Well, I finally had time to write it up last night. Here is my take on the IM 70.3 Flordia race for those that might be interested in doing it sometime.
Weather: At the start of the race it was nice and cool, in the mid 60’s. Once on the bike, the sun came out but it was covered by clouds on and off. The winds were light with forecasted winds of 13 to 18 miles an hour. The sun was out in full force on the run, but it did cloud up every so often, the forecast for the day was 86 degrees. These conditions were way better than last year when the temperature was in the 90’s.
Swim: The swim course was a big “U” loop. On race day the water was nice and calm but too hot for wetsuits. The water temp was in the low 80’s. They did have plenty of buoys but the initial straight away didn’t seem too straight. The beach was nice and had plenty of room for spectators. They had plenty of support personnel along the course. It was kind of an early start for the swim, the first wave of male pros hit the water at 6:20 AM and every wave after went every 4 minutes.
The swim to bike transition was long. It was nice to see that they did manage to put carpet down on the wood chip path. Funny thing is they were about 30 to 40 feet short before reaching the grassy area of the bike transition, so we did have to run on the wood chips at one point.
Bike: The bike was one loop. The initial and final portions of the loop had us riding through the Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground roads, which were nice and didn’t have any traffic. Once off the Disney property there weren’t any closed roads, but in most cases we did have one lane to ourselves or we were on the shoulder. In some cases they were controlling the amount of traffic on the road we were on, which wasn’t too bad for a Sunday morning. There was one stretch of road that seemed a bit intimidating. There was no shoulder and the cars really didn’t know what to do, I passed 3 or 4 cars as they crept along. The course was well marked and had lots of support from the local authorities. It was flat with a couple of small hills and then some rolling hills just past the midway point, the course had lots of turns, one of them being a tight 180 turn. We had plenty of headwind and crosswind to deal with, but not much in the sense of a tailwind. They had marshals on the course but there seemed to be some drafting going on from what I saw and from what others were saying. At one point I came across a penalty tent and there were 4 or 5 people stopped there. My bike computer had me almost 2 mile ahead at mile marker 45 and when I finished it was over 57 miles. Some people stated that the bike course changed and that they liked this course much better.
The bike dismount to the transition area entrance was not that far but they had you running on crushed / packed gravel, but it sort of woke your feet up stepping on the rocks if you were just wearing socks. We did have to go out this way from T1 also.
Run: The run was 3 loops. The run starts on a paved trail and then goes to a paved road closed to normal traffic. It goes out and comes back and just past the 1 mile mark it turns left on to a grassy trail. The trail section was flat but uneven at times, with lots of grass and dirt. This trail section was long enough to support 3 aid stations before getting back on the paved road of the resort and then the paved trail. There was really no shade along the trail and it seemed that the heat increased a degree or two when you were out there. The paved trail was nice because it was like running in the woods, it seemed cooler when you were on it. Along the way there was plenty of room for spectators to cheer you on. In talking to others that have done the race before, this was a different run course and they all said it was better, way better than running through a portion of a golf course like they had before.
Well, I finally had time to write it up last night. Here is my take on the IM 70.3 Flordia race for those that might be interested in doing it sometime.
Weather: At the start of the race it was nice and cool, in the mid 60’s. Once on the bike, the sun came out but it was covered by clouds on and off. The winds were light with forecasted winds of 13 to 18 miles an hour. The sun was out in full force on the run, but it did cloud up every so often, the forecast for the day was 86 degrees. These conditions were way better than last year when the temperature was in the 90’s.
Swim: The swim course was a big “U” loop. On race day the water was nice and calm but too hot for wetsuits. The water temp was in the low 80’s. They did have plenty of buoys but the initial straight away didn’t seem too straight. The beach was nice and had plenty of room for spectators. They had plenty of support personnel along the course. It was kind of an early start for the swim, the first wave of male pros hit the water at 6:20 AM and every wave after went every 4 minutes.
The swim to bike transition was long. It was nice to see that they did manage to put carpet down on the wood chip path. Funny thing is they were about 30 to 40 feet short before reaching the grassy area of the bike transition, so we did have to run on the wood chips at one point.
Bike: The bike was one loop. The initial and final portions of the loop had us riding through the Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground roads, which were nice and didn’t have any traffic. Once off the Disney property there weren’t any closed roads, but in most cases we did have one lane to ourselves or we were on the shoulder. In some cases they were controlling the amount of traffic on the road we were on, which wasn’t too bad for a Sunday morning. There was one stretch of road that seemed a bit intimidating. There was no shoulder and the cars really didn’t know what to do, I passed 3 or 4 cars as they crept along. The course was well marked and had lots of support from the local authorities. It was flat with a couple of small hills and then some rolling hills just past the midway point, the course had lots of turns, one of them being a tight 180 turn. We had plenty of headwind and crosswind to deal with, but not much in the sense of a tailwind. They had marshals on the course but there seemed to be some drafting going on from what I saw and from what others were saying. At one point I came across a penalty tent and there were 4 or 5 people stopped there. My bike computer had me almost 2 mile ahead at mile marker 45 and when I finished it was over 57 miles. Some people stated that the bike course changed and that they liked this course much better.
The bike dismount to the transition area entrance was not that far but they had you running on crushed / packed gravel, but it sort of woke your feet up stepping on the rocks if you were just wearing socks. We did have to go out this way from T1 also.
Run: The run was 3 loops. The run starts on a paved trail and then goes to a paved road closed to normal traffic. It goes out and comes back and just past the 1 mile mark it turns left on to a grassy trail. The trail section was flat but uneven at times, with lots of grass and dirt. This trail section was long enough to support 3 aid stations before getting back on the paved road of the resort and then the paved trail. There was really no shade along the trail and it seemed that the heat increased a degree or two when you were out there. The paved trail was nice because it was like running in the woods, it seemed cooler when you were on it. Along the way there was plenty of room for spectators to cheer you on. In talking to others that have done the race before, this was a different run course and they all said it was better, way better than running through a portion of a golf course like they had before.
Continued on my tri-blog at trijuice.com
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