Ironman St. George : Official Thread

I'm in...

IM #8

This will be my first Ironman.  I can't wait to do this!

I'm in!
This well be my 4th Ironman ... My 5th Ironman distance  (I did Vineman 140.6 not a trade mark Ironman)

Edited by dkrrt 2010-07-31 11:57 AM

Opps my bad!
St George will be my 5th Ironman (Wisconsin, Coeur D Alene, Louisville and I'm doing  Florida 2010 - I did Vineman 140.6 however (needless to say) that is not an Ironman Race

I'm in too.  Will be my 7th at that point since number 6 will be earlier in the year at New Zealand.

enginerd-

 two 140.6's a week apart?

7/25/10 IM Lake Placid
7/31/10 Vineman (full)

And then two more 2 months apart

3/5/2011 IM New Zealand
5/7/2011 IM St. George

wow... just... wow ... 


Edited by dkrrt 2010-08-04 7:01 PM

Hey Douglas.  Yeah, two in 1 week.  Crazy, huh?  It was an interesting experiment.  I just finished both those race reports too in case anyone's curious.

Dude !!!! Amazing! Seriously I am truly impressed! Wow! Nice!

Donato -

I don't know what's more impressive -- the two great race reports, or the two very, very fine perfomances mere days apart from each other. No! Wait! Many people can pull off great race reports, but not too many people can post the times you did LP and Vineman in, bacK-to-back. Sweet Mother of Mercy!

How's your come-down from LakeVinePlacidMan? Is everything copacetic......or are you scratching around trying to figure out what to do with yourself now?!?

I will take some time deciding about St. George. I live east of Ottawa, Ontario, and getting in the requisite mileage for an iron so early in the season is not all that easy. There will be no open watewr swims before SG, and I'll need some decent spring weather to crank out at least one as-close-as-possible-to-a-century ride. But I am intrigued and tempted and all, and fortunately have time to decide - as of last week, it was about only 70% full.

Again, huge congratulations on the twins irons!

Donato again -

Your May-play was also pretty epic -- Wildflower half, Wildflower oly, and then (gulp) Auburn.

You know, you fit the perfect profile for a Triple-T candidate. When are you going to tackle that baby??

Hi Steve.  Yeah, an early season race is going to be challenging for everyone, esp. for those up you further north.  I'm not yet sure how to approach training for NZ since it's 2 months earlier.  I'm trying to decide if I should take it easy during the winter and try to ramp up before the race or just try to maintain my fitness from here going forward and throw in some additional races later in the year; I'm leaning towards the latter.

Thanks for all the comments on my Wildflower double/May triple and my Lake Placid-Vineman double.  I don't ever expect to be super fast so I look for new challenges to push my limits and multiple events seems one way to do this.  Triple T is definitely on my to do list as is ultraman and/or a double IM.  Stay tuned!

I'm not sure if everyone's seen this chart below from this site http://www.runtri.com/2010/07/runtri-benchmarks-easiest-ironman.html


 

I know St. George is supposed to be a very difficult course (both the bike and run).  It seems kind of daunting when you simply look at the chart that implies it's the most difficult.  But I suspect it is misleading.  What this assumes is that there is the same level of competition at each race.  I think it's safe to say that Kona is a bit more competitive than most any other race, yet shows up as the second fastest course.  When I did Wisconsin, it seemed like it was very popular with first timers.  When I did Lanzarote, all those Europeans looked way fit and I was just a small scrawny guy.  I talked to a guy who did St. George as his first IM and he didn't really know what he was in for.  In any case, food for thought.

Donato -

What a great chart! Many thanks for it!

My guess is along the lines of what you say that at the end of your comments -- that many people didn't know what to expect with St. George. The elevation charts were abit misleading in that it might've been easy for people to breathe easily about the two massive descents without discerning the demands of the various stages of the two massive ascents. I guess what you need to better portray that sort of thing is an elevation chart that goes well beyond about 7" -- like, extend it way out and let it be obvious that threr are places in which the pitch is very steep.

It's also interesting what you say about Lanzarote, and then to see how it plces on the chart. Is it possible/probable (wouldn't surprise me in the least) that there are more North Americans who enter IM either undertrained or as part of their bucket list, where they end up being one-and-out of triathloning? I mean, there's Wisconsin and Couer D'Alene in the top few, and Canada and Placid bracketing Lanzarote......and all along I thought Lanzarote was the bearish of the bunch. Huh!

