IM Cozumel

Very cool!  I was beginning to wonder if this rumor would come to fruition.  Nov. 29, 2009 is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so this is pretty good timing.

The course looks great.  Two lap bike on the coastal roads could be interesting.

Very tempting!

Eh, Montezuma's Revenge takes a few hours to set in, so if you start drinking course water about mile 20 on the bike, you should be OK, hopefully to the end of the mary

Couple interesting things from the website:

- all roads will be closed to vehicle traffic.  from the looks of the map, that's the road all the way down to Punta Sur and halfway up, as well as the road from Chankanab Park (transition), past downtown all the way north.

- Swim will be a wave start by AG

Ten9T6 - 2008-08-05 10:19 AM Dang... I guess that it is time to plan another vacation.. I hate it when that happens.. Kenny

I don't mind the planning, it's the paying for it that kills me

Yeah, no kidding.

My Tri club is ramping everyone up for this race and also doing Cancun as a Tuneup. Airfare is $500+ per seat and that is going to get quite pricey in a hurry.

I spent nearly $10,000 doing IMCdA for Travel and Accomodations and I think I will stick close to home for a while. (IMAZ '09 is my race)

Not if you can drive to it, and Tempe hotels are cheaper than Coz hotels (especially at T'giving time......  the island is already pretty busy then).

The word is the same company that puts on Cancun 70.3 is doing Cozumel.  How was your experience with the organization of that race?

I know many athletes traveling to do CdA, AZ, FL, LP CDA who are spending a lot of $$ just on 1 week accommodations, air tickets, car rentals, food, family, etc. My post was making reference to that and I don't think it will be that much more expensive. In particular when Nov for Cancun/Cozumel is low traveling season...

i.e. For Steelehad this past weekend my air ticket was $450.00, I just got my flight to Cancun for the 70.3 in September and I just paid $470.00

I posted this in another thread about Cancun 70.3:

Positives: nice swim, easy to navigate on shallow water. They had divers and lifeguards on wave runners around for extra safety. New bike course pretty flat although it gets windy and there is a portion with a false flat. The course is completely closed to traffic which is very cool/safe. Plenty of aid stations on the bike.

Run is a 2 loop course on the hotel zone boulevard with no shadow. There are aid stations every km which is very nice as it can get VERY hot (on 2006 the heat and humidity was brutal). They had volunteers all over the run course and they have water in plastic bags which makes it nice to carry some without slowing you down. Aid stations had water, Gatorade, coke, gels, ice and bananas.

They offer a nice awards ceremony and a post race party with free beers for certain time, I didn’t go to the party but a few friends did and said it was fun. They guys taking racing digital pics have good prices and I think I bought a package for all (10 pics) for like 20.00-30.00 USD and got them online. They also sell a video

The best treat is to take a vacation after the race and enjoy a few days with the family/friends with the nice Caribbean see, sandy beaches and sightseeing to do around. Cancun is more of a Miami kind of place but once you head to the Riviera Maya towards playa del carmen you can get to visit very beautiful places and experience Mexico.

Negatives: Drafting was bad but it is no different than any other flattish race (i.e. FL 70.3, Clearwater 70.3, Steelehead 70.3) but at least last year there were many marshals separating packs and giving penalties. There is a portion in which you do a loop and which it gets congested but the truth is that if you draft is because you chose to do so. Everyone complained about it (as always) but since they sell a video you can see who was drafting ;-)

The biggest challenge for sure is the weather, last year we got lucky and we got pouring rain which although made the bike a bit exciting, it made the run very manageable. But the year before the heat and humidity was brutal!

The expo is rather small and finding CO2 cartridges and other stuff was tough; there are a few of bike store downtown but you’ll only get there is you know about it. Better to travel with as much of your stuff with you if possible.

The run can get very tough due to the heat even when they used to advertise the run as a beautiful one and bla bla bla, but there isn’t much to see around although you do pass a bridge with a nice view of the lagoon and sea.

So are you doing 2 IM's next year now?

I checked out the website and was going to actually sign-up then these words slowed me down.....NO WETSUITS.

Not sure I am ready for a 2.4 ocean swim non wetsuit.

Making it the weekend immediately following Thanksgiving is kind of tough ... flights are typically more expensive during that week and commonly "cost" more points if using them to obtain the plane tickets.

Since Thanksgiving is a big holiday around the house, not sure that I would be able to talk wifey into it - which bums me out to no end.

Racing in Cozumel would be pretty dang cool.

You can register now on the website.  Registration opens on Active.com later this month.