Ironman Louisville : Official Thread (Page 2)

That's about the time I would expect.  I did IMFL in 1:14 and change, and most of my halves are under 35 mins.  I am not worried too much about the IMLOU swim given what I went through with the mass start at Florida!  That swim will scare the crap out of you for the first 1000 meters.  Then is settles down.  A time trial start would seem pretty calm to me. 

I almost went back to Florida in 2012 to really try to race that course, but then decided to try Louisville for a different experience.  I know it will be more difficult, but I have heard a lot of good things about this race. 

Hi there,

So everyone from IMKY 2011 is saying that the biggest challenge is the hills on a ride! I have a question, how bad are they? Are they many, how tough are they? What is the longest and the hardest?

Nick

I did LOU this year. In my opinion the hardest hill section was the "out and back" or "finger" section as they call it. You only do it once, before you start the loop portion of the bike course. The grade at one point is 14%.

Hills are so relative. I live in (the flat part of) Kansas so have to drive ~1hr to find hills of any substance and they were still a challenge for me. The best advice I can give is to do a practice ride on the race course beforehand. The IAMTRI (www.iamtri.com) group puts on really great practice weekends with fully supported course swims and rides - I highly recommend it if you are concerned about the bike course at all.
  

EDIT: Found this online...  The second red box is the "out and back" finger.

I'm boarder line... Will see how the next few months of training go before I pull the trigger on registration.

Hey everyone,

Just want to share a thing I have found lately. There is a 5 videos set on youtube about Louisville bike course. I find it pretty useful. A guy just driving around in the car and showing places, hills, etc. Just type "Ironman Louisville Bike Course" in search.

Have a great weekend everyone

I have a little running/swimming background in the sense I swam 2 yrs in high school and would run 5-6 miles 3 times a week. Only biking background I had was cross country and endurance mountain bike races. I trained from Oct 15-Day of Ironman Lou. I took a month off due to knee injury(swam alot during that time as form of recovery). Stay consistent in training, have a purpose in your training and you will be fine. I did a sprint in April, the cardinal harbor half ironman in july and that was great for preparation. Enjoy the journey.

Welcome, take the 140 mile trip to Madison and practice on the Ironman Wisconsin bike course. They are pretty close in elevation.

The #1 recommendation I would make to anyone doing IM Louisville for the first time.

I'm in!

Ghost it'll be good to see you out there!

Bike: non-stop rolling hills from what I recall so it was hard for me to get into a rhythm back in 2008. I believe having a Power Meter for the bike is HUGE on this course. So many people cook the bike course and suffer so hard on the run. Seriously control your effort on the bike and stay hydrated otherwise you'll join the living dead that walk the run course.

Run: It's hot with pretty much no shade. Staying cool is key.

Swim: I plan on wearing a skinsuit for a bunch of various different reasons. Due to them being textile now I do not think they'll be as hot as the older suits that had neoprene in them.

Crap, I need to ride my bike a lot more haha

Wow!!! Big race for the first one out.  It will be my first IM too but it's taken me 2 1/2 years of tri's to get the courage up to take on the challenge.

I'm on the fence about signing up. Would be my first IM.

Something is telling me I should do this, though. I've had at least 2 dreams in the past couple months about running over that bridge at the start of the run. i've never been to Louisville, but I've seen myself running over it!

Congrats on signing up.  It's a lot of fun.  This will be your first tri of any distance?  I would highly recommend doing some sprint and olympic distance tri's before then so you know what you are getting yourself into.

I agree. If nothing else, a couple of shorter distances will help with figuring out your transitions. Shorter distances will be good practice for the 'big day'.