2025 Ironman Chattanooga

“I do,” I said out loud on March 8th, 2025. Not to signing up for my next big race, but to marrying my soulmate Kerry of course! After three and a half wonderful fast paced years together, Kerry and I had officially tied the knot in front of all of our friends and family. The wedding was better than anything we could’ve hoped for. Kerry and I were just over the moon that whole wedding weekend.

After all the fun and excitement that weekend, we had the following Monday off from work to relax a bit by ourselves at home. Monday afternoon, I got an urgent call from work. I was told my workplace was closing shop. Many of us would be let go in a few weeks, including me.

Kerry was by my side when I received the news. Although this wasn’t great news, Kerry reminded me this wasn’t terrible news either. 2025 might be a little more uncertain than in previous years, but it was still a very exciting and special time for us newlyweds. I mean we had lots of awesome trips and races coming up this year, including Ironman Chattanooga followed right after by our honeymoon!

This wasn’t the first time I set out to do Ironman Chattanooga. Back in 2021 I signed up for Chattanooga thinking' it’d be a great way to explore the South as a “Northerner.” Unfortunately as I mentioned in my second Ironman story, I injured myself a few months before Chattanooga and I didn’t get to do that race.

Ironman Chattanooga was still in the back of mind all these years. When I was thinking of going all in with an Ironman for 2025, guess which Ironman I considered first? Ironman Chattanooga! With the help of coach and cousin Danielle, I structured a nine month plan that would build up to this late September Ironman. The build up races I decided on doing were Jersey City Marathon in April, Ironman 70.3 Western Massachusetts in June, and Ironman 70.3 Maine in July.

Around the time I’d do Ironman 70.3 Maine, it’d be 10 year mark of triathlon for me. My approach to the sport had changed quite a bit since then. Though I’ve always had fun racing them, I was definitely feeling more competitive than before. I’d often try to get on podiums or qualify for certain events. Doing the Bucket Races last year, I was able to give myself a little break from the competing and enjoy the exploration aspect of triathlon more. 2025 though, I wanted to give one last try to qualify for the Ironman World Championship in Kona. Life priorities were changing.

2015

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10 years of my triathlon evolution.

First life priority after the wedding was to find work again. Former coworkers of mine encouraged me to go freelancing, and they helped me land some freelance work fairly quickly. Freelance work life had taken some adjusting to at first. My schedule was less predictable, but I had some more time to spend on personal things, like family and triathlon.

I actually used a bit of time off rebuilding my bike after the accident last year. Some of the updates included switching out the damaged frame, putting a disc cover on the rear wheel and covers over the derailleur and crankset, replacing the TT shifters, and getting brand new TT aero bars and saddle. I also learned more about bike fitting using an AI app called MyVeloFit. With my upgrades and better fit, I was able to ride much more comfortably and hopefully faster.

My “Before/June and After/August” bike fit.

Jersey City Marathon

I was pretty excited to run the Jersey City Marathon. Reasons for excitement were it was a race very close to home, I had no injuries that winter, I didn’t have to sideline training too much while I freelanced, and Kerry was joining me doing the half marathon race. She had just run the New York City Half Marathon with her sister Katie and was interested in building off from that experience on a flatter and faster course.

The Jersey City Marathon and Half Marathon events had very large field sizes. There were long lines to the bathrooms and bag drop offs as a result. Adding to the chaos, both races were rolling starts that started at the same time and place. Kerry and I were some of the last runners to go, and the start gun had gone off 20 minutes prior. It wasn’t an ideal start for both of us, but we did are best bobbing and weaving through the massive crowd of runners. By the 5K mark we were able to run our ideal paces: Kerry was attempting to break 2 hours in the half marathon and I was attempting to run under 2:50 for the marathon.

The same quad muscle pain in my right quad that I had in the Tokyo Marathon was coming up again for me at Mile 6. I probably accelerated too much bobbing and weaving through the course earlier. I needed to be more steady with my pace for the rest of the marathon. The soreness in the right quad stayed relatively the same for the rest of the race, but I was minding it less. Training for the Ironman this year must’ve been increasing my pain tolerance, I figured. By Mile 11, I was bringing my pace down from 6:30 per mile down to 6:22 per mile.

