Ironman 70.3 Timberman : Official Thread (Page 2)

Hey guys - any word on registration? are we close to full?

i need to plan my season and living in procrastination-nation trying to get to the finish line of my first Boston marathon

There's really no boat docks I know of you could use for the race.  It's right next to Lakeshore Park if you know anyone there.

I ride and run this course, or at least parts of it, almost every weekend as I have a summer camp at the lake a few miles from the start.  If it wasn't on an island I'd offer everyone to camp on my lawn and bring everyone there race day, but no such luck!

Not to scare anyone, and it's certainly not St George, but if anyone says this bike course is easy they are either uninformed, showing off, or are a significantly better cyclist than me, though I will defer to Paul (pauljra) because he IS a significantly better rider than me!

If anyone is serious about riding the course sometime, keep checking here and I'll keep my eyes open for groups.  I usually ride alone on Saturdays - sometimes the Timberman course to at least to the 11.5 mile mark, sometimes a Gunstock climb and then hit the  Timberman course for a while to do some more recon.

Here's my description of the bike course.  I'll come back in for a road report after I ride it a bit to tell everyone how the roads up there made out over the winter.

The bike course is sneaky hard in that the first 11 1/2 miles are the hardest, so be careful not to burn out trying to maintain whatever goal pace you had in mind from the start.  You do a fairly flat start after a short hill right out of transition, so there's time to get your breath after the swim.  After the climb up Marsh Hill ending at mile 11 1/2, which as stated is steep in parts and will test you, it's a long and fairly uneventful ride to the turnaround.  The prevailing wind is almost always a tailwind here, and the course is almost all downhill for the next 16 1/2 miles, so it's really about staying aero and just maintaining constant effort through that part.  Then the second tricky part hits, because you turn around and two things happen.  First, that tailwind is now a head wind.  Second, that slight downhill is a slight uphill.  Nothing dramatic, but about 13+ miles of steady false flat.  Again, don't get discouraged by your speed and just focus on effort (or power if you use it).  The course does a weird short loop off the main road, and there's another very short fairly steep hill at that point, and then a short rest before climbing the back side of Marsh Hill.  The downhill after climbing Marsh is the place where you will be hitting 40+ even if you sit up, hold you arms out, and try to slow down.  The road can be a little rough in spots there as well, so stay focused.  After that descent it's only about 9 miles to the finish with one hill that climbs about 200 feet in a mile, so not awful but it gets your attention after 50 miles.  The course is also a little short, maybe 55.2.

So overall, I'd say be careful not to overdo the hills, especially at the beginning, and bring a compact crank if you have it unless you're a monster climber.  And hope against hope that this is one of the years with less wind!

Just signed up for this yesterday!  It'll be my first, after my first two Oly's (Trifest June 30 in VT and Nantucket Oly July 21).  So, I'll be pushing the distance up for the Oly's and then have only 4 weeks until Timberman.

So, we shall see!

The reviews of the course above are terrific and very helpful.  Guess I'll keep hitting the hills, even though my second Oly (and until yesterday my only A race) is pancake flat.

SUPER psyched about this one.  Training should be sufficient for it, at least to complete it well, but probably not enough to actually race it.  So, this will be to see what long course is like and then decide what NEXT season's focus will be.

We should get a BT beer (or other suitable recovery bevy) meetup together for post-race, as it sounds like we won't be hitting the road quickly...

See y'all there!

Matt 

Hey New Englanders (others, too, but tougher for non-semi-locals),  

I'm thinking of doing a pre-ride on course, and possibly about half of the run after, on either the Aug. 3/4 weekend or maybe July 28 (but that would be way tougher for me logistically).  Any interest in a one day, up and back sufferfest?

It's easier to self-support with more riders, even if we're at different paces (as long as we ride with phones)...

Matt