Ironman 70.3 Boise (Page 10)

Hehe.  I think he was.  Looks like we are gona have some folks not falling asleep right away on Friday night. 
I will be less anxious when I see where the transition areas are.  Hrm to pack tonight or tomorrow night?  BTW the whole taper thing is designed to drive you nuts, that way you are chomping at the bit to go on race day. 

One recommendation I read was to put your run gear inside a plastic bag (inside the transition bag) in case it rains so you at least start in dry shoes.  I am more pleased about low wind and not so concerned about a brief shower here and there.  

I got to thinking about my really late swim start and it occured to me that by the time I get out of the water, 1300 bikes will already be gone, so it should be reasonably easy to find my ride. 

Now how you find your run bag is still a mystery to me.  Anyone have any insight as to how you find your run bag at T2.  I know that it will be covered in the athlete briefing, but I was just curious.  

30 min run tonight, I will be spoiled by these lite workouts.     

I hate the unknown and hopping off your bike after a three hour ride and trying to figure out where to rack and where is my bag sucks. Normally, it may not seem like a tough thing but you don't think so clear at times.

A couple of things from Hawaii 70.3 last week and I don't know if the setup will be the same. T1 bags were hung on your bike as well as your helmet. You put your swim stuff in the same bag and just left it on the rack or handed it to a volunteer. They just threw them in a bigger bag for tranport to the finish area to be claimed after the race. I have seen variations of this where you have to grab your T1 bag from a rack as you run into T1.

T2 you had to rack your bike in the proper space designated by your race number. Your T2 bag was sitting on the ground next to your spot. Helmut could be left on the bike but everything else had to go back in the bag and left next to or on the bike. Variations of this I've seen are volunteers taking your bike as you dismount so you just have to grab your bag exchanging bike for run gear and depositing the bag somewhere as you leave T2.

At the athelete's meeting before the race, transitions were not even mentioned. I inquired with one of the race directors afterwards and did not get all my questions answered. I assume that transitions will be handled the same as last year so any veterans of Boise might weight in and ease my anxious mind on how this will work exactly.

One recommendation I read was to put your run gear inside a plastic bag (inside the transition bag) in case it rains so you at least start in dry shoes.  Whoo hoo one of my MI BT peeps just reminded me of this advice!  Thanks for putting it out there

I am more pleased about low wind and not so concerned about a brief shower here and there.  Times a bajillion and a half!!!!!!  A little rain will make the run not so bad.....

I got to thinking about my really late swim start and it occured to me that by the time I get out of the water, 1300 bikes will already be gone, so it should be reasonably easy to find my ride. I'm banking on some 40+ women to be faster than me -- please, pretty please?  Lord knows the pros will be LONG gone by the time I hit the bike :-)

Now how you find your run bag is still a mystery to me.  Anyone have any insight as to how you find your run bag at T2.  I know that it will be covered in the athlete briefing, but I was just curious.  Owl Girl from last year PMd this hopefully she won't mind me reprinting:

The two transition set-up is not that bad. You do need to be ultra organized, though. Try the set-up at home to make sure you know what to do. Here's the deal. You will receive one bag for T1 gear and one bag for T2 gear. The bags are about the size of a sleeping bag duffle and have your name and bib number on them. The day before the race, you need to have your bags at each transition zone. No equipment is allowed on the ground at your transition. Be sure to note where you will be taking your bike at T2 since you will not see it on the morning of the race.

At T1, place your helmet, gloves, glasses, hydration, shoes (if you know how), bib number, and extra clothes securely attached to your bike. After the swim, remove anything you need for the bike from the bag, remove your wetsuit (if you did not use the services of the wetsuit strippers) and place all in the bag. Get your bike stuff on and place remaining things in the bag. Take your bike and bag to the "bag drop off zone" and head out on the ride. Nothing can be left at T1. You will not return!

At T2, rack your bike, and dump out the contents of your T2 bag. It should contain your running shoes, hat and extra hydration. Place all bike stuff in the bag and hang bag on bike. Again, nothing can be on the ground.

