Ironman Louisville Course Information is posted

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I must admit this is a relief to see the course finally posted. Now time to head on over to Priceline.com and book a flight/ room. It's becoming a reality......

Dammit...just when I thought it was safe to say that I was going to bail on this event.  Man am I easy....just looking at that map, the first thing that came to mind is...."that's doable"....now, I am officially back on the fence!

I agree the course does not seem super hard..but I don't have an ironman under my belt yet to really know what i am talking about. but if you compare bike elevations to IMCDA and IMLP it is a piece of cake. I just read to my relief we swim against the current on the way out...but I thought the river flowed left to right....I will be very happy to be proven wrong on that one.

 

Swim: The 2.4 mile/3.8 km swim will consist of a one-loop course in the Ohio River. Athletes will travel against a slight current to the turnaround point then travel back toward the swim exit located at Louisville’s Waterfront Park.

Edited by mattajw 2007-04-26 9:12 PM

According to my conversation with Steve yesterday, we should all be receiving course information via email as well. So keep an eye on those inboxes.

For those that don't live in the area but are looking at the course maps, don't be deceived. This is not an easy bike course. The run on the other hand couldn't be any flatter. There is not a single hill (or even incline to speak of) in the run.

The bike doesn't have any monster inclines in it, but has many leg burning grinders. Once you hit 42 and head out you get very little flat terrain. As I said, nothing huge, but you are usually going up or down which doesn't help save any legs for a run (or help your time much).

I rode from home yesterday over to the part of the course that starts at US 42 and rode the next 27 miles of the ride. You have a nice leg burning 5% grade or so climbing up 42 then a little rest until you get to 1694. The route on 1694 is just an out and back about 5 miles each way. It's flat on the two ends, but there is a 2 mile dip in the middle where it's a mile down and a mile up. Since you're riding it both ways you get 2 mile long climbs back to back, didn;t feel real good. Then it's back on 42 up to 393. It's 5 miles on 393 over to 146 and it is all up and down terrain again. The corner of 393 and 146 is where you would turn left, but I took a right and headed home.

I think the superior cyclists will make it through this course pretty easily, but the average to slightly above average cyclist will find it tough. For those wondering who these comments are coming from, I'm a guy that rides about 22mph for a sprint, and get slower from there as the distance grows. Rode a little over 20 at Muncie (1/2 ironman) last year, and did my only ironman in 2003 in Wisconsin at around 18.6. I'm no speed demon, but I am decent and I think this will be a tough course to post a decent bike split on.

If anyone is in town or is coming to town and wants to ride parts of the course feel free to drop me an email. My wife an I are always looking for people to ride with, and both of us are signed up for IMKY.

Good luck to everyone.

I can pick up where halitri left off on the course description because I had the opportunity to ride the loop last Sunday. If I recall, 146 is about 7 miles long and that section, other than coming back in on 42, seemed to be the fastest leg of the loop. However, potential for strong winds along that section (and others) seemed possible and be careful if training on 146 because that's where I encountered the most traffic on my ride (please note that I did not ride the early part of 42 or River Road, each of which probably has more traffic). 146 is mostly "flattish" with a tremendous descent right before making a left onto Ballard School Road ("BSR"). I found BSR to be the most unpleasant part of the course. It's only about 2 miles long but there are a couple steep little (very short) straight up climbs that bring you down to about 4 - 7 mph. If training on BSR after a strong rain be careful as loose gravel had washed out into the road. There is a descent at the end of BSR and then you make a sharp right onto Old Sligo Road which is an immediate uphill after the turn - make sure you are in the right gear on the descent to begin climbing after slowing down significantly for the sharp right turn. There is nothing notable about Old Sligo except I think I recall it containing one of those sharp little (very short) straight up climbs. Old Sligo is also a very short section which leads to a right turn onto L'Esprit Parkway. This is a beautiful section (the whole is quite beautiful actually) with wonderful road surface - I seemed to move along pretty quickly. Next is a left turn on to 153, which is very short and there is not much to it. This leads you to a left turn back on to 42 for 8 miles or so back to 393 for the second loop. This section is truly "rolling" and if a stronger cyclist, you can make up time here.

I agree with halitri - this is not an easy course and will certainly, I think, test most everyone. I ran a half marathon the day before at a strong effort, so my legs were a little shredded going into the ride, but I still think it would be challenging on fresh legs. Like halitri, I'll give you my general riding credentials so you can determine how much weight to give to my comments - 21mph or more for an Oly distance, best HIM (Eagleman - totally flat) almost 22.4mph, IMFL 03' 20.0mph (also totally flat) - more recent HIM times on harder courses are around 20mph avg).

Someone on the "other site" took some pictures of the race area, river, hotel and bike course and posted them and a good description here.