Tawas HIM- where's the buzz?

Sign up Ben!  There seems to be very few of us heading to Tawas, the majority seem to be heading to Cedar Point that weekend.  Karen and I are taking the travel trailer and will try and get a spot in the city campground right off of 23 and the closest to the swim start you can get.  The host hotel is a close second.  If for some reason we can't get in there we'll have to hit the State Park on the point.

We'll be there Fri and Sat nights and will be enjoying some icy cold beverages on Saturday after the race.

Karen's doing the Oly, I'm in for the half.

I think it's a nice course overall.  The swim should be nice provided there's not wicked winds out of the east or southeast, you can kinda of walk quite a bit of the first part of it (I may kick you in the knee if your a walker), I know for a fact there's no touching on the way back for the most part.  I wish they would have it go deep first, then come back along the shallows.  A good sighting point on the return leg was a hut on the breakwater, you won't see it at first after making the turn, but once you do it worked great last year.

Long jog to transition, don't jack your HR here no sense in it especially doing your first.

Bike ride is nice, with a few decent hills, but nothing to killer I rode most of the course on three different occasions last month while camping.  It's basically uphill for the first 4 miles, kinda of gradual til you get to the National Forest, then it levels out and some ups and downs all real simple.  Once your on River Rd heading east you have a nice roller down then up, then come to a real good downhill a couple of miles afterwards.  Your flat for a few miles til you turn around and have to ride back up the downhill you flew down.  It's a good climb but easy to stay seated in the right gear, don't blow yourself up here.  Theres a spur that heads down to Cooke Dam, you can fly down here to.  The only thing is there's a S turn that had a lot of loose sand and gravel on it a few weeks ago, they said they brushed it last year, but there was still some crap on the road.  You also have to watch out for that athlete that forgets there racing with a 150 other people and cuts the turn.  When you get to the end turnaround head back up to River Rd, then head back on Monument Rd.  There are some nice places to get some speed up and an area that I think has a false flat.  Once you get back to the border of houses and the National Forest it's pretty much downhill and good flying all the way back to transition.

The run has had two different courses, I assume it may be similar to last year provided the locals didn't complain to much.  It's an out and back and flat that you do twice.  I thought it worked nice for pacing as I was using it to prep for the Beach 2 Battleship full iron (Ben did B2B too) that had a similar run setup.  The only issue was the run was 3/4 mile to long.

They had an athletes dinner during the evening at the host hotel.  The wife and I thought it may be a nightmare and that's exactly what it looked like.  We had eaten at one of the bars in town earlier so no big deal, but if I had waited to eat there I may have lost my mind!  It was a nice set up but for some reason it didn't appear to work all that well.  I think they were talking of changing things for this year.

We had great weather and it was real nice we signed up for this year when we returned home.  I think Scott GoBluedds? will be there too, though I haven't chatted with him since June.

If your in the area and like to eat Pizza, try G's Pizzeria right near the finish.  We've been there the last two summers while vacationing there, and ate there twice while there for the race last year.  Great Pie along with other choices to eat, and the owner is real nice too.

Look forward to meeting some new BT'ers this year.  Sorry this was so long.

Sorry Joe I forgot to mention the aid station on the bike.  There's only one but you hit it three times.  Just after turning east on River Rd and at the intersection of River and Cooke Dam Rd maybe 15 miles from transition, they have bike support, porta potty, and an aid station.  You hit on the way back just before heading downhill on the Cooke Dam spur road, then hit it again when you get back up to the top and to your return to Monument Rd and the 15 miles or so back to Tawas.  I needed the bike support last year as I forgot to lube my chain, doh!

There junky cheap water bottles but they have water and Heed.  Can't recall if they offered anything else.  I rode with my own gel, cliff bar, a concentrated bottle of Infinit, and just refilled my Aerodrink with water at the aid station.  It seemed to work out real well.

There were plenty of aid stations on the run and at least one porta potty.

Cost of the city campground was in the low to mid 20's, first come first served.  The state park may be in the upper 20's and takes reservations.

Yeah this year has been kinda of an off year.  I've really been slacking on the swim but have been getting some nice runs and rides in at times.  I probably had more off days between June and July (21) then the whole time I was training for the IM last year and it's been kinda of nice.  I have no real goals for this half and will just do what I can.

The swim buoys were put out last year on Thursday evening and we swam the sprint course on Friday morning.  The swim is right next to the breakwater, can't miss it and right across the street from the traffic light near the downtown area of East Tawas.  For those that need it there's a DNR parking lot and bathroom real close, if your coming in to do a practice swim and need to change.  Turn towards Lake Huron at the traffic light and your there.  There may be a small fee to park there though, but there's plenty of free parking west of 23 in town.

If it's more accurate anything will be better.  My guess from 3D's post on FB is that they mentioned 2 turns and Lincoln street and 2 loops for the half.  If you look at a map of East Tawas, I'm betting we run down Bay St, to Grant St (or some similar variation this one makes sense as to disrupt the least amount of traffic) turning on Lincoln and heading in an Easterly direction to a turnaround point.  No dirt roads and way less turns then last year.

I can't see there site at work because they won't update our computers and IE 6.0 is a bit oudated.