No indeed. After the previous discussion, I decided to take a break and came to the conclusion that this place is now a net drain on my emotions rather than a boost. It's sad, because this group has meant a lot to me over the years and helped me through a rough patch in my life. However, whether it's me or the tone of the thread and forum, it's not good for me anymore.

That said, I'll never pass up an opportunity to brag on AG and y'all seem to enjoy that, so I wanted to poke my head back in and give an update. Pic-heavy.

We stopped at Buc'ees on the way to Chattanooga, because of course we did.



Somewhere in Alabama, an email came through stating that the swim was cancelled because of water quality and flow issues. There were rivers of mud across the road in places on the way in, and it turned out the run had to be rerouted as well. Once we were there it became clear how bad the flooding was. In the pic below, the lamps on concrete are supposed to be lighting the footpath a portion of the run was on. The river was flowing at triple the rate of what would be a fast swim, and the E.coli was off the charts.



With the swim cancelled, AG was put off her game. It takes away one of her strengths and hands the day to the uberbikers, which is how the day went down. It was a time trial start from transition, and you can see how nonplussed she was.



She rode to her target power, moving up to 10th after a slower start due to not having warmed up on the swim. Here she is coming back into transition and then loading up on fuel at the run start.





And still looking stronk a few miles from the finish.



When I saw her I told her she was looking solid and running faster than everyone around her. She yelled back something that I couldn't hear, which turned out to be "I fell!". She tripped over nothing at mile one and still ran herself from 10th to 3rd. Here she is in the med area at the finish line getting bandaged.



And the podium.



Plus, a gratuitous bridge shot. I think [MENTION=29415]BillyD[/MENTION] liked these, though I remember someone did.



Kona did not roll down to her in third, so no Kona trip for 2019. However... there is a new event: Alohaman XTri Hawai'i. It was announced shortly before Kona this year, and instead of 2.4/ 112/ 26.2 it's 2.4/ 125/ 28.5. The bike climbs Mauna Kea twice; the run climbs it once. When she saw it she was more excited than I've seen her for any other race ever, so of course she signed up. Sherpa duties become very legitimate here, with each racer needing a support runner (or half-half tag team support runners) to mule their supplies because there are very few aid stations, being much smaller than a branded Ironman. I'll be splitting the duties with her sister. Slowtwitch has a great feature on it (https://www.slowtwitch.com/Lifestyle...Tour_7046.html) and there are videos of the course recon those photos were taken on somewhere on the FBs, but I'm not sure where. She did watch them. So we will indeed be back to the Big Island next year.

I do hope everyone's been well, and I'm sorry for the breakdown and any awkwardness or uncomfort I caused.