Madison was a
great venue for the 2017 70.3 Ironman held last Sunday, June 11th. Not only were there a myriad of good restaurants to enjoy before and after the event, but the people in the area were the best! There were supporters mile after mile, and even in sunny exposed hill locations 20 miles
outside of the city for the bike course. But before I get ahead of myself, first let's describe the event.
Swim
Everything finally got underway at 7AM with a veritable seal-beach full of neoprene clad Ironmen and ladies ready to churn water. The 1/2 Iron distance is 1.2 Miles around a long triangle "out and back" course in Lake Monona, the smaller of the two lakes which surround the University of Wisconsin campus. It was honestly hard for me to locate the turn buoys and fortunately I wasn't the very first in the water and had some folks to follow. I was in the water by around 710AM and out by 745AM -- it was quite light by then.
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| 745AM - emerge from the water |
Bike
Great tour of the Wisconsin countryside including a few dairy and agricultural areas with plenty of open road and hills! The hills challenged a number of competitors, but were honestly fun for me. I had trained for a lot of climbing and I wasn't too disappointed! Each climb was of relatively short duration. The only regret on them was that I probably
expended too much energy, leaving myself depleted for the run. There were over 40 turns and many sharp at the end of descents, so road bike racers with non-triathlon bikes were favored (at times) on this course. Once we hit the flats the aerodynamic racers passed by at 40 mph. I rented a bike from downtown Madison at a shop called
Machinery Row Bicycles (Sharron took care of us) located next to a great restaurant "
Sardine". Sardine ended up being the place that we celebrated our finishes after the event on Sunday. It overlooks Lake Monona about which much of the competition (swim and run) took place! Moreover, the final run went right by this same place, so it turned out to be at the epicenter of the action!
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Trek Madronne for $104/day including Helmet.
Good deal and saved lugging my even less-Tri ready road bike to Wisconsin |
Run
This was challenging as I was pretty much out of energy by this point. I hobbled the 13.1 miles over the course of 2.5 hrs. (Not fast...) The run is largely through residential neighborhoods and was a bit different that I had envisioned. Some limited vertical on the run, but nothing to compete with the hills on the bike course. I saw people stream by me as I struggled literally step by step in grueling fashion. Tough!
Food
On Saturday afternoon, the day before the race, I enjoyed this restaurant called
Merchant in Downtown Madison. We literally stumbled upon it when I was delirious from my long drive up from Chicago and low on energy. The breakfast with ham and eggs was fantastic and the overall vibe very inviting. I would go back there in a heartbeat, and it rivals the more crowded and frankly not as good restaurants in San Francisco. For dinner we split to two different places, and I went to an Italian place called
Tutti Pasta which was overrun by Ironman participants. The wait was long due to this but the food was good and the atmosphere very much as you would expect from a family owned Italian place.
Weather
There was the threat of major wind following the 35 mph gusts we saw on Saturday. Somehow the wind died down to 10-15 kts by Sunday when the race was held. It intensified throughout the day and the earlier finishers were favored with less heat and less wind.
Conclusion
The IronMan 1/2 distance is definitely doable, but is challenging in terms of being not entirely an endurance event. Many people take the individual legs quite quickly and there are some very fast times. Unbelievably, the word record is around 3:30 for this event. Madison was an ideal place to experience this for the first time and I can't imagine a more hospitable place in the summer. I have mixed feelings about whether or not I would have preferred a less branded "original Milkman" version or this pumped up IronMan 70.3 version. However, it was a great day that I won't forget any time soon.
