Ironman Texas (Page 43)

Yes - that is the section I am refering to - I am not sure of any other alternatives, hopefully others can chime in for you with an alternate route.

Look at a map and find "old dobbin road".  It runs from dobbin to montgomery through some nice back roads.  It comes out behind the high school on 105 in Montgomery.  

 

FM149 from Motgomery to 1488 is an accident waiting to happen. If you think traffic is bad now, just wait til it warms up a little and you have the weekend Lake Conroe crowd headed home on it. Lot's of people towing trailers that they forget are just a foot or two wider than their vehicles!  I'd suggest some alternatives for training rides:

1. FM 1486, FM 1774, FM 1488 are much safe alternative to get you back to the 149/1488 junction.

2. As Partick mentioned, Old Dobbin Road can also get you most of the way back to Motgomery.

3. Old Dobbin Rd to Spring Branch will get you back to 149. Spring Branch is very light traffic and a nice ride, but some of the pavement is in rough shape (cracks that you need to pay attention to) If you turn South on 149, you get to Keenan Cut-off Rd, which takes you back to 2854. Keenan Cut-Off is low traffic and good road.

From my perspective, there's really no reason to ride the Jackson Rd / 149 section of the course more than once. There's really nothing unique or difficult about this section. Alternative 1 mentioned about gets you to the same place, but is a much safer course. It does add a couple miles.....but I think the trade-off is worth it.

A group of us are planning to ride in April.

Any chance someone could create a better mapmyride.com map for us to use instead?

Which part of the bike map is correct, the written out directions or the actual map with arrows? We rode the section south of 105 on Sunday and it looks like some sections such as the 1488 to 149 area could go either way.  We also missed the Jackson Rd turn off from 1486 and ended up taking that all the way to 1774/1488 (I think those are the street names).  Is the Jackson st sign kind of hidden or did we just have our blinders on?

It was a nice ride though.  Very little traffic, nice and shaded from trees, good roads and some good rollers.  I definitely look forward to riding that again.

I might do this before my sons baseball practice tomorrow.  It is a few miles out of town on 149 (actualy a good place to park for riding because people are always coming and going).  When riding the course you can see where Ironstar was marked in the fall.  If not I will try Saturday when I ride it.

It's not entirely hidden but it does sneak up on you, for some reason I almost always miss it and have to turn at the very last second. If you can actually find it, Jackson road is a great road - very narrow shoulders but also low traffic.

How signicant are these rolling hills that you all that have ridden parts of the course are speaking of.  Training here in New Orleans, the only elevation change that I get is walking up the levee to start my ride.  DEAD FLAT!  Any thoughts for best training for rolling hills, when its not possible to actually train on them.  Any thoughts would be appreciated.

This will likely draw some hate mail but OK. I exchanged emails regarding the spray paint idea. (I got lost out there myself when I did the 100+ miles this past weekend) with Keith Jordan the RD.
He stated they were told NOT to put anything out to mark the course.

I really think if you all do this it will cause some "good will" problems. When we were out there I had at least 3 times I was honked and or yelled at. I can tell you the driver aggression is going to amp up as the weather improves and the rider population increases.

The challenging part of the course is all North of 105. Stay on that 50-65 miles and you will nail the meat of the course.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks, I will pass on the paint. 

Do you have access to a parking garage? That's a good way to get some hill workouts...also a trainer ride with an elevated front wheel could work

I did nearly all of my long rides in Baton Rouge last year when I was training for IM Louisville. The course in Louisville has as many, or probably more rollers than the Texas course. I did some big gear work, but most of my training was on flats. When I did hit hills after coming back to Texas (I was in Louisiana working on the oil spill recovery effort) I practiced restraint and pacing. I don't think it was too big of a deal. The "bonus" of training in the heat and humidity helped offset the lack of hills. Keeping my power under control on the hills during the race was important, especially since the temps were in the mid 90's. There were multiple people that hammered past me going up hills that I saw walking on the run.
I think if you get the miles in during training and pace appropriately on race day, the hills will not be a big deal. The other "bonus" is the downhills are the perfect time to empty your bladder. Just make sure nobody is behind you.

IMTX practice swim coming. Details coming. You'll never guess who the sponsor is..

You are all over the place.  Good job TJ.  Now make me swim faster!

Baby Ruth?

Hormel?!!!! Bacon... bacon... bacon...

Awesome! This will show me how far behind my swim is and hopefully get my butt into gear. 

Does anyone know if the run will be on the paths or on the roads (i.e. along Lake Woodlands, Panther Creek, and Woodlands Pkwy)?

Is it too soon to complain about this heat

I ran outside today and nearly died in this 80F heat!!!

haha .. It was humid today.  I figure this is good so we can all start getting acclimated to the heat and humidity early.
 
Remember last year it was cold all the way through March and then we had the warm day for the Galveston 70.3 - that was brutal.  

Time to start getting used to it again! 

It was like 60's, maybe some 70's, and that day was 85.  That was unpleasant.

Technically, we (humans) acclimatize to the heat within a couple of weeks so don't worry about it just yet. 

Ahhh take some notes to share with us folks coming in from out of state!