The 2009 Iron Girl – Atlanta race was awesome! It was held at Lake Lanier Islands Resort and they did a spectacular job covering all the details. 1,200 women signed up for the race, and I think a little over 1,000 participated. There were 6 professional triathletes that started us off at 7:00 a.m. this morning. All but one has done and won at least one Ironman race and that girl is scheduled to do one shortly. Insane! The first one finished in about an hour and ¼. The event will be televised on Aug. 2^nd on NBC.

My swim wave was the 2^nd to the last one and started about 7:25 a.m. The Lake was nicer than Lake Houston and Galveston Bay because the water was clearer and the temperature was nice. I swam 1/3 mile in 16:51 but I “lapped” my GPS as soon as I got out of the water. USAT times you until you get into the transition area. They had me at 18:09 for the swim. My T1 time was 6:12. Theirs was 4:39. The hill we had to climb to get to T1 was just one of many, many “wicked” hills.

Next came the bike ride. 18 miles of hills, hills, and more hills. Comparable to the ride I did in Hattiesburg a couple of weeks ago out Tatum Camp Road to Browns Bridge Road. Not much flat land. The total climb was 1,384 feet. There were some nice downhills. My max speed was 43. I passed two cars! I went super fast on the downhills and passed lots of bikers, but they usually caught up to me ¾ of the way up the next hill. Then I’d pass them again, and they’d pass me again. One girl’s bike chain broke about ¼ way into the bike portion. She was so sad. I heard her saying to the volunteer, “After all that training and then this happens.”  I’m sure there was more than one case of road rash. I heard one lady hit the pavement and had a pretty nasty bump on the head. My recorded time was 1:24:51. They had me at 1:25:19. My T2 was 3:15. Theirs was 3:13. Pretty close.

The 5K run was about as hilly as Poplarville – at least! Did I say I HATE hills?! Anyway, IG had my 5K time at 41:59. I forgot to stop my Garmin after I crossed the finish line for a couple of minutes, so I had 43:50.  I heard my name coming across the finish line and got my Iron Girl medal.

I was very happy that I did as well as I did considering all the problems I had in the month of June, missing over two full weeks of workouts. My final time was 2:33:19. Total ascent for the race was 4,195 feet. Total descent was 4,135. I’m sure I’ll want to do this race again because I’m one of those “Crazy” Pine Belt Pacers!