On the road to Ironman Augusta 70.3, I locked in several milestone races to ensure I’m fit for the job. The Hartwell (Georgia) Olympic triathlon was to test my OWS skills, and mission accomplished!

Where: Hartwell, GA

What: Olympic Distance Triathlon

Goal: Don’t drown and Die

Overall: Mission accomplished. Finished in 3:06:27 | Distances(ish): 1500 yard swim, 40K bike, 10K run

Before I dig into this particular race, it’s important to note that I both suck as swimming and still have a fear of drowning. Those two elements are towards the top of the list for why I threw myself into triathlons to begin with, which is why open water swimming is so important in my training. And now on with the show…

Last year I had planned to compete in the Hartwell Olympic distance race but ended up getting a pretty nasty case of strep throat. It knocked me out for nearly a month, and I was nowhere near ready for this kind of race. A month or so later I was set to do a different oly tri, but the swim was canceled. So this was officially going to be the first olympic distance race for me.

Needless to say, my OWS/swim anxiety was in rare form because this had a pretty long swim attached to it. Even two weeks ago at the local sprint, a race that I’ve done a handful of times, I still got anxiety. This meant crappy or no sleep the evening before, and this is even a race where you can basically stand a majority of it. This race? Zero opportunities to stand. You just go and go and go. But I wrapped it, the numbers look good, and I’m pretty happy with the results. So let’s start from the beginning.

Training-wise, I didn’t do anything specific for this race. I’ve been on this plan that is leading up to Augusta 70.3, and felt that it would be safe to slot this race in based on my current fitness. Swims range from 1500 – 3000 yards, which consist of a weekly OWS, speed runs, and a lot of intervals. Biking has been intervals and distance building, and running I’m actually decreasing massively as I’m coming off of London training.

Pre-race day: Well, that was a mess. I got stuck in traffic, so I was aiming for 10 minutes past packet pickup the evening before the race, which means I was going to go in pretty blind on the swim and prep. When I got there, they were super nice and were going to help me out, but my dumbass managed to forget to register or finish registering, not sure which. Instead, I went back out to my car and registered immediately, after running into a bump with my USA Triathlon membership (they had to merge two accounts).

Because I was still going in blind and there wasn’t a map for the swim source, I took a quick trip over to the start area to at least get a look at what I was getting myself into and see how the water was. All I saw was a big ole lake and my anxiety soared. Big oops. Because I don’t typically sleep much, I try to distract myself and reduce anything that may make that worse. Did some reading, and somehow managed to get some decent rest.

Race day: Got up around 5 am, got checked in and setup, and had around 40 minutes to get my head straight. That… did not happen. After seeing where the buoys were, I freaked out a bit, only to find out that I was not even looking at the right set. My buoys were even further out. It stretched far into the water, hit a right turn towards a small island, and hit another right turn towards the exit. To combat some of the swim anxiety I jumped in the water, got a few stokes in, and acclimated to the water. Beyond that, the rest was just waiting.

Swim: They kicked us off, and as per usual, I waited until most people cleared the launch point so I didn’t get yanked down. I met up with my fellow slow swimmers, and promptly was run over, hit in the head, and my leg pulled. All typical, and I was able to recover pretty well. About 200 yards in though, my brain kicked in and my heart rate was way too high. I wasn’t able to get in an ideal stroke pace or breathing pattern, so I floundered a bit. Flipped on my back, reset myself, flipped back over and was on my way.

I was doing a pretty solid job of sighting and didn’t need to pause, right up until the first turn buoy. Then I crossed paths with some guy trying to draft after my slow ass, but he kept smacking my feet. After him, there was the crazy guy breast stroking the entire thing, so I drifted further out as I kept fearing for getting kicked in the gut or worse. Apparently, this is where I royally messed up, because my swim went from 1500 yards to 1900. Either they misplaced the markers or I went out too far, honestly not sure which. My Garmin tracker seems to have me going straight (which is pretty odd for me), so maybe a mix.

Towards the 1000 yard mark I had to pause a few times and tread water to get my bearings straight due to sun hitting me in the face, but once I had my sighting set for the exit it was clear sailing. Around 90% of that swim felt great, which is a huge confidence builder for Augusta. I got out of the water feeling solid, did a two-minute-ish transition, and kicked off the 40K bike. You can see the swim course info here on Strava.

Bike: I went in with the expectation of a pretty flat course. Or, at least that’s what whoever manages the event on Facebook told me. According to my Garmin, there was about 750ish feet of climb, which if I’m not mistaken, is not flat at all. Essentially it was mostly rolling hills, which wasn’t terrible due to all the interval training, but there was one big ole fuck you hill to get over.

I had a strong start on the bike, but with all the hills and having little training with them, I held myself back as to not burn out, which turned out to be the right call as I fried on the run. Within the first 10 miles, I was passing a lot of guys, which isn’t surprising as I’m one of the slowest swimmers. The road was pretty rough, but mostly free of gravel or the other mess you find around Charleston. Around the halfway point I had a rat run across my path, which I’m calling for good luck, but otherwise, most of the cycling portion was uneventful beyond the sweeping hills and farms. Played bunny hop with some guy around the last seven or so miles, and eventually just kicked myself to get through the last leg and passed him up. Strava data from the ride here.

Run: This was a simple two loop out and back across the Hartwell Dam. The view was pretty awesome, but there was close to zero overhead overage. Even with a hat and my Epix tri suit on (covers shoulders), I was absolutely toasted. The sun was reflecting off of the water, it was slightly elevated so you didn’t get a breeze, and I just couldn’t get my pace right. Around mile four there was a kid at an aid station with ice, so in my desperate state, I just told him to chuck a bunch in my tri suit. I zipped it up, and it was immediately filled with regret. TMI, sorry, but it just bottles up right at the private parts and makes you want to hit the porta-john. At least this distracted me for a bit, but into the last mile, I was feeling rough and walked for a second. Can’t recall the last time I did this in a race, so it was pretty disappointing, but I powered through and had a pretty crappy pace of around 9 minutes. Strava data from the run here.

Post-race: They threw me a medal, an iced towel, and some water. After breathing for a few, I stretched out, packed out, and rolled out. Apparently, where my Airbnb was, there was a festival that shut down the road, so that was a fun adventure of trying to find parking nearby + walking through a small town’s village while wearing a tri suit and being a hot mess. I accidentally parked at their prison, so that was a fun one to realize as I was getting back to the car. About 24 hours later I am feeling pretty solid, will do an easy hour on the bike, and go back to training as usual. I’d say overall I was pretty happy with how I did at Hartwell, and am feeling like I’m getting closer to being ready for the first half Ironman.

If you are looking for a solid olympic tri in the Georgia/South Carolina area (they have a sprint distance too) with pretty clean water and rolling hills, I can definitely recommend taking on the Hartwell.