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New Year’s Eve Party @ Peabody Little Rock — 12.31
The hotel’s huge annual party featured music from bands Tyrannosaurus Chicken, Ephiphany and Tomorrow Maybe, and Rodney Block and the Real Music Lovers as well as DJs Tre’ Day, G-Force and Brandon Peck, aka DJ 1-Up.
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Corey Haustein, with Race Day Wheels, boxes up bike wheels Monday at Ross's Landing. The company rents wheels at all North Americian Ironman events.Ellen Conley, of Stone Mountain, Ga., competed in her first full Ironman in Chattanooga on Sunday, and the 23-year-old finished first in her age group and was at the Chattanooga Convention Center on Monday morning to claim her spot in the 2015 Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.
"[Sunday] went a lot better than I expected to," she said after paying her entrance fee for the Hawaii event. "I expected to come in about an hour and a half after I did, so the fact that it went so well was surprising."
Conley finished the 144.6-mile race in 12:18.
"It was just an awesome day with overcast skies and cooler temperatures and rain. It worked out really well."
Exceeding expectations seemed to be a running theme for the inaugural Little Debbie Ironman Chattanooga. The weather was good, the crowds lining the roads large and loud, the army of volunteers performed amazingly well and a high percentage of athletes was able to complete the 144.6-mile triathlon before the 12:15 a.m. cutoff time Monday morning.
"I think the hospitality in Chattanooga ... as well as in North Georgia has been outstanding," said Jeff Edwards, vice president of operations for Ironman of North America. "We saw so many people come out yesterday from volunteer to spectators. It just was a fantastic showing by everyone involved."
While most competitors and officials praised the event, the day had a few bad moments as well. Tacks and oil were strewn along a section of the bike course in Walker County, causing several flat tires and ending the race for a handful of competitors, and a body was found Sunday morning in the Tennessee River just downstream from the exit to the swim portion of the race. That discovery was not related to the Ironman, officials said.
Officials with the Walker County Sheriff's Office told the Times Free Press that they are taking the sabotage of the bike course "very seriously" and pursuing several leads in an effort to identify those responsible.
But for the most part the event went off well, and 2,241 of the 2,349 athletes who checked in were able to finish the race and hear their name called by legendary Ironman announcer Mike Reilly as they crossed the finish line at Ross's Landing.
Several athletes were treated in the medical tent at the finish line, and at least 12 were taken to area hospitals. Erlanger reported treating 11 athletes -- eight for injuries suffered in bike crashes, and three for dehydration -- but all had been released by Monday morning.
Ironman employee Morgan Legaux works on packing up bins at the vendor tent Monday morning at Ross's Landing."It's a real testament to the skill level of these athletes, event organizers, and to our ER team, that only 11 out of 2,300 participants required treatment at Erlanger's ER -- and none required hospitalization," Erlanger medical director Dr. Rob Hamilton said in a released statement.
Scott Wilhoit of Chattanooga was taken to Parkridge Hospital with kidney failure after finishing 717th overall.
"I went to medical after the race and they started an IV," he said Monday. "But it wasn't taking because my kidneys had shut down. So they decided to call an ambulance.
"I was already feeling better by the time I got to Parkridge, but they gave me two more bags of [fluid] there and it really started flushing my system out, and they released me and I was back at the finish line before midnight."
As cleanup began Monday, people were still buying Ironman souvenirs at the merchandise tent, and the slots for the 2015 Ironman Chattanooga were quickly filled. Now, officials will begin to look toward how to make things even better next year.
"We do a fairly standard debriefing with all the agencies involved," Edwards said. "We take all the feedback we can get from the community organizations and agencies to provide guidance to make improvements for the following years."
Despite a trip to the emergency room, Wilhoit said it will be hard for Chattanooga to top what was accomplished in its first Ironman.
"For it to be the first year, there were people lining the streets and making this such a big event," he said. "I think the spectators make it as big an event as the racers do, and I feel like we had a great amount of support from the community."
Staff writers Kendi Anderson and Kate Harrison Belz contributed to this story.
Contact Jim Tanner at jtanner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6478. Follow him at twitter.com/JFTanner.