Ironman 70.3 Branson : Official Thread

I stayed at the Hilton by Branson Landing. Nice location and room. They let people do late check-out on Sunday so you could walk over and shower after the race. Was able to walk over and set up T2 on race morning, then caught the bus to the start! A little spendy, but I thought it was worth it!

 The roads on this course are near perfect condition.  The reason for all the flats last year was due to the rain.   The roads were made using the local rocks which "flake" off.  The rain caused the flakes to stick to the tire and work themselves in causing flats.  I used Conti GPS 4000 tires and had no problems.  If it does rain on race day you may not want to use a light weight tire.  Hope you decide to do this race.

We are having a family get together at the race. We decided to rent a Log House outside of town. It's going to be a little more challenging logistically on race day for me, but will be very nice for the whole group for the weekend.

Hope everybody is having a good winter. I can't wait to get outside and ride this spring! I don't mind the treadmill but I'm not as fond of the trainer.

Last two years we stayed at the Thousand Hill Golf resort and iut was great! We paid $135 a night for a two bedroom condo with kitchen. It was money well spent.

In a way I am sorry I am not doing this race again, but the last two years were enough and I canlt say I will miss those climbs either!

Hi All,

I signed up for Branson and Miami yesterday.  I was debating between Branson and Augusta (again).  The drive to Branson is a little shorter.  This will be my fourth half, but the kicker is that I will be about 12 weeks postpartum if the little baby comes on time.  Needless to say, this will not be my "A" race.  Don't laugh too hard when you pass a flabby woman dying up the hills!  

Yeah. The hills are tough and the first year it was like 96 degrees and a lot of people went down to dehydration,  etc...

It seemed like in the weeks after instead of HTFU everyone was just complaining about it and it scared away a lot of people. That's my best guess...

It really is a great event. It's very hard one, but that's what makes it fun and challenging to me. I'd hate to so it go due to being "tough" cause the setting is great and the course is beautiful and the run course is incredibly spectator friendly.

(I would also like to add that the 96 was a fluke for that area. It was the normal 70-80 degrees in 2011)

95% of the bike course roads I would argue are the best in any race. I heard of almost no issues the first year. I was lucky enough to not flat either year, but there were definitely more flats in 2011. Storms were very bad all day Saturday and did put a lot of small rock chips on Hwy 465.

So I guess it boils down to:

Nice weather, they clean the road and all is gravy.

Bad weather, not much you can do but hope you're not victim....