Jon's Jibber-jabber

This is my retirement race.  I decided to do this after last year when a friend of mine and I did Florida together and had a blast.   We wanted to do our annual race together.   Lauren is always a step ahead of me and I've never beat her in a race.   But we have fun racing together.   We picked Chattanooga because of timing and because of the word of mouth reviews.  For me, this would be near the end of the season (before summer surface-of-the-sun heat arrives).  For Lauren, this is an early season race (Massachusetts is so far north).  It's kind of a middle point, albeit closer to me in the South.  During training for the race, I decided this would be it for long course. Hence, this is my retirement. I just don't have the mental strength to train for long course events.  I enjoy shorter distances much better.  I struggled with the Be Iron Fit training programs this cycle, especially during peak phase when the runs were long and the rides were even longer.  Pep-talking my