that stuff and try not to let the things you can't control impact you. But, but you know, it's you trained for and you go to an event expecting and hoping you're getting a swim bike run, right? So certainly everybody was a little frustrated. I do think it was the right call to do it ahead of time. you know,

I think one, were trying to keep people from getting in the water prior to the race to swim because the current was so strong and they didn't want to have to deal with any fallout potentially from that. But as far as the race itself goes, mean, the water was moving really strong. looked, it's not a clean river, but it's not a dirty river. We've all probably swam in significantly worse. Definitely water was much darker and much ⁓ just kind of funky looking compared to normal.

So I think it was the right call and it was nice for them to do it ahead of time. So we had the opportunity to kind of talk, discuss and get everybody to kind of settle down about it. But everybody was pretty disappointed for sure.

Jill Bartholomew (03:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I know. So we ended up getting there at like, you know, we drove through the night, we ended up getting there at like 730 in the morning. And so we drove up to the park that's like on the other side of the dam and into that beach. And, you know, there were, there were people swimming in the water and I was like, you know, I got all my, all my gear in the car. could like change in the car and go swimming.

And it was right around then that one of my friends on the Betty squad texts me and she's like, please don't go swimming. the local tri club had, ⁓ I guess canceled their morning swim because of high bacterial counts. So, you know, at first, when I saw that it was canceled, I thought it was because of water quality, not because of the, ⁓ the, the rage current that they were expecting.

so we both got there and...

I just felt like the vibe was different. And I wasn't sure like, like last year was my, I was newer to the sport. had kind of come off of like, you know, more marathon running and leaned a lot last year was the first year I was like really leaned hard into triathlon. And, you know, so like I was excited. It was a big race. It's the big, it's a huge triathlon. Like as far as triathlons go, like it's, it's a huge participation, right? Like 3000 ish people.

And it was a pro series last year, which added a lot of excitement, but I just felt like the vibe was off and I couldn't tell like, was it because the swim had gotten canceled? Was it just because it wasn't a pro series? Was it something else? But like the more the week went on, the more like it just kind of felt weird. What do you think?

Thomas Skelton (05:21)
Yeah,

I mean, it had a pro field and it had a good competitive pro field. ⁓

Jill Bartholomew (05:27)
Yeah. And

that threw us off too, because it had a large pro field, but it wasn't part of the pro series. And I didn't know that they had pro races that weren't part of the pro series.

Thomas Skelton (05:41)
yeah, was definitely, I mean, I don't want to say everything felt kind of anticlimactic, but maybe it was a little bit of just that from the swim and people getting ready for the time trial start and whatnot.

Jill Bartholomew (05:46)
Mm-hmm.

Thomas Skelton (05:52)
So yeah, think there were some potential storms in the forecast that kind of never really came to fruition, right? I think it was looking like it was gonna be pretty stormy Saturday for dropping off the bikes and then nothing happened. It got warm and sunny, but that was about it. So I don't know.

Jill Bartholomew (06:08)
I was

looking at the forecast three days out. It sure looked like we were going to have ⁓ a pretty wet ride on Sunday. I was all prepared for it to be a wet bike and we ended up having gorgeous weather. like that's a bonus.

Thomas Skelton (06:22)
Yep, absolutely for sure. was honestly conditions wise were great on the day for racing. mean, it was overcast, almost no wind for the bike. You know, the sun started coming out probably for some people on their second loop of the run for others when they were starting their own. But I think the high was 80, 81 ish somewhere around in there. It never got scorching. There were definitely some people that struggled with the heat. You know, we were up near the end of the pedestrian bridge where somebody collapsed. He was okay. But yeah, it was a little scary for a bit, but

Jill Bartholomew (06:40)
Yeah.

really?

Thomas Skelton (06:51)
So I think it got hot enough for some people to be problematic, as far as a lot of our races are concerned, it never got brutal hot.

Jill Bartholomew (06:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, the sun came out for me maybe a third or halfway through my second loop. And I will say once I started the second loop, obviously the run course got a lot more crowded. ⁓

That's when I actually did see quite a few people cramping and a couple cramping like really bad, like sitting on the ground cramping. So that was unexpected. You don't see that that often. And I was actually wondering if like, you know, as a coach, like with the time trial start without the bike, like that changes your strategy for the day, right? It changes how you approach like warmup. It changes how you approach like hydration and nutrition.

⁓ How did, how were you thinking about it? How was your athlete thinking about it? are you advising your athletes?

Thomas Skelton (07:49)
Yeah, I it's a really, I think there's two things. think, you know, one, we don't really think about how much the swim does to kind of help us warm up and get ready for the bike, right? Moving blood, even whether you kick a little or kick a lot, doesn't matter. And then even having to run out of the water all the way to transition, like it's kind of preparing your legs to get on the bike. And, you know, so the thing that we had talked about, was just, there's nothing good that's going to come from the first 20 minutes of the bike biking too hard, right? And, and so, you know, we can't go down there and bring 20, 30 trainers for people to.

Excuse me hop on and spin for a little bit to get ready I think Sam long in his post race video was talking about going for like a two mile jog before the race to kind of get warmed up so ⁓ But I think anytime you have people the time trial starts you you run the risk of seeing people having issues because they they don't have the same maybe confidence or level of Freedom to kind of stick to what their plan maybe would be and they try and race a little more dynamically based on who's around them and I think

Jill Bartholomew (08:34)
Mm-hmm.

Thomas Skelton (08:46)
for the most part, except for very pointy end. ⁓ I don't want to throw out like numbers, but I think, you know, no matter what, like for the most part, you need to ride your race, right? Nothing's good. It's going to come from doing anything different. But I think a lot of people probably didn't race their race and they tried to race other people around them.

Jill Bartholomew (09:03)
Yeah, you know, as an athlete, I was afraid of that because, you know, normally, you know, I'm kind of like the back end of the front third coming out of the water usually. And so, you know, you get on the course and it's not a crowded course, but there's definitely people out there. And where I started, ⁓

This time, I was pretty far out front. didn't see a lot of people for most of it, actually, pretty until the last couple of miles.

And so for me, was like, how hard do I need to go to have the placement where I want to have the placement? And so that first 20-ish miles, wherever that sharp left turn is, I was going hard. At one point, I looked down at my power meter and my average watts over the past 30 minutes. And I was like, holy crap.

Honey, you need to slow down or you're not gonna finish this race.

Thomas Skelton (10:01)
This... ⁓

Yeah, this might get bad, right?

Jill Bartholomew (10:05)
Right, and I did Texas three weeks ago, and that was a completely different race. The swim did not get canceled. ⁓ It was a very, very warm swim, and it felt like swimming through drying concrete at times. It was weird. Everybody's times were slower there. And then the bike, first lap there was great, but then the sun came out, and with the sun came the wind. Right?

Thomas Skelton (10:24)
There we're.

Jill Bartholomew (10:30)
And, know, it just, it was so different. And here I'm like, like, ⁓ how hard can I push and like not have the run suck too bad. I pushed it like 85 % the whole time and my run sucked.

It didn't suck as much as I thought it was going to, but it did. you're right. It's like in a normal triathlon when we have all three and we start with the swim, you kind of learn how to pace each. But without one, you're like, wait, I'm starting without a 700 calorie deficit. How do I use that? And how do I know that I went too hard or not hard enough? And looking at the finish times, I think.

the pointy end was a lot bigger than it normally is. In my age group, which we just under 100 finishers, which is huge for my age group. ⁓ the women 45, 49 is usually a big age group. It's usually pretty competitive. But this was hyper competitive. I was looking like the pointy end of ours was like 30 people deep. Usually it's like six.

Thomas Skelton (11:37)
Yeah.

