Nice location and beautiful scenery for a race. I would rank the entire course in terms of difficulty as about a 4 on a 1-10 scale. The swim is in a shallow river with very little current. The bike is rolling hills with one 'large' hill around mile forty. (I was over it before I knew it). The run is pretty flat with some slight rolling hills.

Good thing you are going with friends. The only think I didn't like about the race is there are two separate transition areas that are about 10 miles apart. It will be helpful to have an extra car that you can leave at T2 so when you are finished with the race you can pick up your other car. They have buses you can take but they don't let you bring your bike on them until late. So your option if you don't have an extra car is to take the bus back to your car and then come back to pick up your bike or wait until late and hope they let you bring your bike on the bus.

Other than that I really like the race and it is an MDOT so there is a large pre and post race expo.

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"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country" JFK - Replace 'country' with the company you work for, friends, family, and strangers and the world will be a much better place.

Last year's 1/2 Vineman was my first 1/2 as well. The course is very scenic (although much of it was underwater as of last week). The swim is in a river with little/no current. The bike is beautiful. It is "rolling" with only one major climb which comes around mile 45 or so. The run is also rolling and there isn't much in the way of shade. It is an out and back course that goes to a winery as the turn around point - they actually have you run around the vinyard which I thought was pretty cool.

It can get pretty hot if you're in a later wave, and as I mentioned, there isn't much shade on the run. But they did have it well staffed - each mile had offered water/gatorade and gu.

There are hotels in Santa Rosa, or a little further up in Healdsburg. My wife and I took the day off work on the Monday following the race and did some wine tasting and had a picnic.

It is a great race but logistically tough because of the 2 transition areas. I think Gordo has a very detailed race report on his site.

The swim is in a river with many waves going off over 2 hours. T1 is the only bad part of the race as it is a gravel parking lot. The bike is a lot of rollers through the wine country 2 lane roads. T2 at the local high school. Run is mostly paved rolling pavement with a great turnaround through the vineyards of La Crema winery. Can be very hot later in the day but also cool to cold in the morning depending on what wave you are in.

There are a bunch of threads about the logistics and course from last year. Try the keywords Vineman, logistics, hotels and you should get a lot of info.

See you there.

Dave