Ironman 70.3 Lanzarote - thoughts?

go buy a hat and hang onto it. currents in the swim, strong winds, huge climbs and heat. I did most of the full one year. most. the location is awesome and definitely worth the trip. I plan to go back one day.

Great race report - provided a nice hour of reading last night!  Sounds like a rather tough, but doable, venue - and happy to see that you survived those downhills...

AFAIK Lanzarote IM is considered the European equivalent of the Hawaii IM, or maybe we just like to think that since nobody here have been to Hawaii . I have thought about going this november too, celebrating my birthday three days before the race, but I'm not sure if I'll get ready for it.

The swim is in a deep bay, well actually a closed lagoon, in front of Club La Santa Sport so don't expect currents, the fairly still water may also be nice and warm, I don't know if that means wet-suit prohibited.

I think the main challenge is the bike lots of climbing in a volcanic desert terrain, very barren, no shade from the sun and no cover from the wind. 

Alternatives are Ocean Lava on the other side of Lanzarote sept. 8, different bike course, they mention a climb of 20%!, the Challenge Fuerteventura in april, the island next to Lanzarote is like a slice of sahara, ocean swim and a much flatter bike course, or Extrememan Menorca on the Balearean islands sept. 23 also much flatter bike, I think the climate on Menorca is more stable being in the Mediterainean rather than the Atlantic, all are the HIM distance. And finally, there's Barcelona Half Challenge in may. 

I haven't done either of these, but living in Spain they are all on my list.

Hi I'm doing the lanzarote ironman 70.3, i done the quarter distance oceanlava yesterday, it was my first race, I only started triathlon training at the beginning of june 2012 after my brother came out here and done the full ironman, it  was such a great experience supporting him and everyone that i thought i want to do this, so i brought a bike and met a great couple called Daz and Deb's from tri-sports lanzarote which helped my Brother out a great deal, I am now 7 weeks into my 70.3 training programme with them and finished the ocean lava yesterday in 2hrs 50mins. I am so happy with this time after 7 weeks of training.

Keep me posted if you are going to do it, it is in a different location to the full ironman, it should be cooler aswell being in November, it was hot yesterday on the run.