Me, you know, had a buddy who was racing guy used to coach and he got off the bike. He's in the 50, 54 age group and he got off the bike. I think he'd bike 216 and change. was a great bike out there. Um, and you know, normally 216 in his age group would probably put him in the top three and he was in seventh place. And, you know, I told him as it was running out, I was like, Hey, you're, you're in, I tried to give him, Hey, you're in seventh place. You're five minutes off the top three. You're two minutes off top five.

Jill Bartholomew (11:48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (12:04)
When I told him he was in seventh place, was like, he was just like, his face just glossed over. was like, I just crushed that bike and I'm in seventh. So it was, ⁓ it was definitely a more competitive day for sure. There's no doubt about that.

Jill Bartholomew (12:08)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

So let's talk about the time trial start. ⁓ It was my first time doing a time trial start in a Ironman branded race, right? I've obviously done time trial starts in time trials, but.

What I observed, which I thought was strange, and I'm curious if it continued is cause you know, like the first couple of hundred bibs is a mix of people whose bibs are based on their time versus like, you know, you have the PC athletes and you have, ⁓ AWA athletes and foundation and XC was there for this race. So you have like kind of a mix of abilities up there.

I thought it was a bit strange. felt like a lot of people were going off the line like it was a Sunday stroll.

Thomas Skelton (12:59)
So we were positioned maybe 70 yards, 60, 70 yards down the course from the start line, kind of on the left side. So we got down there and we basically hung out there the whole time while all the bikers were riding, kind of trying to see all of my people and friends and just giving cheers. And it was actually really interesting because even the first couple hundred that went off, you had people that were honestly standing up and smashing it.

You see people that maybe shouldn't be standing up and smashing it and I don't mean anything specific. ⁓

Jill Bartholomew (13:31)
So you saw me sprinting

the first 500.

Thomas Skelton (13:35)
No, oh no, but then you see other people that also they are like sitting up like they're for a Sunday show. And so it definitely, on one hand, there was an obvious an effort to try and see people kind of sequentially based on abilities. then that's how it is. I feel like that's how it is even in like local pool swims, Like pool sprints, people see it and 10 people in there, someone doing breaststroke when someone else is swimming, 115 for 100 right behind them.

Jill Bartholomew (13:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's

self seed, there's no proof of time. ⁓ It's the honor system. you know, the honor, this is the thing, you know, I think every sport has this where there's this perception of, well, everybody else is seeding themselves a corral faster than they really should be. So I should too. And, know, I definitely, you know, heard some chatter about that, you know, during, you know,

Thomas Skelton (14:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (14:27)
earlier in the race, earlier in the day. And then, then after the race was like, wow, I should, you know, some people felt they should see themselves further behind. Some people felt they should see it themselves further, further ahead because everybody else was doing it.

Thomas Skelton (14:38)
Yeah. I mean, you know, ultimately I think for me, I mean, my thoughts are, don't, this is a whole different rabbit hole. I would love to eventually see Ironman potentially having like maybe a, I'm to say competitive division and completion division, right? So if you have some people like, Hey, I know I'm going, I want to compete. I'm trying to get a slot to worlds, right? Like, cool. You're in the completion division and you know, the motives are going to be closer to watch you guys. There's a, maybe it's a mass start.

Jill Bartholomew (14:59)
Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (15:04)
For those groups too, so I could have seen a time trial start for age groups would have been nice.

Jill Bartholomew (15:04)
You know,

it's really interesting that you say that because I agree with you. I was looking the other day, so is it Wakanda?

earlier this year used, um, race ranger for, uh, I think it was like two or 300 of the age groupers, which are like what you, you described there. They're like more competitive and then the, and they had to pay an extra fee, I guess, for the rental of the unit or something. And then the rest, you know, you know, it was kind of your normal age group, uh, race. And I think that's a great idea. Like logistically, that would be a nightmare for Ironman, but I'm like,

Yeah, from what I observed and you know, the second half of that bike, you know, we're hauling, right? Like I know what my average was and it was, it was not trivial and people, know, mostly men, two women and the rest men were passing me on the second half of the bike. I saw so much behavior that you w I wouldn't have expected that far out front, right? Like these are all people who are fast, right? We all.

This group finished that bike in under 225, which is fast, least in my mind. And still, you had packs of people clumping up, two, three wide on the road. And the first couple of miles, OK, as people are getting out of transition and getting into place. But it was as if drafting rules didn't exist.

And, you know, I would have thought that at the front end of the age groups, there would have been some referees. I didn't see a single one the entire time I was on the bike. I assumed they were all with the pros. I did not see one referee while I was on the bike.

Thomas Skelton (16:49)
Really?

I know we saw two take off while we were down there, but just two. And it's only like, it sticks in my head a little extra because to be really honest, like the second motorcycle almost like hit people as they were merging into like the little cone area. it was, yeah, irrelevant for this point, but that's all we saw. We saw two motorcycles heading out, but yeah, I two motorcycles to kind of try and manage the drafting and.

Jill Bartholomew (17:04)
Mm-hmm.

That's not.

Thomas Skelton (17:21)
⁓ in an event with 3000 people, it's just, yeah. I mean, and this was, yeah, like we were talking earlier, one of my concerns with the time trial start being seeded by abilities was you, you were going to end up clumping people probably closer together. And I know for a fact, I'm sure that there are people that go, other people are drafting. I'm going to do it as well. And I'm not validating it and I would never support somebody doing that, but I know that mindset happens. ⁓

Jill Bartholomew (17:21)
With 3000 athletes, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

yeah, no.

So, but it's like, for me personally, when I'm out there, I don't know if you're the same way, because you also obviously race too, ⁓ is when I'm out there, I'm like, yeah, I haven't seen a referee, but I don't know who's behind me.

Thomas Skelton (17:49)
I mean, we could go down a rabbit hole there.

Jill Bartholomew (18:04)
And like I've been on races where, you know, when you're out there, kind of in the, the like front quarter where like I've been on races where I've had referees like following me for quite some distance and then eventually pass me. Right. ⁓ and the only reason I know that is cause I see them in the pictures, right. That eventually show up from finisher picks after you begged them for the pictures that while you're on the bike.

Um, I think that's hysterical. You get pictures while you're in the swim, you get pictured, you're coming out of the swim, you get pictures on the run and then the bike. I'm like, where are they? They're never there. You see the photographers, but not the pictures. But, but yeah, now I had one guy, uh, he passed, like he passed, there was like, they were like three wide passing me. It was like a full Peloton. like a mini Peloton. And then he, as soon as he passes me and I'm doing like.

Thomas Skelton (18:39)
Yeah. yeah, absolutely.

Jill Bartholomew (18:56)
27, you know, he passes me and then he like, you know, stops pedaling while he pulls his water bottle out and you start swerving across the road. I'm like, man, could you have done that before you passed me? But then like, like in all fairness, right, me trying my best to abide by the rules, you know, now I'm in a spot where like

Thomas Skelton (19:09)
that tracks, I mean it does, that tracks

Jill Bartholomew (19:20)
I'm backpedaling to give him the space so that I can then, once I give him the space, so that I can then attempt to overtake him. And knowing full well that as soon as he gets his act together, he's going to overtake me again. Right? And you end up with that yo-yo effect. So what did your athletes think of the bike?

Thomas Skelton (19:40)
Yeah, mean, so as a whole, everybody loved it. I think, you know, I had one athlete, she's done a couple of other races, haves and fulls and they've all been really flat races. So we're kind of into this was, well, I wouldn't, I don't think it's fair to call Chattie a hilly race by any means. Yeah, but for her, in pancakes, like Galveston kind of a Cozumel, right? ⁓ This was, but yeah, she loved it. Everybody loved it.

Jill Bartholomew (19:50)
Mm-hmm.

This is a flat rate, sorry.

Yeah. Yeah, was going through

a race review. have a couple of athletes doing Eagleman. And we're looking at it, we're like, oh, 63 feet. So yeah, compared to that, this was, I forget what my computer, you know, registered. It's like 2000 feet. Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (20:18)
It's usually 20, 2200 or so for

the half.