At Mile 16 though, I really needed to go to the bathroom and had to take a quick bathroom break. First time that ever happened to me in a marathon. I was a little upset with myself for not having fueled properly to avoid this, but in reality it only cost a minute. Two miles later, my left quad was feeling sore as well and I started running 6:40 mile pace. Knowing that running sub 2:50 for the marathon was out of the picture for me then, I just hoped I wouldn’t dip over 7:00 pace for the rest of the race.

I was able to do it and finished the marathon in 2:53:18. At the finish line Kerry, who had finished the half marathon earlier, received me and helped me recover. Kerry accomplished her goal of finishing the half marathon in under two hours! I was very proud of her.

First race wearing a wedding ring, feels great!

Ironman 70.3 Western Massachusetts

I had a break from freelance work in late May and decided it was a good time to head up to the ‘Shire and visit my parents for two weeks. While there I was able to get in some outdoor swim and bike training that I hadn’t done since December, and I’m glad I did. The second day I went cycling, I got a flat tire a mile from home and my Dad had to come to my rescue because I didn’t have a repair kit with me.

The Saturday before the Half Ironman, there was the Live Free & Tri Olympic Triathlon in Freedom, New Hampshire. It wasn’t far from my parents, so I decided on a whim to sign up for it. I thought it’d be a good low stake tune up race. The triathlon was very rainy, but I did well in the elements especially with my swim and run. I finished 2nd overall. The bike fit at the race still felt a little off though. I was taking a wild guess as to how much I should raise or lower the seat.

Next Saturday Dad and I drove through another torrential downpour before a triathlon this time to Ironman 70.3 Western Mass in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was so rainy, the race director cancelled the river swim. The race would just be a duathlon with a rolling bike start. My high bib number of 942 meant I’d be one of the last athletes to start the duathlon.

It was another race of me bobbing and weaving through other athletes. It was difficult at many points to pass the hundreds of athletes ahead of me, especially because the bike course was open to traffic and roads themselves had lots of potholes. There were certainly risk takers who’d pass when there wasn’t much space, but I wasn’t interested in being one of them. I tried cycling the best I could given the safety constraints. I finished the bike course with an average speed of 22.2MPH in 2:28:16, 84th overall bike time. It was about three minutes slower than the time I had on the less hilly course of Musselman last year.

I was happy to see in the transition area Dad and Momma, who drove very early that morning to see me race. Coming into race day, I felt the hardest leg of this Half Ironman would be the run. The run course’s total elevation was 700+ feet, which as a point of reference wasn’t even the total elevation of Chicago and Berlin Marathons combined. My run started a little slower than my typical half marathon pace at 6:35 per mile having run up a couple of hills. Once I got over the hills, the course went into a shady park. There I could run faster at 6:20 per mile pace.

By Mile 8, I was getting a little tired and my pace dropped down to 6:40. I was thankful the last three miles of the race were downhill and with a “shot” of Coca Cola at Mile 11 my pace went down to the 6:30s for the last stretch. I finished the run course in 1:25:06, 21st overall run time. In total, the bike run duathlon finish time was 3:56:03, 41st overall and 12th in my age group.

I learned a lot early in this triathlon season up in New England. I definitely needed to improve my bike times if I wanted to do well in Ironman Chattanooga. The bike’s the longest and most important leg of an Ironman. To paraphrase Coach Danielle, “You lose it on the bike, you win it on the run, but you can really really lose it on the bike.”

Ironman 70.3 Maine

In a few weeks time, I’d head up to Maine for another stab at a Half Ironman before doing the full Ironman in September. I used this time to improve my bike fit more by changing the front cockpit out so that my arms could rest more comfortably. Many of the parts on my five year old triathlon bike were so specific and rusty that it required multiple trips to the hardware store and online orders with Canyon. Though frustrating at times, I gained a greater appreciation for my bike and hoped to take better care of it in the future.