Donato again -

You seem to scoot around the nation and world enough, so I figure it's fairly easy for you to scoot down south a few hundred miles to get in some decent winter riding. Yes?

For me, it isn't so easy, as I'd have to get down at least to the Carolinas to ensure that the rides were clement enough to justify the journey. But were i to do SG, I would make a dash (or two?) down southwards for whatever riding I could squeeze in. I just cannot entertain the throught of doing training for SG strictly on my trainer and rollers!

All of the above is preface to saying that I would support your inclination to maintain fitness and try to augment it with a few races here and there. For me, up here, it is always potentially a slippery slope to take too much of the winter too easy and then rely on an effective early-early season ramp-up.

Ultraman? Double IM?? Mercy!

(And Savageman? What about Savageman? )

Donato- thanx for the chart and the website.  I'm thinking Kona is an entirely different race than any other Ironman-  Most are the best - (fastest)  athletes that Ironman has  for that year ... world wide - Its the cream of the crop- No doubt St George is difficult -2000 feet of climbing in a marathon that was proceeded by a bike that has close to 6600 feet of climbing . Yikes! That's insanity ... now add that fact, that it takes place in early MAY - a very early season race ... not so bad for the people who don't live in snow we can pretty much train year round - but for those who do deal with subfreezing weather and snow its a tough race to train for (stationary and treadmill... ?) also gotta consider the fokes who live in flatland ... again a difficult race to train for if ya can't practice climbin (both bike and run).

BTW ... St George is still open... that in it's self speaks volumes about an Ironman
You're an amazing athlete I will live vicariously thru you and your race reports - keep up the good work!


Edited by dkrrt 2010-08-13 6:16 PM

Steve, yeah, I'm very fortunate to not have to deal with snow.  We will get cold and rain, but definitely not as rough as the vast majority of the country.  Yeah, I'm leaning towards maintaining.  It's so much easier to maintain than to try to build up during the winter months. 

Maybe Savageman.  It's probably incrementally tougher than Auburn from what I read although brute force climbing is not my forte since I don't have the raw power that many others have (but then again, i'm a fleaweight so that helps). 

That chart is interesting indeed, but my guess is that time will likely drop a bit next year. None of us knew what to expect. For myself, I played it conservative since it was both my first IM and an inaugural course. Now I know where I can push harder next year, and can hone my training to what I now know of the course.

I have nothing but hills to both run and bike on and am lucky to live where I train outdoors year round. I'm also a mountain goat and roll a 53/39, I was totally in my element at SG.

It seems that folks who dont have access to heavy hills suffered the most. I have heard either "It was awesome, I can't wait to go back" or "that was waaay to hard, forget it, you're crazy to go back" with out much in between.

Few tips: Train on hills, then train on hills some more. And if you can, get into some cold water so you know how to deal with it.

I, for one, cannot wait to get back on this course!

hey guys! I'm in too
IM #2 (was supposed to be #3 but had to drop out of wisconsin with a stress fx in my hip)
just coming back from my injury for clearwater and excited for a winter of training!
I'll be out at the course Oct 17th so I will try to take pics and videos etc as much as possible.
looking forward to getting to know you all along the way! 

So, are most people flying into vegas or into st. george?


Do you think that this one is harder because of the bike or the run? (or the combo?)

How about the variety of weather?  Could it be very cold?

I just registered! It will be #2 for me, and I am really excited about the adventure!!!

St. George probably won't sell out correct? I am thinking about doing it, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to get in the proper training during the winter here in Boise. If I have more time to determine if I'll be ready that would be a big boost. I looooooove that area of the country. I'd love to try and make it my 1st IM.

St. George has a very tiny municipal air strip. All the folks I know who flew in, went to Vegas and rented a car.

My guess(totally uneducated) would be that St.George will sell out. Especially now that CDA is sold out and once its the only US based race left open, it will fill.

Edited by LittleCat 2010-09-05 11:44 AM

Ironman St George is still open for registration ... wow ...

the official website  (http://www.ironmanstgeorge.com/)   has the hotels in the area listed with great descriptions .. distance from to the start line ...shuttles ... distance from the finish.  also some info on air travel -  the web site  is  set up really nice ...