Jill Bartholomew (20:22)
Yeah, and I live in Southeast PA, so anything under like 5,000, we don't consider super hilly. At that distance, we get like 1,000 every 10 miles. But when they think of the time trial start, had they done it before? Was it new to them?

Thomas Skelton (20:27)
Yep, absolutely.

I I'm trying to remember because we talked about this, I want to say four or five had done time trial starts before, whether it was at Chatty ⁓ or other, just other races. ⁓ Unfortunately, it's been a frequent thing lately, but I don't think anybody had a problem with it. There was confusion for some about where they should try and seed themselves and whatnot, but we kind of got that cleared up pretty easy. And I think for the most part, everybody enjoyed it. Yeah, they didn't have any issues.

Jill Bartholomew (20:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

⁓ Yeah.

Yeah, I

was a little nervous at the start, but then it's like, beep, beep, beep, beep. It's like, OK, I know how this goes. It's just a slightly different sport than I'm used to hearing the beeps on. ⁓ I was more concerned about the first 100 feet. I saw a number of chain drops and people who were in the wrong gear and the stuff that we normally get, but not spaced as closely together.

Thomas Skelton (21:16)
Yep, absolutely.

Yeah,

I think we saw three bottles come out also in like the first 70 yards.

Jill Bartholomew (21:38)
How is that possible?

Thomas Skelton (21:39)
I could not tell you, absolutely no idea, but definitely there were two or three, I think it three, three bottles came out and like one guy noticed it and he was like, he shook his head in frustration. I was like, you just started, it's gonna take you 30 seconds. We were like, we were yelling like, get your bottle, get your bottle. Nothing, nothing, just let it go. yeah, but I think the railroad tracks were always an issue, but I don't think anybody lost bottles over the railroad tracks. Everybody was pretty well prepared for

Jill Bartholomew (21:56)
⁓

It's.

Thomas Skelton (22:08)
kind of the left turn and the little hill going up Andrews and coming through Chickamauga. And so I think everybody was well prepared. So I think everybody liked the course, the bike.

Jill Bartholomew (22:14)
Yeah. Yeah, I think I mean,

the railroad tracks are of course bumpy. Like, like you can't, you can't not, you can't fix that. ⁓ and that particular set of rail tracks is particularly gnarly, but

It felt like they did a better job of evening it out than last year. Like last year it had a mat over it. I guess I heard later that they put pool noodles over the tracks underneath the mat, which is why so many bottles were lost. ⁓ This year they put plywood between the tracks, which seemed like there was still like an initial bump, but it was not nearly as bad as it was last year. I remember last year,

Thomas Skelton (22:47)
Nice.

Jill Bartholomew (22:59)
there were bottles everywhere. And this year, there were still a lot of bottles. ⁓ the triangular frame bottle on this Speed Concept that one is remarkably hard to lose. It is held in there with a monster grip. And last year, there were tons of them all over around the railroad tracks. This year, I only saw one on the course, which

Thomas Skelton (23:13)
Absolutely.

Jill Bartholomew (23:26)
You know, that one where it was, I assumed it was someone who just dropped it versus like bouncing out of the frame. So like, like last year it was really rough. Like, you know, even the, between the arms one with the straw, the X lab one, there were a couple of those on the ground last year. And like, I don't know how you lose those, but people did. But yeah, I, I didn't see, you know, coming back into town, there were obviously a lot of bottles around the railroad tracks, but not nearly as much as I would expect.

Thomas Skelton (23:29)
For sure.

Jill Bartholomew (23:51)
What I did find interesting was I saw three bottle cages on the ground. I'm like, how do you lose a bottle cage?

Thomas Skelton (23:51)
Nice.

I mean, well, I mean, if you've done any wrenching on the average triathletes bike, ⁓ will probably find more rusted, stripped, worn out bolts and whatnot. So ⁓ who knows?

Jill Bartholomew (24:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it doesn't take

doesn't take much like the My bta bolts every time I take that bta off I'm having to replace the bolts because they're all rusty and they're only they're like all brand new But I mean it it's like that environment is so harsh right there got sweat

Thomas Skelton (24:16)
Definitely not.

Sure, absolutely.

Jill Bartholomew (24:30)
and salt coming out of the hydration. I love the xLab one, where it's got the little port and you kind of fly through the hydration station while you're squeezing the bottle in and then toss it. The downside is your headset and everything up there just gets demolished with salt.

Thomas Skelton (24:42)
yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the unavoidable things, I think. But you can get some like titanium bolts if you can, you can find out the right size, what all the hardware is and replace it with titanium and then it won't rust. it's not, I don't know. You can just change them out every season and it's not, it's relatively inexpensive.

Jill Bartholomew (25:07)
I was going to say,

I have this whole kit of like 200 bolts of various sizes that I think I paid like $4 on Amazon for. I'm like, it's fine. I don't need titanium bolts for that price. So, okay. So we got through the time trial. You know, we were talking earlier about like hydration and nutrition. ⁓ How did your athletes approach it?

Thomas Skelton (25:17)
Yeah. True, true, Yeah.

I mean, honestly, kind of just as per normal. I mean, I think, you know, breakfast, you know, one of the things we talked about was, kind of circling back to pre-time trial start is just kind of bringing a little extra snack with them

Jill Bartholomew (25:43)
Thank you.

Thomas Skelton (25:46)
as far as on the bike nutrition, not really, not really too much different. mean, obviously the nice thing that we don't have to.

make up too much of a, you know, make up any sort of a deficit from the, from the swim. But I still think, you know, for the most part, you know, the amount of calories that we're going to take in ⁓ on the bike, ⁓ I'd rather have somebody take in an extra 30, 60 grams of carbs more than they need, as long as their stomach can handle it. So maybe they're, you know, ideally they're getting out of the swim and not being in or, you being in a very minor deficit.

And then taking it in and we just don't have that bit of a deficit. So it's just easier to get off the bike without any sort of, or at least less of a deficit than the normally would. So everybody stuck to kind of their normal plan. They would have executed on the bike in general to try and set them up for a good run.

Jill Bartholomew (26:34)
Yeah, I changed mine a little bit. ⁓ I've been mostly using Mortal for hydration just because that's what's on course right?

I did start out like with the, I had one bottle in the back with a like normal ratio, but what I started with upfront in the BTA, I had cut in half just to, you know, try to compensate for like not having lost it all on the swim. ⁓ So that seemed to work well for me. I have a nasty habit of like over consuming electrolytes, ⁓ which I always pay for, you know, on the second half of the run.

So, you know, this one I was, was happy that didn't happen, but.

Thomas Skelton (27:18)
Just get stuck

into a porta potty or...

Jill Bartholomew (27:20)
I've never

never had that happen, but now like you get like that like, you know nauseous feeling and You know, I didn't have that happen where like in Texas and at Nice and at Lake Placid You know on the foals around, you know strikes at like mile 14 you get like that really like oh my god I need to puke except that there's nothing there because all you've been consuming for the last eight hours is gels

Right. That's kind of one of the challenges I'm trying to solve right now is like, how do I make it past mile 14 without like having, you know, feeling like I need to puke, but back, back to the race. Um, so the run, it fell a lot smoother this year. Maybe it was because everyone wasn't fighting with like, you know, swim equipment mixed in with their bike equipment.

But it felt like the exit and I think it was the exact same layout, but it just felt like everything went smoother this year than in the past.

Thomas Skelton (28:14)
Yeah, I I feel like, you know, we posted up kind of right before the Maurten arch, right? As you're kind of running up from the river under the arch and then up to the highway. We kind of were right there just hanging out, checking in on everybody, trying to remind everybody of that Hills kind of naughty, right? And the sun was trying to come out and to be patient and settle in and just wait. But yeah, it felt like, you know, for the most part, it was never crowded. was always just kind of, it was just a steady stream of athletes running up. ⁓

Jill Bartholomew (28:21)
Yeah, yeah.