Kerry came up with me on the long road trip to Maine two days before the Half Ironman. The drive turned out to be much longer than anticipated due to the heavy summer traffic in Connecticut and Boston, so it was good we had some time to relax before the race. We had a little bit of scare when forest fire smoke from Canada was rolling in through the area the day before the race, but on race day there was no smoke or much smell of it. Me and the 1900 athletes were good to go the full Ironman 70.3 distance!

My parents met up with us near the transition area on race morning. We had a nice mile walk together alongside a bagpiper to the start of the swim. Like the swim for Chattanooga, Maine’s swim was also a downstream river swim. I felt it would be good practice to pick Half Ironmans that had very similar elements to Chattanooga. Western Mass had a similar river swim and hilly run and Maine had a similar river swim and hilly bike.

The mascot of Ironman 70.3 is a sturgeon and of course when I looked up the large prehistoric fish online, I read some crazy stories about them and saw how high they jump above the water near the bridge we swim under in the race. I really didn’t want to see these guys in the water. Prior to jumping in the river for the non wetsuit swim, I realized I was still wearing my wedding ring and clenched my fingers tightly while entering the water. I started swimming really fast trying to ignore my thoughts about the sturgeon and wedding ring, but my breathing wasn’t in a good rhythm. Once I passed the bridge I saw in the sturgeon video, I was more at ease and was breathing better. I finished the 1.2 swim in 21:41, which was the 30th fastest time overall. And most importantly, I still had my wedding ring on!

This bike course was a much more pleasant experience than the one in Western Mass. There were barely any potholes, traffic, and bottlenecking of athletes. It reminded me a lot of the biking around the New Hampshire seacoast. Similar to other hilly courses, I did well on the climbs and got passed on the descents favoring caution over speed. My overall speed for the course was the same as Western Mass and that was with 1400 feet more elevation. My placement overall though was 76th. And in the last couple of miles of the bike, my right leg was getting really sore around my IT band. My bike fit was still not great. If this was Ironman Chattanooga, I honestly wasn’t sure how much longer I could’ve lasted on a 112 mile ride with the IT band pain.

I was so glad to hop off the bike and head off on the run loosening that IT band. I had a runner’s high pretty early in the run running sub 6:00 per mile, but then I quickly settled down and ran a 6:20 pace for eight miles on a flat rail trail. Mile 10 there was a huge hill to run up and I slowed down a bit to 6:50 per mile. I still wanted to keep pushing, especially because I wanted to try to break 1:25:00 for the Half Ironman run on this course. I hadn’t done that in a Half Ironman before. I got the pace down to 6:30, but in the last half mile there was a good incline towards the state capitol building and I missed my target by 31 seconds. Nevertheless my 1:25:31 run time was the 24th fastest overall. I finished with a total time of 4:25:26, 34th overall and 9th in my age group. I was very happy with my results at Maine, especially my swim and run.

There were nine weeks left of prep for Ironman Chattanooga after Ironman 70.3 Maine. That was still plenty of time to improve things! My biggest areas of needing improvement were bike, nutrition, and travel. Travel was the newest concern. When Kerry and I drove home from Maine, our rental car got a flat tire in Connecticut and we barely returned our car back in time. We didn’t want a repeat of this in Chattanooga, so we decided we’d fly down there instead. I never transported my bike on a plane before, but it turned out to be not very difficult using a Scicon Aerocomfort Tri bike bag. I only had to take off the wheels when packing the bike.

I had been concerned about the bike and nutrition all season. In these last nine weeks I was desperate to find answers and experimented with lots of different setups. According MyVeloFit after Ironman Maine, my seat was still too high and my aero bars needed to be extended further. I made those adjustments and also got a new Fizik Transiro Aeris saddle. These made such a huge difference and I no longer felt sore coming off the bike.

For nutrition ideas, Kerry suggested I read the book The Endurance Training Diet & Cookbook by Jesse Kropelnicki. This book helped me understand fueling for triathlons much more. I realized I was very under-fueled in all of my workouts, swimming and running included. Over the course of the last nine weeks I attempted to consume 500 calories an hour of carb drinks and energy bars on the bike. That was too much of a jump on my stomach and I went down to 350 calories an hour. This adjustment was still 200 plus calories more I consumed than before reading this book. I did two five hour rides between Maine and Chattanooga. Overall they were significantly better and more comfortable rides than any long ride I had done in the months before Maine. I couldn’t wait to ride Chattanooga!