The two transition thing is not very difficult. It's just different. The whole event is very organized. They will not lose your bag. Their security is super fantastic! All of the spectators are wonderful as well!

Signed the Stark Raving Mad Jini that Travls

As far as the T2 bag thing goes, last year I volunteered at T2 and they have all of the bikes arranged in numerical order and there are people who direct you to the proper rack seeing as how the racks are about a block long. Your bag needs to be dropped off at your designated number before you head up to the swim start. The bike racks also have numbers on the rack (I think) so you know where your position is. So the only real "hard" part of that is making sure you go down the right row to begin because the bike racks are really long. They had volunteers directing athletes to the proper rows last year though so it shouldn't be a big deal.

We don't know our bib numbers until we pick up, is that right?

If so, kinda sucks getting out info to people to track on ironman.com

I didn't think it was going on Ironman.com?  Or at least the "LIVE" feed anyway?

I do not know how they do it but I had folks tell me they were tracking my results and they never had my bib number. What kinda sucked was not being able to lie about my times or at least round down to the nearest half hour.

i know for IM events - you can search by bib number, or name and get real time results. . . don't know about during this event though.  i'll just be texting my splits in to family members while biking, in transition etc.. . sounds safe and fast

So your T2 bag will be at your designated spot where you rack your bike?

Never used a wetsuit stripper, I'll have to check out youtube to see an example. Not sure what a search of wetsuit stripper might return??

Just checked. Would you believe "Mud wrestling with 3rd ex wife, in beavertail wetsuits". I'd better wait until after work to continue my research.

Edited by popsracer 2009-06-09 4:49 PM

I wouldn't try that search at work!  Basically on the run up from the water you get your arms out and the wetsuit down to your waist.  When you get to the "helper" you make sure the wetsuit is down past your butt as you sit down and they grab it and yank it off past your feet.  Vwyala done. Unless you get the timing chip anklet caught between the 2 layers of wetsuit in which case you are screwed.   

Oh ya being very productive at work today......

Edited by Baowolf 2009-06-09 4:50 PM

yeah, no kidding - i just can't focus today. . aka, im not getting anything done!  oh well, i guess i am already on 'vacation' mode. . funny that my 'vacation' involves an very difficult physical endeavor. .

Make sure you have enough recovery from that physical endevor before Saturday at 2pm....

OK. I admit it. I do not care about anything else until my wave hits the water. Good thing I only have to pretend to work one more day.

They can track you by name or age group as well.

The live athlete tracker will be on IM.com. It was even in teh last update email they sent us.

So sorry to hear that Bob. That is really bum luck.

Oh my gosh that sooo sucks! Soo sorry man. Heal up quickly and catch a late summer HIM.  Maybe you can get a transfer for medical reasons to another IM 70.3, it is worth an email to them to check.  You will be missed.

Dude, that suuuuuucks!!!! 

They should def. let you transfer your registration fees either to next year, or another race if there's an opening.

Don't let it get you down...base is base and it'll come in handy, if not now, later...especially when you add a couple more months on top of it.  Hopefully its not jacked up bad enough that it'll prevent you from at least being able to S/B during recovery.

-John

Damn! Sorry this happened Bob!

Bob so sorry to hear that... Sucks REALLY BIG! 

Sorry to hear it Bob, i hope it heals quick.

Alright the county Procedure Manual and Behavior Policy are now updated for all of the new State and Federal laws passed over the past 4 years, so I haven't been a complete slacker this week. 

One more bike ride this evening and it is time to pack.  So what items do folks typically forget when packing for a longer triathlon or any triathlon for that matter, other than the steel toed workboots I have now been wearing everywhere I go until race day (cringe)?

Spare contacts/glasses, fingernail clippers, aspirin, shoelaces, safety pins, twist ties and cheap flip-flops.

A lot of what you might forget will be available from vendors there like CO2, gels, salt tablets, etc.

In my pre-packing inspection, I noticed a few small cuts in my rear tire (now replaced) and two screws on my bike cleats were quite loose. Go over all your gear and make sure everything is good to go.