Thomas Skelton (28:44)
And yeah, I mean, think everything was super smooth there. I don't remember anything standing out as being super crowded.

Jill Bartholomew (28:47)
Yeah.

Yeah, was uncertain in the lead up to the race. We saw the map, which was the exact same course as last year. ⁓ But with the bridge closed, I was like, the bridge is closed. Are we running over that bridge? Are we running over the other bridge? And yeah, they opened the bridge for the runners. That surface was even worse than it was this time last year. ⁓ You really had to watch your footing on that. ⁓

But other than that, I like this run course. I know a lot of people don't. There's only one section that's like a real effort. Well, there's two, right? There's that first hill out, but you only have to do that once. if someone has to walk it, then so be it. It's not that long. But that one hill, what is it? Like mile five or something? Yeah. Yeah, it's not super long, but boy, is that steep.

Thomas Skelton (29:38)
Yeah.

And for some reason it's like twice as big on the second loop. I don't know how it gets larger, but it does.

Jill Bartholomew (29:48)
I don't know, it's big on the first loop too.

Thomas Skelton (29:50)
Yeah, it

is, it is, is. Yeah, I think it's a great run course in my opinion. know, the frustration we had a little bit was ⁓ if you looked on the website, so I do, really like the way Ironman's updated their website. I've kind of, it's clean. I think it looks good. But if you look at the course, they've got like an interactive map and then you can click and download the PDF. And those maps for the run did not match.

Jill Bartholomew (30:10)
Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (30:17)
Right. So yeah. So if you looked, there was the coming out on the PDF, there was a little out and back, right? You kind of went out on the tour, basically the way the bike course started back and then went down by the river. Right. And we did not have, and we did not have that. Right. ⁓ they had that a couple of years ago.

Jill Bartholomew (30:17)
Really?

Yes. Yes, I did see that. That's right. Yeah. Cause I remember. Yeah. I remember looking at that

and you know, we were looking at that like the night before, two days before, and I like, what the heck is that? Like that doesn't make sense.

Thomas Skelton (30:43)
Yeah.

And then on the east side of the course, so you go down the highway, take a left and you kind of get over to the river walk, run back down the river walk towards town on the, I don't remember one of the, one of the two, I don't know if it was like the GPS file screen or the PDF, but one of them showed the little in and out zigzag kind of where you ran down the river walk back up and back down. And I don't think that was there either. Right. So.

Jill Bartholomew (31:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yeah, no

it wasn't.

Thomas Skelton (31:10)
It was, you know, and it's, it's, it's silly, but you know, my opinion, mean, if people are paying, you know, four or 500 bucks for, for an event like this, like that, kind of some of the logistical details, like that was, I felt like that was a bit of a mess, but, ⁓ you know, it's neither here nor there. Like we talked about it, like, Hey, we know the course is going to either have these two bits or it won't and just run, right? You're running 13 miles regardless, right? Execute your effort, your nutrition, your fueling, and the course will be what it's going to be. You can't control it.

Jill Bartholomew (31:27)
Yeah.

Yeah,

my, my pet peeve continues to be the athlete guide. ⁓ I find it getting harder and harder to find information in the athlete guide. There are more pages of ads than there are athlete guide and

I'm like, was, I'm like, okay, well like, you know, I was going through with an athlete the other day trying to find the cutoffs. And I'm like, where the heck are the cutoffs? Because I couldn't find them. There's no table with them. They're hidden in text and it's like surrounded by ads on all sides. So I'm sure that they can do something about that. Like I understand why it is the way it is, but it's annoying.

Thomas Skelton (32:12)
It would-

Yeah, it would be nice if they could maybe punch it all at the end, but.

Jill Bartholomew (32:20)
Yeah, but then their advertisers would be unhappy because nobody would look at them. So yeah, there's got to be a cleaner way to do it, though, because it's like, I don't mind the ads being there, but the way it's laid out, though, makes it hard to find the information you're looking for. All right, so yeah, for me on the run,

Thomas Skelton (32:24)
Correct, correct, exactly.

Jill Bartholomew (32:40)
haven't done, you know, I lost a lot of training over the winter because of a hamstring injury. This was my first race where it really hasn't bothered me. Although I did walk that big hill. I'll be honest, cause I'm still like kind of nursing it a little bit. And if you look at my run, it was like 20 minutes slower than it normally would be. ⁓ but other than that, like the first lap I thought was pretty good.

the, do love the, the, ⁓ aid station that's at the end of river walk where the turnaround is, ⁓ you know, they got the disco ball. Although last year they had like smoke machines and stuff. And this year is it, they didn't. And I was like, I was like, ⁓ man. ⁓ but the whole second loop, I had the, ⁓ theme from, what was it? Go-go gadget in my head.

Thomas Skelton (33:30)
Inspector

Gadget? Yes!

Jill Bartholomew (33:31)
Yeah, yeah.

I'm like, I was running. Yeah, because they were playing like the 80s cartoon theme songs. And I was like, coming up on that first bridge and I'm like, please get out of my head.

Thomas Skelton (33:35)
It's a flashback.

I feel like as my legs started

to die near like mile 10 or 11 I would be like, I bet come on go go gadget legs like trying to get that energy and I'm sure it would obviously not gonna work But I'd give it I'd give it a try if that song was stuck in my head. No doubt it

Jill Bartholomew (33:57)
That's good.

⁓

yeah. No, like that was, ⁓ yeah, that was something else. like, I'm like, I appreciated it at the time. I'm like, that's cool. It's like, yeah, Texas at hippie hollow, you know, they had like all sorts of fun, fun songs there. And you know, then, then that one, I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I'm getting into it. And then like three miles later, I'm like, please, please exit my head. Yeah. I mean, I guess there's worse things to get stuck in your head, but yeah.

Thomas Skelton (34:24)
Get out of my head. Get out of my head. That's awesome.

for sure.

Jill Bartholomew (34:31)
Yeah, it's like, yeah, okay. So I'm, I'm, I'm annoyed by that instead of, you know, the lactate in my legs, but still. But anyways, no, I thought the run was nice. ⁓ I noticed they, ⁓ you know, Chattanooga, ⁓ I don't know the name of the road. ⁓ you know, the, the space, the road between the bridges that we run on, yeah, now. Yeah. They they've added like a big pedestrian.

Thomas Skelton (34:52)
Frazier on the north side.

Jill Bartholomew (34:58)
section now that's cut off from traffic. I like that. That was nice.

Thomas Skelton (35:01)
Yes.

Huge. So nice over there. It was really nice to see that.

Jill Bartholomew (35:04)
Yeah.

Yeah. I out and I did, you know, ⁓ half of the run course, ⁓ you know, in a shakeout and, I ran over the one bridge and, you know, did kind of did the around and, you know, out. I was like, ⁓ this is so nice. Cause last year we were, you know, doing the shakeouts was running on the, the, ⁓ you know, the sidewalks and, but I did like, I had to go back and check the athlete guide when I.

when I got back to the hotel after that, because everybody else was like running and cycling the course in reverse.

Like I didn't understand it. And I'm like, is the course running in reverse this year? Because I like, why is everybody coming at me? They should be running with me. But now like, you're running from the one bridge towards the other. No, no, no. They were going the other direction. And you know, like what in the world? And even like running over the bridge, they were running in the other direction. like, what in the world is going on? I'm like, I know I ran this last year. I know it goes in this direction.

And everybody's coming at me. I'm like, all right. It's okay. It was weird, but you know, maybe they didn't, maybe they wanted to experience it in reverse. I don't know.

Thomas Skelton (36:17)
Yeah, mean, it's a fun area to run regardless, right? Like running over the bridges over the river, it's super pretty. You know, you've got the big rock wall by the aquarium that you can see and it's a ton of fun.

