Race Report: Callaway Gardens Olympic
Over the weekend, Matt and I competed at the Callaway Gardens Olympic Triathlon.
It’s kind of crazy to think that I did this event as my first-ever Olympic back in 2019. I haven’t been back since, but the timing worked out well with our current training block. So on Friday evening after work, we packed up the truck and drove 3 hours north to do a triathlon!
Although this race was an Olympic, it’s not a traditional distance. With a 1,000 m swim, 19-mile bike, and 5-mile run, it’s more like a “Spri-lympic,” as Matt likes to call it.
Like at every race, there were some great things, some not-so-great things, and always a few bizarre things!
Here’s what happened.
Race Morning
The race start was at 7:30 am, so we woke up at 4:30 am to eat breakfast, do some mobility exercises, and pump up tires. Matt booked us the cutest Airbnb about 30 minutes away from the race. He always finds the best places to stay. Our friends say he should charge for this service.
We stayed in a little, white farmhouse in a big grassy field with a pond, and it was dog-friendly, so Ellie Mae got to come! They even had cows, 3 horses, 3 pigs, 2 donkeys, and a turkey on the property. These races take up most of our vacation time, so we try to incorporate a fun place to stay whenever we get the chance.
We ran into a bit of technical difficulty on race morning when we went to pump up my rear tire. I have tubeless tires on my new bike, which I love. But, when I unscrewed the dust cover from the valve, the entire valve core came with it! That, of course, meant my tire went completely flat. Not ideal. If we had a pair of pliers, we probably could’ve unscrewed the valve core, and reinserted it, but we didn't.
According to Matt, I only freaked out for about 10 minutes. Then, we came up with a plan. Plan A was to see if the on-site bike mechanic at the race could fix it. Plan B was to use Matt’s rear wheel since he was planning to use his disc wheel for the race. He has an 11/30, and I have an 11/34, but they’re both 12-speed so it would’ve worked in a pinch. Thankfully, the race mechanic was able to fix the tire, and all was well.
(Suffice to say, the dust covers will be removed from all our tubeless tires later today…)
Once we got to the race, we checked in and picked up our race packets. There was an interesting mix of athletes. We saw a lot of Ironman shirts, but there were also a lot of new athletes doing their first-ever triathlon, so that was fun.
The Swim
After setting up transition, we headed to the lake to do a swim warm-up. It was definitely not wetsuit-legal, so we used our swimskins. They said the water temperature was 82°, but it was SO hot, it felt like 85°. We only swam for 5-10 minutes, because we didn’t want to overheat before the race start.
After a pre-race prayer, the national anthem, and a fly-over by a flock of geese in V-formation, it was time to race! This event had a mass start for men and for women. They only gave us a minute in between the groups, so we swam up into the men’s group, which caused a bit of congestion.
The route took us straight across the lake (loved this) and into a narrow channel right on the shore that was blocked off with a swim rope (didn’t love this). I’m not sure why they had us swim in such shallow water, because it compressed the swim and caused more traffic. It was so shallow there was actually a guy walking next to me… This made all the mud, silt, and muck swirl around. I was just trying not to swallow any!
Matt: “I got to a good place around the first turn buoy, but then the water was so shallow I couldn’t get a good stroke in, so I just stood up and did dolphin dives for 50 yards or so. The ‘1,000 meter’ swim was about 700 yards by my watch.”
I felt like I swam strong and exited the water on the beach before running up a big, grassy hill into transition. I did something a bit different in T1 this time. I put on compression socks. Typically, I wear calf sleeves under my wetsuit, but no wetsuit means no calf sleeves, so I had that extra step in transition. But I have a trick for getting them on wet legs easily, so it only added about 15-20 seconds.
Why I Wear Compression Socks During Races: It's NOT Why You Think...
The Bike
I loved the bike! It was my favorite part of the race. This course was two laps for a total of 19 miles on beautiful, shaded roads. Although the course isn’t closed to traffic, it’s inside the Callaway Gardens resort, so car traffic is minimal, and it’s very scenic. You pass by several lakes, fields, and a golf course.