Kerry and I arrived in Chattanooga a couple of days before the race. I needed some time to ride my newly setup bike because I only rode on it indoors since Maine. It’s nice that Chattanooga has lots of bike routes around the city, but I later learned they’re not for triathlon bikes. Two days before the race I went out for an hour ride and rode on a river path. It had rained the night before and when I turned onto a wooden bridge, I wiped out. I was okay, but my bike had taken some damage.

Nothing that zip ties and rubber bands can’t fix.

The rear hydration seat post and one of the TT shifters were messed up, but thank goodness the carbon fiber frame was all good. I had a day to figure out how to fix both parts before dropping the bike off in transition. I came up with zip tying a new rear hydration holder onto my seat post and rubber banding the TT shifter back on the aero bar. Though the fixes didn’t necessarily look pretty, I did a 15 minute tune up ride the day before the race and the fixes worked alright.

After my tune up ride, Kerry and I met up with my old friend Wes and his wife Sarah for breakfast. I hadn’t seen Wes in years and when he heard I was doing Chattanooga, he thought of coming up from Georgia to see us. I was happy to hear he was still trail running like in our days up in the Finger Lakes and he even did a stint of triathlons when Sarah introduced the sport to him. Kerry and I were really glad they came up to see us. We had a wonderful time catching up and reminiscing about the old days some. They were going back home early the next day, but they told me they’d try to catch my swim.

On the “eves” of big races, I have often gotten anxious about not doing well having put a ton of time and effort on a good performance. I wasn’t so sure I’d do well enough to achieve a Kona qualification slot. It didn’t help I put a lot of pressure on myself thinking this was my last chance to the Ironman distance. I didn’t believe it was sustainable to attempt anymore Ironmans after Chattanooga, especially with the future being more uncertain than in previous years.

The last few weeks of Ironman training however was much more enjoyable than it had been before. The training didn’t take over my life like it had in the past. I had talked about my concerns before the race with Kerry. Kerry’s has always believed in me. Working freelance and getting married ending my “Ironman Dreams?” Kerry would hear none of that.

Ironman Chattanooga

Weather for race day was going to be sunny and warm with high temperatures in the lower 80s. Coming from the North, we hadn’t had this weather for a while. Race directors determined the swim would be non-wetsuit like the swim in Maine. When water temperature is over 72 F, Ironman makes the executive decision of not allowing wetsuits to be worn for competitive age group triathletes. You could still wear a wetsuit, but you’d just not be allowed to be eligible for awards. Many competitive athletes in warm swims will wear instead swimskin suits, a lighter and legal version of a wetsuit. I saw athletes in Maine wear them for the warm swim, but I didn’t think I needed to have one for Chattanooga. I could see lots of athletes in Chattanooga had them on, did I make a mistake not getting one?

Swim corrals at Ironman events are always chaotic for me. In recent races I’ve tried to line up in the faster corrals, but that meant having to wait in the corral longer and less time to collect myself outside of the corral. While waiting in the faster swim corral for Chattanooga, I smeared my goggles with vaseline from my fingers and it was hard to see through them. There wasn’t anything I could really do. The corral was moving and I’d be starting in two minutes. On a positive note, at least I wouldn’t be seeing a creepy fish or water snake in the water.

Everyone racing at Chattanooga would have very fast swim times compared to other Ironmans. The 2.4 mile swim was incredibily fast going down with the river current. Poor goggle visibility aside, the swim felt really good to me. My breathing was in a good rhythm, I could still the course buoys well enough, and I didn’t swim into many people. At one point in the swim it felt like I was alone, which was quite relaxing to me not having competitors around me. The swim used to be my weakest leg of triathlon when I first started, but this year it was my best. I finished with a total time of 46:08 and 6th in my age group.

Wes and Sarah caught me after the river swim.

Alright, the moment of truth… the bike! I was about to find out whether or not me and my bike could hold on for 112 miles. The course was a three loop course on a highway with very little tree cover and a north headwind. About 50% of the bike course we’d biking into the north headwind and the other 50% was with the north tailwind.

