Subject: RE: IRONMAN Steelhead 2017 Originally posted by Dr Oz
First time doing Steelhead. Any tips? Either of you located in the western suburbs of Chicago?
I'm way down in central IL between Decatur and Mattoon. Tips for Steelhead... Be prepared for anything on the swim, I've done the race 3 times. 2013 there was pretty good chop, 2014 nice and calm, 2016 non-wetsuit in Lake Michigan.. who would've thought. The bike if pretty fair, a few rough patches in the 1st 28 miles where people seem to lose bottles, spare tubes, etc... A few hills but nothing too severe. I had 1,293 feet of elevation gain on my garmin. The run has roughly 350 feet of elevation gain. 1 big hill about a mile out of transition that you go up/down once. Another big hill coming out of the Whirlpool complex that you do twice (once/loop ). Not much shade on the course with the exception of the trail in the Whirlpool complex. Depending on you AG you could be going through a fair bit of traffic. I'm male 30-34 and we are next to last AG to start so run into some congestion on the bike. I'm not sure if I will do this race this year or not... leaning towards a trail ultra-marathon that weekend instead. |