Jill Bartholomew (36:18)
different.

Yeah.

Yeah,

although somehow when I'm out running ⁓ that area over there, always end up somehow being confronted by a set of steps.

So I can make a wrong turn somewhere and there's like a staircase. And I'm how did I get here? Okay. I'll run downstairs.

Thomas Skelton (36:47)
Yep,

little rocky action or something, right?

Jill Bartholomew (36:49)
Yeah, yeah. It's like a, well, hey, you know, we're from Philly. We do that kind of thing. ⁓ Nah, there is ⁓ that blue bridge, the pedestrian bridge. Damn, that feels like it's uphill both ways, I tell you.

Thomas Skelton (36:52)
Yeah, exactly.

It's so funny because we were talking about that, know, when you look at it from, you know, Riverfront Park, right? Or even from the other bridge you look and it doesn't look like it's that steep. But then as soon as you're running up it, that start up onto the bridge coming off of Fraser, it is so steep. ⁓ it's steep. It feels steep and long, right? Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (37:11)
No.

Yeah, like.

Yeah, but I mean it is long, the

first half of it is like ⁓ a solid grade. then it kind of levels out a bit, but at no point does it go downhill. It's not until your foot hits pavement that you start getting a downhill.

Thomas Skelton (37:28)
It's way more uphill than you realize.

Jill Bartholomew (37:40)
And I tell you on the end of that second lap, I was like, oh, as soon as we're on pavement, then it's like all downhill from there until the finish line. But getting to there is like going over. And I remember that last year going over the bridge, like, I hate this bridge. It's such a pretty view, but the bridge itself I hate running over.

Thomas Skelton (37:55)
Yeah, I will tell you, because I was all.

I

think at that point, especially on the second loop, you're not looking at the view, Blinders are on and you're like, I'm just trying to get home. ⁓ that bridge is usually such a great ⁓ spectator location, right? It is an awesome place to cheer ⁓ on and just off the bridge. And obviously the spectator's not being able to get on the bridge, but I was interested to see what it was like. But man, that coming off of the bridge, going all the way down around the corner, I it was aligned with people. I would wager.

Jill Bartholomew (38:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It was a little too

much there.

Thomas Skelton (38:28)
It got crowded. People weren't given good room.

Jill Bartholomew (38:31)
Yeah, the first lap, ⁓ it was marked weirdly and a lot of us ended up running kind of inside of the cones. And, you know, they did a good job of like redirecting us to like, no, no, no, you should be on that side of the cones. ⁓ The second lap was kind of the opposite where like the spectators were like spilling into the run course. ⁓

Thomas Skelton (38:39)
Yes.

Jill Bartholomew (38:56)
I, that point was half a mile from the finish line. So it didn't bother me as much, but you know that, that was like, it makes sense, right? Cause you know, all those people would normally be on the bridge. ⁓ the bridge was kind of anticlimactic. like I said earlier, like I was kind of watching my footing. it's the same reason I don't trail run. I'm looking at the bridge surface and I'm like, please don't break your ankle. But yeah, the, ⁓

I forget who the first female finisher was, she, yeah, she was going over the bridge on her second lap when I was going over on my first lap. And the cyclist that was following her and kept saying to her, you know, after this, it's all downhill to the finish line. And I remember thinking in my head, I wish I hadn't just heard that. Cause I have six and a half more miles to go.

Thomas Skelton (39:25)
Grace Alexander.

Right, right. It's also funny because that was not her first time in Chattanooga. She's had very good success there. And so I think she probably knew that it was all the way down to the finish line, it's super nice of them to be given some feedback.

Jill Bartholomew (39:57)
Yeah, Yeah, but.

Yeah, yeah, I wish I had a cyclist there hyping me up too.

Thomas Skelton (40:07)
Right?

Absolutely. Nothing like little hype squad on two wheels behind you while you're trying to run and suffer a little bit. Yeah, absolutely.

Jill Bartholomew (40:13)
Right, right. Yeah, it

doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. All right. So we've gone through the run, you know, the finish line there. I thought it was actually better well organized this year than last year. This is going to sound super silly. Last year, you know, I crossed the finish line and I'm like, I couldn't find where the athlete food was.

Thomas Skelton (40:33)
Really?

Jill Bartholomew (40:34)
Yeah, last year I was like, where's the athlete food? And we were, we were directed like back over to the registration tent where, cause it's normally in the registration tent and it's not a Chattanooga, right? And no, no, it's, it's like back on the other side near to the finish line as like, how did we, how did we miss that? No, but there was a bunch of other people last year, like doing the same thing, like wandering around, like where's the food? but you know, I don't know.

that a hoagie at a finish line is necessarily what I'm looking for, but you know, it's better than what I've witnessed at other, some other races.

Thomas Skelton (41:12)
For sure, for sure. It's always the post-requisites and issue one. I feel like people love it or hate it. Like it's just like pizza is so easy, right? Like you can get cheese, pizza, pepper, and if it's just a bunch of people, pizza, some bananas, some sodas, some chips, like it's easy.

Jill Bartholomew (41:27)
my favorite one was, ⁓ the Atlantic city half. ⁓ which there's a lot of things about the Atlantic city half the complaint about, but, ⁓ at the finish line, was food trucks with hamburgers and fries. So yeah. Yeah. I remember going up and being like two hamburgers. Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (41:41)
Nice! that's perfect.

Yeah, absolutely.

think, I'm trying to remember what was at Louisville last year. I want to say there was like some weird, some barbecue and beans and I was like, honestly, just give me a beer.

Jill Bartholomew (41:57)
Well, it was like, you know, I was disappointed at Nice, right? You know, it's a world championship and it was like vegetarian pizza and like other, but it was like all vegetarian. And it was like weird stuff. like, I'm like, we're on the border with, you know, there at Nice. It's like, you're on the border with Italy. Could we have some pasta maybe? Pizza that's not like vegan.

Thomas Skelton (42:21)
Yeah, some prosciutto.

Jill Bartholomew (42:25)
Yeah, non-pizza that's not

vegan.

Thomas Skelton (42:28)
Yeah, absolutely. No, that uh...

Jill Bartholomew (42:29)
I don't know what I expected,

but it wasn't that.

Thomas Skelton (42:34)
You know, it's, all, it's so interesting. Cause like, couldn't even tell you, I couldn't tell you what was at, ⁓ New Zealand after the race. Cause I tried to get a glass of, for some reason, I saw like a glass of chocolate milk and I was like, that sounds good. I took like two sips of it as I walked out and I was like, I can't drink this. And then just, I didn't, I didn't need anything. I was just trying to get out of the tent to be able to get over and see my wife. And so I didn't, I couldn't get anything in. ⁓

Jill Bartholomew (42:55)
Yeah, I don't know. Chocolate milk after a race sounds like

a quick trip to the toilet.

Thomas Skelton (43:00)
It sounded good for like a minute and after like a sip it was realization that it was not good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did they have cookies in the, sorry, this is like really important stuff. Did they have cookies at least in the boxes with the hoagies?

Jill Bartholomew (43:03)
Yeah, it was not good anymore. It was not good anymore.

⁓ they did not, but they had a bin of cookies.

Thomas Skelton (43:14)
⁓ well, I mean...

Jill Bartholomew (43:16)
So, and the cook, I

ate the cookie and I gave John the hoagie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like the normal is a cookie and they gave you a box with the hoagie in it. And there was a couple of choices. You know, there's a vegetarian one, a ham one and a turkey one, I think. Um,

Thomas Skelton (43:20)
Yeah, there you go. There you go. So at least there were cookies. Get some sugar in.

Jill Bartholomew (43:35)
Being from Philadelphia, we're like really picky with hoagies. So I'm like, this isn't a hoagie, but it's all right. It's bread. It's bread. It's meat. It's, uh, it's, it's cheese. You know, when I, you know, I'm like, can I have a slice of pizza, hamburger, hot dog, something that's like really bad for me.

