Chisago Lake Half Ironman, MN 2014 Official Thread

A good friend is going to race this year, so I plan to come and watch.  I'll keep me eye out for a BT meeting or possibly practice rides.

I'm at the beginning of the process.  I'm starting without much base.  So I'm slowly trying to build up mileage on the runs and put time in on the trainer.  Swimming will be a little slow for a few weeks as my local pool is under maintenance.  But I do have a weekly coached swim with my tri club.

I am loving the warmer temps though.  I finally got out on a run with fewer layers and no extra grippers on the bottoms of my shoes.  That was a nice change.

How is everyone doing a little under 8 weeks out?

Just passed my first test this last weekend finishing the Buffalo Tri Olympic distance feeling good the whole way through.  That gives me hope that I'll be able to do the same for Chisago.  Just need to keep building.

I started riding on the updated bike course this week.  They did make some tweaks compared to last year.  You can see the updated map at http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/document/0056/5600/2014_CHIS_Bike_Map_final.pdf.

I rode the eastern half of the bike course this morning.  This was my first time hitting much of that area.

I've ridden just about the entire course over the past week now and overall it's in pretty good shape.  The only significant area that wasn't fun was CR 16 in Almelund.  Pretty much right from the start until shortly before Wild Mountain (when you are heading East), you are riding across those tarred road crack repair strips that run perpendicular to your path and it's a somewhat jarring bump every second or so.  It definitely gets annoying.  It also makes the biggest descent of the course a bit of  nail biter.  I don't know that I would want to take it in the areo bars.

Good news, the big climb out of the river valley wasn't all that horrible.  I'm not a good climber by any stretch of the imagination, and I didn't find it to be too taxing.  It's definitely a workout.  But it didn't make me want to immediately run out and get a different cassette for my bike.  Also, the descent after the big climb was a blast.  

I'm  building up the miles coming off of my first successful Oly a few weeks back.  I'm a local and I've been riding the course lately to get a feel for it.

For a hotel, I'd check out the Grandstay.  It just opened and is pretty darn close to the race site (should be less than 1 mile away).  Otherwise you are looking at some older small town hotels/motels.  

http://www.grandstayhospitality.com/find-a-hotel/locations/chisago-city/overview

Anyone doing the group ride on Saturday?  I'll be there along with a handful of people from my tri club.  Although some of them are doing 2 loops.  Bunch of show-offs I tell ya. =)

I saw a number of people doing the sprint course last time.  Looks like there has been good turnout so far.