Hy-Vee Triathlon

OK - I went out and took the Garmin on a ride and run up the hills in question. First the run. I noticed on the map that they have switched the course to run up Grand. The hill there is a climb of about 65 feet and the distance is just about 2 city blocks ( measures .2 miles). That is a grade of 6.1%. The difference in the routes (last year vs. this year) is the distance covered of the climb. The grade up Grand is longer but more gradual, while the distance up walnut (793 ft) and about the same elevation (68 ft) or a grade of 8.6%. Pick your poison.

For the bike, the hills consist of the one on Grande and the one at Jordan Creek (which is the turn around). On the way out, you are basically flat or near flat until you make the turn onto Grande Avenue. Then you begin to climb. The climb is very gradual and comes in small sections. You travel up 4 or 5% grades for .2 of a mile about 4 times and then have another .2 to .4 that is flat. it is not a hard climb as you get plenty of time on the flats to regain some momentum and hit them hard. At the top you start down, do a little hump and then it is straight down. I have ridden it hard before and hit 40 going down. I did not do that yesterday (it was 7 PM and there was a good amount of traffic). It is a 177 ft descent in about 1.5 miles. At the bottom of that hill is a hard left hand turn that you really have to slow down for, especially if there are others with you at the time. It is a street to street turn from a five lane lane (Two lanes each direction and a left hand turn lane) to a five lane (2 lanes each and a left turn) so basically you have to make that turn from three lanes to two. Common sense tells you to stay right on the descent and turn from the far righ to the far right, but if it is crowded - there could be some issues. From there on out you are basically flat until you get to Jordan Creek (it is the largest shopping mall in Iowa). When you get there you go in on the North side and ride around the outside of the mall to the west - up a hill that is descent and then loop through the mall area to the bottle exchange - then loop around another area of the mall complex and then back down the hill and you are on your way back to the transition area. There are no difficulties to deal with until you get back on Grande - and then you havee to climb the "devil hill". The first and steepest part of it is about 1/2 mile long with a climb of 98 ft (about 4% grade) it continues to climb, but not as steeply to a total of 144ft over 1.07 miles, so the second part of the climb is a less steep 1.4% grade. When you get to the top you go down hill all the way to the lake and T2. I rode the route in under 1 hr 30 min and that was in traffic. It is not a bad ride.