Thomas Skelton (43:41)
understandable.

Jill Bartholomew (43:52)
I was disappointed though at the athlete food, there was no athletic and you know, I'm like, I like it when they have the athletic, was Coke, diet Coke, Sprite and water. But I heard that, I don't know, athletic always seems to disappear on the, on race day. Yeah. You ever noticed that? Like, like they're really strong on the first day registration, a little bit less on the second and race day they they've packed up and left town.

Thomas Skelton (44:06)
Really?

If I'm being completely honest, I mean, I've had a couple of ⁓ their beers, or they're not alcoholic beers and they're fine, I, yeah, it's, know, like for me, I'm like, if I'm going to have something that tastes like a beer, give me a real beer, right? So I don't, that wouldn't be my choice post-race. I'll take a Coke or a Sprite and then maybe a beer, but ⁓ yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (44:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, I don't really drink,

I don't really drink soda, but I'm like, a beer or beer, non-alcoholic beer, like either one I'd be great with. No, I actually, did grab a Coke. ⁓ I took one sip out of it. ⁓ The expression on my face said everything. I haven't really drank soda in like a decade. And you know,

Thomas Skelton (44:43)
Post race?

Jill Bartholomew (45:01)
The look on my face, it was so contorted. It looked like you just like shoved a whole bin of something really foul tasting or something in there. ⁓ John's like, could you do it again so I can record it?

Thomas Skelton (45:16)
Right? Absolutely.

Well listen, if I'm ever at a race, you get the Coke and I will happily fall on that sword so you don't have to drink it. That's the least I can do. I'm very kind. I am so kind. Yes.

Jill Bartholomew (45:24)
Oh, that's so generous of you. That's so generous. No, no,

no. Everyone else seems to like soda. But on the course, I'll take it. And I'll make a really foul face to whoever the volunteer was that gave me the Coke. And they'll be like, what? What did I do? I'm no, it's not you. It just tastes really bad. And they're like, it's Coke. I'm like, I know. That's the problem. I don't know what I expect. But it's going to.

Thomas Skelton (45:33)
Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (45:48)
Yeah, it's going to taste like coke. ⁓ All right. So anything that we didn't cover, we covered a lot of ground.

Thomas Skelton (45:53)
Yeah, no, think, I mean, it was a really good race. It's just, I think the big thing is just that the time trial starts, I mean, they don't have an option. ⁓ And again, I'll circle back to, think they made the right call making the decision early, but it definitely, and I don't know if, you know, I'm still a big fan of mass starts, right? Like, especially like when you're, if you're trying to be competitive and knowing where you are in your age group, the time trial starts just made it even more challenging to know where people were in their age groups and trying to give splits.

Jill Bartholomew (46:04)
Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (46:21)
on the tracker. I you might have somebody that's hitting mile, that's, that's like a 5.8 mile split that is, you know, technically almost an hour ahead of somebody, right. But that person an hour behind them actually could be 20 minutes ahead of them. And so you're trying to like scroll through and give decent splits and it's, it's hard to do. And so that definitely is, is a frustrating thing, but I don't think they could have done anything about it. But I mean, Chattanooga is a great race. Like I love it there. We love the town. ⁓ there's lots of places to stay.

Jill Bartholomew (46:24)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (46:50)
places not to stay, can tell you those as we experienced that one this time, it was...

Jill Bartholomew (46:55)
Yeah. Where did

you end up staying this time?

Thomas Skelton (46:58)
We were only about a mile, a little over a mile from everything, but we were in this ⁓ condo townhouse building that had been turned into, it was basically like little studio apartment room. And it was significantly smaller than all the pictures, not a big deal. And it's my fault because I'm really bad about booking ⁓ an Airbnb hotel, whatever, last minute. ⁓ But it was not insulated at all. And there was some big festival going on Friday night, Saturday night.

Jill Bartholomew (47:12)
you

Thomas Skelton (47:28)
out on the street, right outside, loud music, speakers until like, you know, 10, 11 o'clock at night. And so was very, I was thankful I wasn't racing and was just supporting because I was like, I can be sleep deprived and coach and still be plenty energetic, you know, for sure. But racing with two nights of bad sleep in a row is, frustrating for sure.

Jill Bartholomew (47:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, we stayed last year we stayed at, I guess it was the double tree and that was nice. And you know, it's like walking distance. This year we stayed at Hilton maybe that's directly across the street from it. And I would not stay there again. Yeah, like, I mean, it was fine. I guess the room was reasonably clean, but just like, I don't know.

It's like, you know, sometimes it's like, especially for what you pay on race week, it's like, ⁓ we should have spent the extra $5 a night instead across the street.

Thomas Skelton (48:23)
Yeah,

it's like it was $600 a night for a Holiday Inn Express. What's going on here? No, I'm kidding. But yeah. Yeah, right. That's just how it is. I mean, guess I just I need to book things ahead of time so that I can try and get something a little better location and maybe not somewhere so loud. But it was pretty loud. We got pretty poor sleep the two nights before the race, but it's OK. But I think as a whole, think it was a great race. I think you were totally right. There was a little different energy.

Jill Bartholomew (48:28)
And those are Kona prices.

Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (48:50)
But

at end of the day, was still a great race. Chattanooga did a great job making it happen.

Jill Bartholomew (48:54)
Yeah. I was

and continued to be entertained, you know, as the Facebook posts roll in of all the people who are like, look at me. went and I swam the 1.2 miles. ⁓ you know, I've had people ask me this before, because, know, I mean, we've all done races where the race got modified and you know, whether it's a run race or cycling race or a triathlon. And I'm like, you know, I ran the race, the race director prescribed.

I did the race. I did the race. I feel no need to go and swim an extra 1.2 miles to say that I did it.

Thomas Skelton (49:29)
Yeah.

And I get, mean, it's easy for me to have that perspective. I feel like, cause I think, mean, oh gosh, I've done probably 40 halves alone. Right. So, you know, it's like, Oh, I didn't get to swim this one. Not a big deal, but you know, it was interesting. We're standing there outside of transition race morning, you know, checking in on everybody and a guy comes running up from the river in his wet suit and running into transition. I thought they were, I'm a rule follower, right? Like rules are there for a reason. Try and keep everybody safe, make sure everything's okay.

Jill Bartholomew (49:35)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (49:58)
I know they had talked about not swimming because there was a live ⁓ marina.

Jill Bartholomew (50:01)
They were very

clear on that one. Do not swim.

Thomas Skelton (50:06)
Yeah,

and I feel like and I mean he didn't even and the thing it's funny is like he didn't even try and hide it like he saw his wetsuit on he was wet he'd obviously been in the water I don't know how far he swam or whatever, but I was like man if you're break the rules like Maybe don't run into transition is the only person in your wetsuit and make it super obvious but Yeah, yeah

Jill Bartholomew (50:18)
Yeah.

Yeah, be more, because yeah.

And, know, he might have thought that he was being cool by doing that. I don't know. But.

Thomas Skelton (50:32)
I just, you know what mean?

Jill Bartholomew (50:33)
But like, you're right. If it's like your first time, it is, it has to be super disappointing that it gets canceled. I did have a few people ask me afterwards. They're like, okay, cause you know, I was there, you know, with foundation and you know, I'm a coach just like you. And you know, I was there with the Tridot crew.

And you had a few people ask me during the expert coach Q &A. They're like, so what race should I sign up for that's kind of like this one, but this one's not going to get canceled? And I'm like, well, here's a few that are similar to this that are still happening this year, but ⁓ I don't think anybody has any control over the weather. It's like it could happen to any race. But I do think it was the right.

Thomas Skelton (51:22)
mean, this is, you play the cards, you're dealt.

Jill Bartholomew (51:24)
Yeah, I mean, I do think it's the right call. know, the last two years, there's been a lot of races, several races, I don't know about a lot, but there's been several races where they probably should have called it and they didn't. And, you know, bad things happened.

