It is hard to believe it has been almost 2 years since my last race. Ironman 70.3 Maine in August of 2019 was the last for both my wife and I. Ironman 70.3 Musselman looks to be a go this weekend, so I will be happy to end that hiatus. Denise and I headed to the Finger Lakes last month to do some course recon.
On Friday, we hung out at Seneca Lake State Park for the afternoon. It cost around $8 for a 24 hour pass. We got in some open water swimming in the large swimming area which we had pretty much to ourselves. The water was a nice temperature(~67F) and pretty calm. It wasn’t that calm later that afternoon when the winds kicked up. The lake was also pretty shallow for a ways out.
Saturday morning we headed back to Seneca Lake State Park to start out on the 56 mile bike course. It was a pretty overcast day which made it pretty comfortable riding. The winds were out of the Northwest made the first half of the ride pretty easy. Roads were in decent shape most of the time and I easily averaged around 19 mph for the entire ride. The elevation map is little deceiving because of the scale. It shows what appears to be a monster climb in the middle of the course. It turns out it is pretty tame. The Vineyard Road section is about a mile at 3% grade. The next section on CR129 is around 8 miles and averages about 1.2% grade. When I road the last section I hard realized it was an uphill grade.
The only bad section was on South Townline Road. It was covered with patches of eroded blacktop that felt like gravel. They weren’t really potholes, just blacktop that turned to stones. It only lasted about a mile and then turned to decent asphalt again at the next crossroad. The race folks posted that they are working on doing some cold patch there with the township. Should be interesting.
Overall the ride was really beautiful and fast. It should make for some fast times on the bike course. After our ride we did a 3 mile brick run along the lake shore. It was nice and flat and semi-shaded which was nice because the sun had come out during the last half of the ride and got pretty hot.
I was able to take some POV video for half the ride. Unfortunately, my GoPro mount came loose and I had to switch to taking a few clips.
On Sunday, we parked by the Finger Lakes Welcome center to start our recon run. We headed right through the tunnel and up through town. The run eventually flattened out on Main st. before dropping down through Kings Lane. The run course dipped up and down a lot. We hit Barracks Road at around the 8 mile point which was a bit challenging. The is very rough gravel which makes it very hard to get good footing. That along with a pretty steep climb make for a brutal little section. Passing a winery as do this makes it very tempting to just walk off and get glass.
The next section is mostly flat and then drops steeply downhill at the next right turn. Before getting to the college you hit a short but very steep section. The rest of the run is mostly downhill except for the pedestrian walkway up to Main St. again.
Today the race director sent out a notification that the run course has been changed. Most of the up-and-down section, most notably the Barracks Road section, has been removed. Being that the run is my weakest leg, I am pretty psyched about this. The new run course consists of two loops now, the majority of which takes place along the lake which is very flat. The only real hill is the one going up Main St. from the center of town. The run through the college campus still remains too which is nice. Should make for a very fast race!
