Vineman Full Ironman : Official Thread (Page 3)

I was wondering is the water in the river warm enough that I could go ahead and use my speedsuit or just trishorts? Does anyone recall the water temp last year?  

Did I really sign up for a full IM?  Ok not time to freek out yet.  August is goning to come sooo fast this year.  

How's training going guys?  I have been overdoing it a bit and had to take an extra rest day, ditching the long bike last weekend. 

Monthly totals should be around 500 miles biked, 120 miles run and 15 miles swam.  I started getting up at 5:25 am to get in a 20 mile bike 4 days a week, noon for a 7 ish mile run and then the usual pm stuff. 

Swimming, well swimming sucks because I have to drive 100 miles each way to go swim, and well I am still just building endurance.  Speed comes eventually right?  Anyway 8 x 3000-4500 swim sessions this month.   

I am still in my initial 10 week base period. Averaging about 10-12 hrs week. Here is last weeks totals:

S: 5468.07 Yd

B: 88.82 Mi

R: 36.77 Mi

A couple more weeks I will start a 10 week build and volume will jump 12-16 hours week. Kick it up to 9000 meters week swiming, 115-125 bike, 38-40 week running. I am following the same training schedule I followed last year.

For Febuary I did: Swim 26,000 yards, Bike 519 miles and Run 114 miles. 

I actually signed up with a D3 coach yesterday, so I am in for some torture now.  Lastnight I did strides for the first time and isolated leg pedaling (1 leg pedaling).  Both exercizes were interesting and are sposed to make me less slow in time.  Mostly I have beeing doing steady effort work and trying to build endurance. 

I will learn to workout more efficiently and effectively and maybe survive the IM 8). 

I have a 10 mile race on Saturday and then a HIM in Boise 6/13, but the main focus for the year is definately Vineman.  

I'm in for the full again this year along with poweredbyfear and one other guy from our tri club for the buy-2-get-1-free registration.  It's poweredbyfear's first so I said I'd do it with him.  I did this as my first full 2 years ago.  I'm also doing this 4 weeks before IM Canada this year so that will be 2 IMs in 1 month...

I'm the one who posted a photo overview of the course last year since we rode it for fun one weekend last summer.  I'll try to dig that up and repost here.

My comments mirror most everyone else's about the course:

- swim: minimal current.  Pretty warm.  Shallow where, yes, your hands will probably graze the bottom

- bike: is, IMHO, one of the easiest bike courses for a 140.6 race.  There are only 2 moderate climbs.

- run: yes, it is hilly.  I walked all the uphills since it wasn't worth it to burn myself out on them.  I think you have 2.5 hills on the way out, which means 2.5 on the way back and then 3 loops so you have about 15 hills to do.  When I started the run, it was in the 90s so heat is a big factor on the run.

Course overview from when I rode it last year (that's poweredbyfear (in blue) and DW in the pictures).

We didn't do the tail section at the start from Guerneville (T1) to Westside, so here's a picture of what you'll see on Westside

These are along Dry Creek

The small climb up Canyon

After the downhill, the turn into Geyserville

Along 128

On Chalk Hill Rd. 

Faught or Shiloh Rd.

Old Redwood Highway

At the end of the course, you'll roll up to Windsor High School.   You'll enter on the south end so you won't pass the school as shown below, but you will if you do the full vineman.

And on the full vineman course, you'll also go through this section to reconnect the loop

Thank you so much for posting those pictures.  They are beautiful.  Now I am REALLY excited.  I'm alright if it decides to be 90 degrees again as long as we get those awesome blue skies. 

I was surprised about your: IMHO it is one of the easiest bike courses.....  I was under the impression that this was a pretty tough ride.

Hi Judy.  To be fair, the two IMs I've done subsequently are Lanzarote and Wisconsin.  I guess I also compare it to century rides here in the bay area which I use as training for IMs and it's definitely easier than any of those wheras Lanzarote would be one of the hardest and Wisconsin is no cake walk either.  I think Vineman has what, about 4000'-5000' elevation gain or so.  To me, that's pretty moderate, which definitely made it a great choice as my first 140.6.