Thomas Skelton (51:38)
think after Cork, right, a couple years ago when two athletes died in Ireland, I think that was a big one. And there was a lot of like back and forth, I think between like Triathlon Ireland and Ironman about decisions and...

Jill Bartholomew (51:40)
Yep.

Right,

well there was that one and then ⁓ Morro Bay where a third of the field DNF'd on the swim because you know the swim there shouldn't have happened at all and it did. ⁓

Thomas Skelton (52:02)
Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (52:03)
they ended up giving

Thomas Skelton (52:03)
Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (52:04)
all those folks free registrations to another race, which is great and all, but just think, these races you train for many months for, and then the expense, these are not cheap events, like these easy are $5,000 between registered

Thomas Skelton (52:20)
Now Gulf Coast, cause you know the swim got canceled there and

⁓ some people even got kicked off the course, but Gulf Coast I think ended up giving people or Ironman ended up giving people like a 50 % off registration code for another race. So ⁓ I don't suspect that Chattanooga is going to do that because they canceled it ahead of time. That would be my guess. ⁓ But yes, I mean, I understand that it's a frustrating thing for sure when you're planning to get to have a swim, a bike and a run and you've trained for that event.

Jill Bartholomew (52:39)
now.

Yeah, we

Thomas Skelton (52:50)
But.

Jill Bartholomew (52:50)
Yeah, we had some friends who were working registration. And so they were grateful that Ironman called it in advance of registration opening. So they didn't have to redo like bibs and stuff. But all right. Well, anyways, oh, I forgot to ask. So did any of your athletes qualify for Marbella?

Thomas Skelton (53:02)
Yeah, absolutely.

One would have already already has a slot and I don't think and nobody else did

Jill Bartholomew (53:18)
Yeah, the roll downs went really far. We weren't going to stay for roll down. And we ended up staying. I'm glad we did. most of the races, most of the 70.3s I do are early season races. And this is a late season. And the early seasons, my age group will have one, possibly two slots. And it's like,

the first finisher and the second finisher take that, right? And then women for try might have one or two and it's kind of the same thing. So if you're not like top three, you're probably not getting one. And here I think that the men 50, 54 maybe went to like slot 40, 45. Like it went super deep on some of them.

Thomas Skelton (53:46)
Yeah, for sure.

Jill Bartholomew (54:02)
⁓ My age group had two slots. ⁓ I got one of those two and then we inherited two slots from other age groups that didn't use all theirs. And then the women for tri think we ended up with like eight slots. You know, so of the 90 some odd people who finished, like it went my age group went pretty deep too. It didn't go quite as deep, but it went pretty deep.

Thomas Skelton (54:15)
Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (54:24)
So it's like, yeah, the moral of story is like, always show up because you never know how deep those are going to go. Now, other age groups didn't go as deep. Some were like, no, first place finisher took it, third place finisher took it kind of thing, which is kind of what I normally expect to happen.

Thomas Skelton (54:37)
Yeah.

It's always hit or miss, seems. ⁓ Try and draw correlation, right? Or, you know, between how many slots, age groups, what roles, what doesn't, but just can't, there's no connections, you never know, seems.

Jill Bartholomew (54:48)
Yeah

Yeah.

Although I think like the late season races, you know, lot of people already have their slots. They're more, it's more likely to roll down and I, yeah. And you know, that combined with like this race, think, you know, it's such a large field, you know, so many, know, who might not normally have finished that that close to the front and did might not even think to stay.

Thomas Skelton (55:03)
Well gosh, yeah, absolutely.

Jill Bartholomew (55:20)
because like normally they wouldn't even be in the running, but this one without the swim, they had a much stronger race. And you know, there was just like the roll downs went so deep, not because like people already had slots, but people didn't go to roll down. So the moral is always go to roll down.

Thomas Skelton (55:36)
Yeah.

Absolutely,

so if you want to suck gosh, I mean Louisville they they still had slots at Louisville in August last year for ⁓

New Zealand, right? And so they had like, they basically had slot allocation and roll downs for New Zealand. And then they did slot allocation and roll down for, for Marbella and like the roll downs for, for New Zealand. They had both, right? So they did New Zealand because they still had some slots for New Zealand. ⁓ and then they had, but it was an hour and a half.

Jill Bartholomew (55:47)
Yeah.

Wait, so they did both?

⁓

Yes, Valley last year.

Yeah, that's kind of what this was like. Although the roll down was kind of disorganized at this one. Yeah, Happy Valley last year was the same way. But I think Taupau that late in the season is kind of a hard sell. It's like, know, for, was it Happy Valley is like middle of June. It's like.

you know, you know, getting to New Zealand, getting flights and accommodations that late in the season, like, like that's a big expensive trip.

Yeah. It's like, ⁓ think Lake Placid had the same problem with, with Nice is like getting people to Nice. It's so close to the race and it's an expensive trip to another country. And if you don't already have a passport, you know, that's another thing you have to deal with for those, those, you know, when they're in another country.

Thomas Skelton (56:45)
A lot rolled.

yeah, 100%. Yeah. I mean, I

feel like we were eight months out, a year out even planning for New Zealand. So it was a big show to plan for. So yeah, I don't know. mean, we could go down a rabbit hole of roll downs and slot allocations and good, bad. mean, I feel like, I mean, can argue both sides up and down on everything I feel like. you know, I don't know. It's a...

Jill Bartholomew (57:02)
Yes. ⁓

It's a whole different topic.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. I ended up, you know, I, I could have gotten a slot for Taupau at happy Valley last year. And I ended up not, cause I'm like, when it was at Florida 70.3, I was like, yeah, I want to slot. didn't get one. Uh, the person in front of me took the second one. I think I was like six or something at that race. And you know, I had an okay race at happy Valley.

Thomas Skelton (57:23)
It's, it's, it's a...

Jill Bartholomew (57:49)
And I was like, no, I just, knew at that point I was like shooting to get to Nice at Lake Placid. And I was like, no, I just, I can't deal with this. It's too close, it's too expensive. And it's on the other side of the world in a place I've never been before. And I just, I was like, at that point the interest had kind of gone despite it being world. And then of course, I had severe FOMO, I'm watching it on TV.

Thomas Skelton (58:19)
it, you know, it, ⁓ not to get on that, but I, at one point I was just like, let's just not go. This is, this is so expensive and this is going to be such a big trip. Let's just not go. And thankfully my wife is like, no, we're going. And it was, it wasn't, it was an epic trip. mean, we could talk forever about, about that trip and touring around the South Island in a motor home. And it was, it was an awesome race. But yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (58:26)
and

Yeah.

So,

so kind of wrapping it up. Um, you know, I think it's great conversation. Thank you for joining me. Um, you know, I, I think it's great. Like, you know, as you said before, you know, we, met once in person and it was, you know, at the dollar general last year, I was kind of getting on my bike and you were getting set up and we just kind of bumped into each other. Um, but. You know, I thought it was great conversation, but the big question is that you can be back next year.

Thomas Skelton (58:49)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, so we won't be at the full this year because we're going to be, we've not been in Augusta the last four years or so maybe. And so I've got a number of athletes that are willing to race in Augusta. So we'll be in Chattanooga for the full, but I'm sure we will be there for either the half or the full next year. I'm not positive. But definitely, just, mean, we're four and a half hours away from Chattanooga. It's such a great race. It's relatively easy to get to. There's lots of places to stay. It's a fun course.

Jill Bartholomew (59:16)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (59:37)
I don't know if I'll race or if I'll just be supporting next year, but I suspect we'll be there at least for the half.

Jill Bartholomew (59:41)
So what's your next race?

