Great Buckeye Challenge - All Distances

take that first big hill heading into the outer aid station on the bike EASY the first loop through, it will wreck the rest of your day if you hammer up it.

Sorry man.
Not me.
But you are MORE than ready for that HIM.

haven't signed up yet, but I'm planning to make this my first Oly.  Haven't been able to train as much as I wanted this summer so I'm just planning to finish.  No specific goal time.

the run course is a double out and back, very slight hill near the start and finish of each lap, the rest is flat, about half in teh shade (or maybe was jsut overcast last year.

bike course is mainly rolling with a decent hill leading into a small town about 10? miles into each loop (maybe more of less, not sure). be very very careful going up it, it will COOK your legs if you try to attack it and are not really racing for an overall spot.

the rest of the hills are not much of an issue at all.

there is another downhill after that (maybe 3-5 miles later) where you make a 90 degree left turn while going down a hill (i think thats where it is, again might be further on, look at a map), but you make the turn in the middle of a downhill, dont overshoot it, you'll end up in a deep ditch at high speed.

swim is fine, a bit murky and i think always wetsuit legal, but who knows with how hot its been

I am in, it will be my first oly distance. Just hoping to finish-not DFL.

This will be my first HIM as well.  I went down and rode the course a week ago, and newbz I know exactly what hill you are talking about.  It just never seemed to end.  The rest of the course was not bad at all.  Run course is fairly flat with one long grades section at the beginning/end of run, with one short steeper section about 2 miles out.

Newbz, have u done the HIM here before? My question is if there is bottle drop off/exchange, and where in the course this is?

yep have done the half. Had a pretty good day out there despite the longer swim last year (normally swim right around 30 or just under for that distance, was over 38 for this).

the bike course is two loops.

there is an aid station just after that climb (maybe in cawtaba? or whatever that town is).
You'll hit that on both loops. they will have bottles of HEED, water, and probably gels/some sort of fruit.
I would normally not worry about anything but water/HEED there. if you can throw your bottle as soon as you go through the light/intersection and make that left turn (the aid station is just a few feet up from there). the intersection forces you to slow down a bit so you are not blasting through there.

the other bike one is in the park parking lot just outside of transition where you start lap two. you go into the parking lot, down around a cone and make a 180 back out.

on the small out and back section of the half course, you make a 180 around a cone to turn back, be careful here if you are not a great bike handler/hate 180s as much as i do. its on a fairly narrow road and can be a tight turn (on the 2nd loop when i was getting tired i just unclipped one foot as i spun around it).

The run course is really a non-issue as far as the terrian goes. the longer hill at the end of hte loop is not really bad at all on the first lap, and by the 2nd you are about done and its doable.

the shorter steep hill just past a mile in is short enough you should be fine.

when you ride it, the out and back section does not feel as bad as it looks, the first few hills into town are the ones that will kill you

Thanks for the info, Dave. The "out" definitely looked worse than the "back." I hope that holds true for the rest of the course too (that it's worse than it looks).

A big fat DNF for me due to mechanical issues. DNF came 43 miles into the bike. Race report linked below:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=223428&posts=1&start=1

I hope everyone else had a good race. The weather was definitely nice for a tri. Overcast, no rain, and cooler temps.

first off, dude i'm sorry, that totally sucks.


For next time/if this ever happens again.

Try putting an empty gel wrapper between the tube and the hole in the tire (a dollar bill on a training ride often works too).

It could have been too messed up to matter, but worth a try, oftentimes this is enough to add a bit of structure/ cover the hole in the tire.


Could have been a fualty tire, you could have just hit a gouge in the road/some glass (which would do that to a tire as well if you hit it wrong).

very sorry, and better luck next time (you should come race toyota now!!

Wow, that totally sucks. I am so sorry. This was actually my first oly (or mini) and it went quite well.
Thanks for the race report.

This was also my first Oly and I really enjoyed it.  Thanks Goodness for the overcast.  It made the race condisions great.  Did anyone feel that the swim was longer than 1,000 meters?  My swim time was terrible.  I was 10 minutes slower than I thought i'd be.  It was a nice race and very organized.  The big hill was a killer but there were a lot of downhills for recovery also.  I will be back next year for the HIM. 
Great Time and Great People.
Tom

last year the swim was seriously long, i did the half and normally swim that distance in 27-29min, and it took 38. also remember the swim includes that whole run to transition (not that that would take 10 min).

We had a group of 4 or 5 racing the half.  All of us had really off swim times.  I usually do 1.2 in 40 minutes and did 48.  it was definitely long.  congrats to everyone that raced!!!