Ironman 70.3 Vineman : Official Thread (Page 2)

Going for my second Synvisc knee shot today, hope the knee(s) are ready in July for run. My swimming at Masters should get me ready for Russian River swim and my hill  repeats on the bike in AZ mtns should get me the hill  training for rolling hills thru the vineyards but my knees worry me with those rolling hills on the run.

The after party should have plenty of wine at finish! I have fasted from wine and beer during my training. I sure am looking forward to a glass of wine after the finish!!

Well, I guess my feeling is that it depends on why you are getting the tattoo.  If you are getting it to be a part of the "Ironman Group", then there may be some concern that others may view it as posing, and only you can say if that is an issue for you.  But if you put the 70.3 in there before it, you are clearly stating it is for a HIM.  If you do finish a full, the 140.3 below it will shut 'em up!  If you are getting it for yourself, to celebrate your personal acheivement, then I would say go for it.  As an alternate, you could consider using the race specific logo (or a variation on it) which incorporates the M-Dot but also celebrates the race itself:

I was able to make it up to Windsor today and (mostly) ride the course. Because the T2 and T2 are separated, I chose a point between that would allow me to take most of the course and ride about the same distance.  Calculated distance was to be 57 miles, but due to a missed turn ended up to be 61 miles.  Here's my take on the course:

A - The 'off-course' part of the ride due to T1 and T2 being separated. 

B - Westside Road/Dry Creek Road.  When you first get onto Westside Road you are going to be confronted with a short steep hill.  The road itself looks like it is heading back into a residential area, so I wasn't sure this was the right turn and had to stop and do a map check.  After you get to the top of that hill it is roller after roller after roller.  The road is rough and to make matters worse, there is a lot of tree cover which combined with the morning sun makes it tough to tell the difference between a shady spot and a pothole.  There are a lot of places along the course, Westside especially, where there are 4-10" chunks of asphalt missing and holes 2" and deeper.  You've got to really watch where you are going; I predict a high incidence of pinch flats will be witnessed.  If, like me, you have a road bike with clip on aerobars, you might find it tough to spend a lot of time on Westside in aero as you are constantly shifting and the road is so rough I felt I needed to be on the hoods or the drops most of the time for safety.  Once you get to Dry Creek, the road improves significantly.  Below is a comparison of elevation to speed from this morning with the red line signifying where you leave Dry Creek and turn on Canyon (or you are supposed to).  As you can see, the rollers are combined with a continuous climb, so this part of the ride turns out to be one of the tougher ones.

C - Oops.  I somehow missed the turn onto Canyon and it took me a couple of miles to really be certain I'd missed it.  You can see where my speed drops to zero just past the red line as I'm pulling out my map and firing up the GPS on the phone to figure out what happened.  This came back to haunt me later as I was certain I had missed Chalk Hill road (see pause at about mile 45) but just forgot to add in the mileage from my Canyon road miss to my turn by turn chart.

D- Canyon Road.  Really nice road to ride.  Starts out with a gentle uphill to lull you into a sense of false security as there is a real hill to be ridden here.  Not a killer, but one to be respected.  The neat thing is when you get to the top and you see the other side, it is a hill to be rocketed down.  I didn't go all out today but will push it harder on race day.  Seriously, this should be a 40+mph hill.  Part of the issue today was that Highway 101 is at the bottom and there was a truck getting onto Canyon from 101 that had me a bit concerned.  On race day, no such concerns as the police will be directing traffic there.  Have some fun on this hill!

E - Highway 128.  Most of 128 is in great condition.  After the rough ride on the outbound leg, it is like riding on glass.  You can get down in aero and really get your rhythm as the rollers are small and few and it is a slight downhill overall.  Even though you stay on highway 128, there are an inordinate number of 90 degree turns you have to make which was interesting today, but they will be well marked with volunteers there on raceday - or so I hope.  About 4 miles before you turn off onto Chalk Hill the net downhill turns into a net uphill with a not insignificant climb just before the turn.  This gets you thinking about the ominous Chalk Hill as you turn on to the road that is its namesake.