Thomas Skelton (59:43)
Um, the South, uh, USAT South Coast state championship is in Clemson, South Carolina in June. I've got that. And then Ironman Lake Placid, which is really just after being there for supporting last year. I was like, I've, I'm 15, 16 years in the sport and I've never done Lake Placid. Like I need to do Lake Placid. Um,

Jill Bartholomew (59:47)
Mm-hmm.

All right, well, know what?

You know what? You and I are both going to be in Lake Placid, so we need to do a show in Lake Placid. Live. Together. Together. In the same room. Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (1:00:06)
Yeah, absolutely. That sounds awesome. Be super fun. Yeah.

I and I got to, I got to swim and bike. I did basically a loop of, of everything. Did a loop of the loop of the swim, a loop, a whole loop of the bike. Um, you know, ran a bunch of the run course and it's a, it's an awesome course. And I was like, I just have to sign up for it. Um,

Jill Bartholomew (1:00:14)
Mm-hmm.

So I've,

so like Placid, I'm doing a, I'm planning a loop of the course on the bike for the foundation folks. ⁓ probably right now it's looking like it's to be like Wednesday or Thursday. You know, they'll want to be close to the race and give them enough time to recover from it. Not, not a hard bike, like just a like, you know, zone two, zone three bike.

Thomas Skelton (1:00:37)
Yeah, yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (1:00:45)
Um, so I think a lot of people, you know, going into Lake Placid haven't done it before, uh, you know, they hear online, you know, all the horror stories and fear on the Keene descent. So you were trying to line up some folks with like bike racks. So someone for folks who just want to do the Keene descent, like ride out to the bottom of Keene and go back and then other, some others want to do the full, you guys should join us for that.

Thomas Skelton (1:01:05)
Solid.

Yeah, it's a solid call. I that's a, I don't think we'll get in there till Thursday, maybe. We'll drive up to Albany, pick up a buddy in Albany, probably spend the night there and then drive the rest of the way ⁓ from Albany up there. But ⁓ yeah, I mean, I think that's huge. That keen descent can be, I mean, you can go as slow or as fast as you want. It can get a bit sketchy if it's windy.

Jill Bartholomew (1:01:30)
Yeah, last year I ended up riding it three, four times before the race and my,

uh, you know, my dawn, he tells everyone he's like, yeah, she rode it once and then came back and we, we rode it again. And he followed me with the car to the bottom. And then we loaded my bike up on the bike rack and went back to, uh, Mount Van Hoevenburg and did it again. And then rinse and repeat. You know, we did it like three times that day. And I think I was, was like, I think I topped out at like 58 on this, on the last December, like, like

Like

you can do it. ⁓ Yeah, now race day, the ground was a little bit wet. So I think we were all a little slower, but not that bad. I look forward to seeing you there. And ⁓ a lot of people are going to be there. I think Noel's going to be there again.

Thomas Skelton (1:02:08)
You can catch 60 on that for sure if you really, really, really want to push and get low.

Yep. Yeah, but that's a great course. Yeah.

I

so. And it's a, I think it's a pro race. So, ⁓ it'll be, it'll be super fun. It's just, it's such a great place. ⁓ looking forward to that. then Wisconsin and 70.3 Worlds, that's all that's on the schedule right now. We're with moving. I didn't play in a lot of races or any races early season because, ⁓ you know, just, didn't, it's just, we'll just train and keep, keep the head down and keep getting ready, but trying to go and get to races for myself, low, low priority this time of year.

Jill Bartholomew (1:02:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thomas Skelton (1:02:57)
for me.

Jill Bartholomew (1:02:57)
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what next year looks like. I'm like, do we do started with Texas again or do something different? But yeah, I've been leaning more into fulls I think next year than the halves.

Thomas Skelton (1:03:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. mean, the goal for me, I want to see if I can get a slot at Wisconsin for Kona. If I do, cool, great. We'll take it. I'm going to have to have a really good race to even have a chance.

Jill Bartholomew (1:03:15)
Thanks.

⁓

Wisconsin is still a qualifier. Like that's pretty close, isn't it? that's for next year. That makes sense.

Thomas Skelton (1:03:24)
Not for this year. It'll be a qualify for next year. Yep, yep.

then, so if I don't get a slot, we'll probably look at trying see if we can find a slot somewhere for 70.3 Worlds in Nice next year. So I know my wife would love to go to France and ⁓ she speaks French quite well. So it'd be nice to have her to help us get around to.

Jill Bartholomew (1:03:47)
Have you run that course before?

Thomas Skelton (1:03:50)
I've never been to Europe. Yeah.

Jill Bartholomew (1:03:51)
Really?

I did Nice last year. And the bike course, everybody's so scared of it. And I think it has a bad rap. It's a hill. You go up it. And once you're at the top, it's fine. Yeah, it's a climb. I think the average is like 6 % going up. it's an effort, but it's not horrible. Yeah, it's like 18 miles long.

Thomas Skelton (1:04:10)
It's just long. Yeah.

think the descending scares a lot of people too, but...

Jill Bartholomew (1:04:17)
Last

year there in the women's field. I'm interested to see the men's this year if it's the same, but in the women's field last year, there was a lot of DNFs on the downhill, like people who are, you know, kind of like really intimidated by those switchbacks of riding their brakes down. I kind of took a different approach. I'm like, oh, there's well, let's not fly over it. And, you know, I had a

I think like the field, when you look at the bike splits, they were one or the other. There wasn't a lot in between. was like people who were like fast going down and people who are like really slow. Like I was on my fourth lap on the run and people were still coming in on the bike. And that like that blew my mind and talking to them. It wasn't, it wasn't the uphill that got him. It was the downhill.

Thomas Skelton (1:05:10)
Yep, absolutely. think everybody initially gets scared about how much climbing it has, but then when they start getting closer, it's really more the descending piece of the puzzle. I mean...

Jill Bartholomew (1:05:18)
Yeah,

to me the hardest part of that course is the temperature change between the start and the top of the mountain. It was a little bit precipitating at the top and it was kind of hard to tell if it was rain or snow at one point.

Thomas Skelton (1:05:34)
Yeah, I mean, it was probably a good 20 degrees Celsius different from the bottom to the top, I'd bet, if not a little more.

Jill Bartholomew (1:05:38)
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's,

yeah, it's significant. ⁓ the day before some of the pros I was talking to were kind of going back and forth on like how they prepare for it. One of them was talking about maybe like wearing a heat sheet. I was like, ⁓ that would be so hot. Like, could you, could you imagine like how hot you'd be going up? I don't think they ended up doing it, but like, there was a lot of conversation about like, how do you protect yourself? You know, on that, that.

that top shelf where it's cold and windy. But yeah, I really enjoyed that course. So I'm looking forward to hopefully going to 70.3 next year there.

Thomas Skelton (1:06:09)
Yep. Yeah.

Yeah, we'll see. would be, I mean, it's tough. would be, I would love to be able to do both, but that's just not, it's not in the cards to be able to go to Hawaii and Europe.

Jill Bartholomew (1:06:24)
It's a lot.

Well, we're struggling with that. Like, okay, so I'm going to Kona for the fall. ⁓ and now I'm going to Marbella and it's like, go to Kona, come back. And then three weeks later we've fly to Spain. Like it's very quick. I like, my.

Thomas Skelton (1:06:40)
Very quick turnaround.

Yeah, absolutely. And I've got a couple, I've got a couple of ladies racing in Kona this year and nothing would make me happier than to be there supporting, right? But just...

Jill Bartholomew (1:06:53)
It's an expensive

trip. It's an expensive trip for sure. But hey, it's a write off. ⁓

Thomas Skelton (1:06:56)
for sure. Yeah.

You still to spend it. You gotta have it to spend. yeah. Hey, absolutely. Happy to. Absolutely. Catch you later. good. See ya. Bye.

Jill Bartholomew (1:07:01)
Yes, yes, he's self-dependent. All right, my friend, it was wonderful having you on. Thank you so much. And until next time. All right, see ya. Bye.