Saturday, August 29, 2009

Rode the Ironman Augusta 70.3 bike course

Headed to "dis-gusta" early this morning to ride the bike course for the upcoming Ironman Augusta 70.3 on 9/27. There were at least 100 other people who had the same idea and some even swam the swim leg which is what I probably should've done.

The bike is mostly flat with a few gradual climbs and one short, steep grade just before turning right and heading back to Beech Island. Some pretty good down hills but a few have a slight head wind. Never had the need to stand during the climbs but did switch to my small chain ring a few times just because I was following a plan or race rehearsal and wanted to make sure I stayed under a certain wattage. Normally I would've stayed in the big ring and pushed the watts. Watch out for the cracks in the road on Pine Log Road as this is pretty much the only bad surface and it lasts for about 7 miles.

With the bike being mostly flat, it will cause people to go too hard and they will shell themselves for the run. Hence the reason for me sticking to a plan and throttling back the watts. Save it for the run as that is always where the race starts. Prove you could've gone harder on the bike by killing the run. However, for all of you reading this who are in the 40-44 AG, please ride like the wind, hammer the hills and plan your nutrition around a 70F day with 10% humidity. ;-)

Plan was to stay at 205W to 208W for the 56 miles and I believe I finished with 206W. Haven't downloaded the file yet but I think my time was around 2:33. I ended up running around 4.5 miles (3 @ 7:44 and 1.5 @ race pace of around 7:20) and not the 6 as the plan called for as it was just too hot and I didn't pack my Fuel Belt.

I'm bagging the Hartsville race next week and opting for another long bike ride and spending some time with my family at the beach house.

2 comments:

Suzanne Bowen said...

Thanks for the tips. A few friends and my husband participated in this event, too. Couple good things about the Augusta area this time of the year. Nice and cool for early morning for significan others (of race participates) along Reynolds, Broad and the river. Good food: Villa Europa (German) and Luigi's (Italian.) Couldn't find any places between 6th and 15th along Broad with coffee open before 10 AM on Saturday (day b4 the race).

dsted said...

Thanks for the comments. This will be my first half. I recently tried to book my accomodations but everything, not surprisingly, near the race was full. If you hear of anyone cancelling their reservations, please let me know. Should be a great event!