F - Chalk Hill Road - Starts out as a really fun road.  Good downhill with some sweet turns that last a couple of miles then you get the precursor hills to Chalk Hill.  Never having ridden this before, I wasn't sure when I would hit Chalk Hill so each of the smaller ones got me thinking "Is this it?"  If you have to ask, you haven't reached it.  If you look at the hill at mile 52 above, you'll see that it stands out above all others.  It is a 220 foot climb over 3/4 of a mile.  At first it was a tough slog, but once I found the rhythm it was just a grind.  The backside is another fun downhill but I was behind on nutrition for part of it so use that as an opportunity to refuel.  At the end of Chalk Hill you turn onto Pleasant Hill and I found out the UN-pleasant way that there was one of those chunks of asphalt missing just before the intersection as I was looking for cross traffic.  It was a really big jolt and I'm equally surprised I didn't go down and that I didn't get a pinch flat.  Again, I'd advise keeping a close eye on the surface you plan to track over!

The rest of the ride from that point is basically flat after a 1/4 mile uphill on Pleasant Hill and when you turn on Shiloh you can really motor for a couple of miles.  Then it is city streets the rest of the way in.

Overall I was quite happy with the ride today.  I learned a lot about the course and it will help me to plan for race day better.  My Garmin Moving Time had me at 3:26 for the 60.8 miles, translating into an average moving speed of 17.7 mph (I use moving to try and eliminate my map-reading stops).  It wasn't race day performance, but then again it wasn't race day.  I think to get under 6 hours I'll need to have a minimum of 18 mph and with the training time left and race day conditions, I think it is doable.  I actually thought I'd hit that today, but the outbound part of the course surprised me as it was more of a challenge than I'd thought it would be. 

As just a final note, my training schedule had me get off the bike and do a 20 minute run after this ride.  I've struggled with keeping it slow at the beginning of the run as the legs really get used to a 90+ cadence, but today did better.  First few hundred yards were of course painful as muscles that were tight loosened up, but then felt OK.  I was able to keep the pace from being an

I know this was a bit of a long post but hopefully there were some helpful nuggets in there for those who have not done this ride yet.  If you are going to use this for any planning, please remember that the mileages mentioned above DO NOT correspond to the course as my starting point was different and my oops at point C adding in miles.

-Tom

Tom, thanks for the recap of the course!  I watched the VTR video and it's just not the same as actually riding it....in fact, with the way they speed it up, I was certain I'd be spending my entire ride on the horns to navigate the turns, but I'm thinking/hoping that will not be the case.

I wonder if they'll mark the potholes and such before the race?  I know a lot of our local roads are crap, so they'll go out with bright orange spray paint and mark the roads so we can see stuff like that to avoid potential pinch flats and whatnot. 

One last question -- were the roads dirty?  If so, was the dirt enough to make it slippery?  I remember the VTR video showed a lot of dirt on one section of the road and I was concerned about how our skinny bike tires would handle it.

Nicole,

I posted on the Vineman 70.3 forum and got the response that in fact the organizers do a good job of repairing the really big holes and marking the others.  Good to hear!  I'm going to ride the course again with a cycling buddy next week and will post any new findings I think are worthwhile.  Question for those familiar with the course: Is there a fountain in Geyserville where one can refill water bottles, or a store where we can buy water?  I'd guess the answer would have to be yes, but want to stash some water if not sure as it is going to be WARM on that ride.

So today was another triple brick - 2100 yd swim/37 mile ride/7 mile run.  These workouts are a real new thing for me as I still consider myself new to Tri.  The neat thing here is that on this training brick, comparing it to my Oly last fall, my swim was faster by 13 sec/100, the bike was at the same pace as the Oly, and the run was 16 sec/mile slower - but that's a victory as I'm trying to SLOW DOWN after getting off the bike.  Tells me that I've made some good progress over the past few months of training and am on the right track for July!