Best first timers IM???

Don't focus so much on time.  You really need to focus on what you need to do just to finish.

Nutrition and Hydration how much is needed for the race.  You get that right your time will be good. 

For myself, I am finding out the optimal balance between hydration and nutrition, I know if I have that I will have a pretty decent time.  

By the way, I would love to break 12 hours, but I don't mind if I don't, finishing will be great in itself.
 

So since I'm in Dallas I'm thinking Florida or Arizona???  Am I wrong?

I don't think he is...I think he's asking which IM course is a good one for a first-timer...   :)

We'll overlook his delusional views on Texas ;)

Yikes.  My brain is gone for the weekend and I took good IM to mean time.  Sorry bout that!  I am doing MOO cuz it is the least invasive in my wife and kids plans.  Hope to do something overseas someday though for a different experience, but lets get this one outta the way first.

Okay, I guess I butchered my decision based upon those criteria.  The climate typically would be about 6 weeks behind, and elevation??? Maybe I should have went with CDA.

I chose FL because I didn’t like the idea of carrying 200+ pounds up and down a lot of hills all day.

No.  I think you're right.  I would think IMAZ would be perfect since you don't have to train during the summer months. 

It's got to be Lake Placid.  The swim is the easiest swim in all of triathlon (nice cable 4 feet down in the clearest lake I've ever been it- it's like swimming in the pool if you can get close to it).  The lack is small and almost always perfectly calm (it's called Mirror Lake for a reason ).  The bike course is a bit tough, but if you can find any hills (long but not steep hills are the best) to train on and also use bigger gears on flat land, it's a very doable course.  I'm terrible on the bike (I had one of the absolute slowest bike splits in the entire field) yet I didn't find any particular hill to be undoable in the middle chain ring (I have a triple and used the granny gear to save my legs for the run).  The key to the bike is to ride in a lower gear than you think you should be in the first loop and not push the hill at like mile 5/61 (it's not a bad hill at all but pushing too big of a gear will come back to haunt you).   There was great crowd support on the bike and lots of coaches out there to give you advice if they see you need some (like one told me to relax my shoulders).  The hills at mile 52/53 really aren't bad at all and at the last one, it's a bit like the Tour de France with the cheers and the megaphone and drum encourage your cadence.  It makes you want to charge up that hill-not that you should...

The run course is basically flat (though some rollers and a downhill stretch at the beginning) with hills coming back into town at like mile 9/11 (the hill at 11 is not fun but there is always a big crowd there and a guy with a megaphone who is out there until the race ends who will call out your name and encourage you own-he's awesome.  The crowd support was like nothing I have experienced- I finished just after 11PM and the crowds were huge and grown adults wanted me to slap there hands and the admiration they had for us racers was amazing- I felt like an Olympian then.  And the finish line is on the speed skating oval and next to the Miracle on Ice Building- how can you top that, except at Kona? 

Yes it's not the "easiest" Ironman but it is a very doable one if you train properly for it and the crowd support there is the best from what I've heard- Florida isn't so great and is not the same kind of experience from what I've been told.  I truly could not think of a better first Ironman experience then Lake Placid- the people and the scenery are amazing.

Isn't it a given that New York has the best of everything? I'm mean really! I wasn't aware that there is an alternative to Lake Placid.

7/20/08 baby!