While I was cycling the first loop, I was occasionally checking my broken TT shifter and my rear hydration to make sure they weren’t coming off. They were surprisingly holding up well to the bumps on the highway and my accelerations. Completing the first loop gave a lot of peace of mind knowing everything was holding up okay. Midway through the second loop the rubber bands on the broken TT shifter were coming undone, but I was able to fix while still pedaling. Looking back I’m not sure I’d exactly recommend fixing mid ride.

Compared to my last Ironman in Florida, cycling the course in Chattanooga was much more comfortable. Nailing down the bike fit and nutrition this summer was really paying off. I felt like I was in cruise control for much of the ride on the highway. I finished the ride in 5:03:44, with an average speed of 21.2 MPH. Though I was still wasn’t one fastest riders finishing 11th in my age group, I felt significantly much better on the bike and it was 10+ minutes faster than the much flatter Ironman Florida bike course.

Heading onto the run course was the first time since the early morning I saw Kerry. She gave me a huge boost, helping me run faster up the hill in the first mile. Like the bike course, the run course didn’t have much tree cover but now the weather was much warmer. I tried running sub 7:00 per mile in the first 6 miles, but after the 10K mark I slowed my speed down to 8:00 per mile stopping at each aid station to recover. I was getting overheated. Each aid station I drank about four cups of water and electrolytes.

Trying my best to hold it in for a nice race photo.

At the half marathon point of the race, I saw Kerry cheering me on. She then crawled through some bushes to cheer me on again near Mile 14. Seeing Kerry poking her head out of the bushes made me laugh and smile so much. I wanted to say something funny and clever back, but I couldn’t think of anything and just tried to keep running.

Not much sooner afterward I was feeling a big stomach ache and had to walk. I drank too much at the aid stations. Some triathletes tried encouraging me to run again, but it was too hard with an upset stomach. Anytime I saw a good flat stretch I was able run that, but anytime I saw a hill or aid station I gladly walked. Average pace for these walk runs were between 10:00-12:00 per mile.

I knew as soon as I started walking my hope to qualify Kona was over, but I was getting more worried every time I walked thinking I wouldn’t accomplish my secondary goal of finishing under 10 hours. Around Mile 24 I tried drinking cup of Coca Cola, my usual last resort for Ironman runs. Instantly, the stomach pain went away! After the last big hill, I was able to run all the way to the finish without stopping going 7:00 pace the last mile. I finished sub 10 hours for the Ironman at 9:56:56, 14th in my age group and 104th overall.

Sub 10 hours accomplished! Can see Kerry at the finish line too taking a video.

Ironman Chattanooga turned to be a challenging race that day for me and lots of other triathletes. The heat really got to people and quite a few didn’t finish the Ironman. I was really happy with how I did on the swim and the bike, but what I was most proud of was how I got back in the run for the last two miles to finish under 10 hours. And to be with Kerry right afterwards to celebrate made it all the better.

I received so much help from friends and family this year. What could’ve been a very trying year, turned out to be one of biggest years of growth for me thanks to their love and support. I couldn’t have done it without them, most especially my wife Kerry. I leaned a lot on her during this first year of our marriage, and she never wavered once. What Kerry did this year for me was so much harder than an Ironman. You better believe it. A couple of days later after Chattanooga, we headed off to our honeymoon in Greece and Turkey. While there, we took a full break from work and triathlon training. It was glorious!

Kerry and I still over the moon, on our honeymoon.

Jersey City Marathon Official Results: https://runsignup.com/Race/Results/129526/IndividualResult/BqcJ?resultSetId=539246#U8550765

Live Free & Tri Olympic Triathlon Official Results: https://my.racewire.com/results/38252/45979

Ironman 70.3 Western Massachusetts Official Results: https://www.ironman.com/races/im703-western-massachusetts/results

Ironman 70.3 Maine Official Results: https://www.ironman.com/races/im703-maine/results

Ironman Chattanooga Official Results: https://www.ironman.com/races/im-chattanooga/results

Going South

Bucket Races