The course is very technical and a bit hilly. There’s nothing too steep, but short, punchy, little guys that cause you to go up and down like you’re on a rollercoaster. You’re barely in your aerobars for 30 seconds before you’re making a sharp turn, cornering, ect. I had a lot of fun and felt like I was flying!
We’d practiced terrain management skills at triathlon camp earlier this year, and it helped so much to know how to use a full pedal stroke, climb, descend, stay aerodynamic, take the right line, ect. I knew that Matt wouldn’t enjoy this course as much as me, because he rides even faster, so he had to maneuver a lot.
Matt: “The course had almost no straight sections longer than a few hundred meters. It was a get up to speed, corner slowly on the wet roads, and try to get back up to speed. I passed several people on lap one and eventually settled in behind another athlete of similar pace that I used as a rabbit to chase. I pushed harder than I have previously on the bike.”
The roads were a little wet from the storm the night before, but it wasn’t too hot yet. I felt super strong on the bike, and followed my plan of working up to 90%. We’re both racing by feel now, instead of looking at our power meters, so I didn’t know until after the fact. But it was the best power I’ve held for this distance, by far!
I passed the three women in front of me and was apparently the first woman off the bike, which was fun! However, I didn’t actually want to know that at the time. I prefer to focus on my own race, and thinking about other athletes is just a distraction.
The Run
The run was 5 miles, and we knew it was going to be tough. Although we didn’t have direct sun, it was SO humid. We ran back in the woods on a paved bike trail, and it felt like a jungle. I had to take my sunglasses off, because they were so foggy I couldn’t see where I was going.
Knowing the conditions wouldn’t be ideal, we’d planned ahead by having a thermos cup of ice that I dumped in my sports bra in T2. I also wore a cooling towel around my neck. I’m not sure if any of these things helped much, but we threw everything at it we could.
I’m not really looking at my watch to pace the run these days and just going off feel. But I think knowing I was at the front of the race, I ran a bit harder at the start than I should have… Pacing the run is still something I need to work on, as well as my breathing.
I took a few walk breaks to grab water at aid stations and drank from the flask I keep in my run belt. But the run was just painful. There were a few punchy hills that made my legs feel like I was running in molasses, so that was fun too.
I saw a white thing shoot through the woods and bounce across the path ahead of me. It was a golf ball. I thought about picking it up and taking it as a souvenir, but then I thought they might want to keep playing. I could’ve used a “fore!” though…
I had an annoying side stitch on my right side that I just couldn’t get to release, which makes it very hard to breathe when running at any pace. I just had to manage it the best I could. I saw Matt at the out and back, which is always fun.
Matt: “Mile 3 was really painful. Pace dropped off a bit. I started to hear some footfalls behind me, and I knew with two miles left, I just had to go for it.”
When Matt finishes a race, he always comes back out to meet me. So when I saw him, I knew I only had a quarter of a mile left. He said, “Last push up this hill, and it’s 100 yards to the finish. There’s a photographer at the top, if you’re feeling photogenic!”
You might recognize this as foreshadowing…
So, I did in fact push it up the last hill (albeit a bit too much apparently) and proceeded to lose all my nutrition in front of the photographer… Oops. Sorry. Ah, what can you do? Luckily, I was only 100 yards from the finish, so I ran it in.
Given the conditions, I was super happy to run myself into 3rd place overall female! Also, Matt placed 6th overall male and scored his first win in what he likes to call the “Age Group of Doom,” 35-39.
Post-Race
After the awards ceremony, we picked up sandwiches and drove home to see Ellie Mae, who’d been waiting patiently for us back at the farmhouse.) We washed the bikes, started laundry, and took showers. (Tip: It’s much better to get home and not have laundry to do.)
Then, we relaxed on the couch reading books for the rest of the afternoon. Later that night, we took Ellie Mae to visit the farm animals, had a nice dinner, and sat on the porch overlooking the farm as the sunset.
Thanks so much to our coaches, Marni and Karel. It was exciting to see the results of all the hard training we’ve been doing this year!
*Paid Subscribers: Get access to a video below where Matt and I share more about all the fun moments at the race! We talk about our goals for the event, our preparation, mindset, and all the wild and wacky things that happened.
Grab your popcorn and enjoy!
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