Ironman 70.3 Branson : Official Thread (Page 3)

I see that the swim is a flat course! I hope to Sign up for this in July if I can stay healthy until then.  I'm planning on the swim NOT killin' me!  Unlike quite possibly the bike course.  

signed up today, see you all there. Best of luck with your training!!

Neil

I'm vacationing at Big Cedar Lodge this week.  I rode the whole bike course yesterday and did a short 4 mile on the run course.  Let's hope it's not this hot in September.  It was 90 degrees when I finished yesterday at 10:30 AM.

The hills on 465 are fairly tough but there are also some great descents!  I was sustaining 43 mph at one point on the first downhill that you hit when you first enter Hwy 465.

Good luck to all in your training!!

Are you looking for swim wave times?  Those won't come out until a week or two before the race.  As far as the saturday sunday schedule, all the 1/2's are about the same.

Friday and saturday are packet pickup days.  Saturday you will have to drop your bike off at transition by 5pm most likely. The only thing i am not sure about is how they are going to do the run transition since it is miles away from the swim to bike transition.  I am guessing we will have a run bag like we have in the full distance events and they will transport it to the other transition for you.  Not sure though.

I will be riding the course in a few weeks with my garmin and I will compare both the courses in terms of elevation gain, length of hills and % grade.  I'll let you know, but my thinking is that the hills will be much longer at branson.  But that also means much longer downhills too.

Is anyone else confused about the bike course??  Do you go out and back on 465 twice and then out a third time before you take the 248 exit?  This is the only way it is close to 56 miles.  If you go out and back (1st loop) then out and exit on 248 (2nd loop) it's only 40 miles.

Also, does anyone know if the course is ride-able? I mean it's mostly on highway.  I am going to ride the course on sunday and hopefully it's not to busy.

Nevermind about the bike course question....They just posted new maps and routes.  It is changed a little but not much.

Just rode the course today...You are right about the length of the hills, but no way you are staying aero. They were more like 6-9% grades. Very fast down hills.  Ran out of gears on most downhills about 1/4-1/2 way down at around 40-45mph.  Fastest that i got up to was 47mph. 

Going to be a slower course than kansas for sure.  The hard part about this course is that there is not one flat longer than 1/4 mile in the first 50 miles.  You can carry your speed, but not for very long.  Kansas you could carry your speed 3/4 of the way up the hill.  In branson the hills are soo long that you don't even make it 1/8 way up before you are in your small ring.  Most of the hills for me were around 9-12mph going up. Going west on the highway is easier i think.  But the climb up to the beginning of the loop on 76 is brutally long. 

The only saving grace of this course is that when you turn onto the last highway to come into transition there is a mile or two of rollers, but the rest of the way is very fast downhills.  There is only one other hill coming in to T2, but nothing to worry about.  I bet you can pick up 1mph on your average coming into town.

Also, I would look at your average until at least coming back for your second loop.  The first 7 miles are hilly and slow and all uphill to get to the highway.  I averaged 20.9mph in Kansas and after today i am thinking i'll be happy with 19mph at Branson.  I'll post the profile when i get a chance.  If you have any questions let me know.