I am considering racing the 70.3 in Galveston, TX. Any good recent reviews of the course, especially the swim portion? Thanks in advance!
I did the race this past April. It was very windy, but that didn’t really affect the swim. Perhaps just a very slight chop, but I am used to ocean swims, so it was nothing to me. Plenty of buoys to site from and keep a good line. It’s an in-water start and you won’t get much of a warm-up - you just have to go for it. The bike had a constant crosswind - a little in your face going out and behind you coming back - I averaged 19 something going out and 24 coming back. But being flat, you never get breaks and that will affect your run. The run is this incredibly convoluted 4-lap course. It is well marked, but a lot of turns, and therefore accelerations which when combined with the flat bike and constant pedaling, beats the crap out of your legs (granted I was undertrained for the event and the run killed me!) But, in all, I had a fun time - enjoyed it very much.
it’s not as fast as it looks. Last two years very windy but swim is protected. With that said, one year the short race on Saturday had to cancel the swim but the 70.3 the following day was fine. The crosswind can get old and tends to make me uncomfortable for some reason. Run is now all in Moody gardens - 4 laps. Not the fastest run course, can get a little hot in places but not as crowded as you would think unless you are a really fast runner. I don’t know why they can’t make the run better - head out towards the bay and back - around the airport - but something better than what they have now. Use to have a different run course that I think was three or two laps but after it became a 70.3 they went to four laps within Moody Gardens.
Parking is good, hotels are mostly dumps as is most of Galveston, plenty of crappers, well organized, and after party is good but not has good in past years. Cheap airfare to Houston if you are flying in on Southwest. Fun early season race. Probably on my calendar again.
2010 was when the swim was cancelled for the Oly race the day before the 70.3. It was still a tough swim for the 70.3 the next day. I normally swim around 32-35 minutes and that swim was 41 minutes. It was much better this year. The swim is wetsuit legal and the water temp will probably be about 68-70 degrees next year since the race is early.
The wind can be hell on the bike. There is always going to be 15-20 mph winds. The only guessing game is what direction they’re going to be coming from. Generally, the wind is going to be coming from some southernly direction. Last year the wind came pretty much from the SW - which sucked for the first half of the bike but gave us a tailwind coming back. The year before was more or less coming from the S - which meant crosswinds, crosswinds, and more crosswinds with almost no headwind or tailwind.
Hopefully, the April 1st date will bring us some cooler weather. It was late-April in 2010 and mid-April this year. Temps were in the mid-80’s and humid both years. It makes for a tough run because nobody is really acclimated to warm temps that early. The run, as previously mentioned, is four loops with god knows how many twists and turns. Somehow they keep it pretty well organized.
The host hotel is literally on the race course so it makes everything easy if you’re staying there. Galveston can be kind of hit and miss hotel wise. The host hotel is above average for the island.
I did the race this past April. It was very windy, but that didn’t really affect the swim. Perhaps just a very slight chop, but I am used to ocean swims, so it was nothing to me. Plenty of buoys to site from and keep a good line. It’s an in-water start and you won’t get much of a warm-up - you just have to go for it. The bike had a constant crosswind - a little in your face going out and behind you coming back - I averaged 19 something going out and 24 coming back. But being flat, you never get breaks and that will affect your run. The run is this incredibly convoluted 4-lap course. It is well marked, but a lot of turns, and therefore accelerations which when combined with the flat bike and constant pedaling, beats the crap out of your legs (granted I was undertrained for the event and the run killed me!) But, in all, I had a fun time - enjoyed it very much.
I’d like to second everything that halfspeed said. Very accurate summary. I wish they’d take the run out of Moody Gardens and onto something that is not concrete. I found that hard on the legs, but I was undertrained for the run. The constant wind on the bike was hard, but I trained on a computrainer for this event, as I only took my bike on the roads for ~ 10 days before the race (snow in Canada). I had a business trip in Houston-Austin-Dallas the week after the race, which is the only reason I had signed up for it, but for the same air fare, I can pretty well go to St. Croix. I’d say St. Croix is a much nicer destination for an event, but it depends on where you are flying from. If you are driving to the race and local to Texas, I’d DEFINITELY put this race on my list for 2012. Well, run as you’d expect from an Mdot event! Oh yeah, my time at Galveston was my slowest of any flat half Ironman I have done, due to the wind, heat and constant turns on the run.