We (I include myself in this) always say that 70.3 St. George is the hardest 70.3 in North America, which may be true since Hawaii is in Oceana, but Honu is the hardest 70.3 in the US. Is there a harder IM-branded 70.3 anywhere in the world?
StG has a hilly bike and run and it is for sure hard. Weather can be challenging there. I’ve raced it 3 times and it’s been pretty hot, but never truly brutal if you’re 5 hours or under. Honu has a non-wetsuit ocean swim that can be very rough. It can have relentless high gusty winds on the bike, and debilitating heat and humidity on the run with many short but steep little hills, and spongy energy-sapping fairway grass on the run. I’ve done Honu twice. First time in 2015 where I think we had some very favorable wind conditions. I think this year may be more typical and it was TOUGH.
I did both this year. Despite having some pretty bad cramps on the run in StG i still ran faster than I did in Honu where I had no cramping and put down the 3rd fastest run in my AG, I was still slower on the run and in overall time at Honu than at StG!
There is like 1500 feet less climbing in Honu, but we had a punishing quartering headwind all the way up to Hawi, and then a terrifying gusty cross-tail on the descent that had me on the base bar most of the time down from Hawi. My bike times on the two courses ended up being very similar.
The swim in Honu on the return leg was quite rough and hard to sight over the ocean waves and we were getting turned off course by the wind and waves. Times were really slow. in M40-44 we had I think only 1 guy under 30. Most in the top 10 out of the water were in the 34 range!
Here are some stats.
2019
Top 10% all age groups (men & women)
____StG____Honu
Swim 31:38 35:02
Bike 2:37:41 2:40:12
Run 1:44:18 1:50:23
Overall 5:05:57 5:24:10
2019
Top 10% M40-44 (my AG)
____StG____Honu
Swim 32:31 36:57
Bike 2:35:34 2:32:58
Run 1:40:35 1:47:07
Overall 5:00:48 5:09:15
I dont think I’ve done a tougher 70.3 than Hawaii anywhere. I’ve done 4 70.3’s in Europe & New Zealand (actually, that was Challenge Wanaka) and none of them challenge Hawaii in this regard. Are there any that would?
Is it a tough course just because you caught it on a tough day? Would it be tough if there was no wind and it was 70 degrees?
I know of a lot of really tough half IM’s, most not branded races anymore. And they are tough each and every year. A good indication is to look at the pro winning times over the history of the event. Really tough courses dont usually have the men breaking 4 hours, or just barley. There is that race on the east coast where pros are lucky to do four and a half hours, and you get a brick or something for not walking up a hill!!!
Is it a tough course just because you caught it on a tough day? Would it be tough if there was no wind and it was 70 degrees?
No, in that case it would be harder than average, but not a contender for the toughest. But is it useful to consider an implausible case? It is rare to be windless and I doubt that it has ever been 70 degrees on a June day on Hawaii… I do not know if the winds for Honu this year were worse than normal, but I do know that very capable triathletes complain about those winds almost every year at Kona, so I gotta think what we had at Honu was not too far out of the normal range.
Edit - and yeah, there are some tougher races, but I mean to limit my claim to IM branded races.
Is it a tough course just because you caught it on a tough day? Would it be tough if there was no wind and it was 70 degrees?
No, in that case it would be harder than average, but not a contender for the toughest. But is it useful to consider an implausible case? It is rare to be windless and I doubt that it has ever been 70 degrees on a June day on Hawaii… I do not know if the winds for Honu this year were worse than normal, but I do know that very capable triathletes complain about those winds almost every year at Kona, so I gotta think what we had at Honu was not too far out of the normal range.
Edit - and yeah, there are some tougher races, but I mean to limit my claim to IM branded races.
I believe Wildflower and St. Croix WERE considered generally harder
Everyone complains about headwind, but never praise the tailwind that often goes with it, and sometimes a larger% overall. I complain about Kona all 15 years I did it, and it was a super tough course for me(bad in heat). But now I regularly watch guys break 8 hours, some low 7;50’s, so hard to say it is a slow course. When I think of tough courses, I think about what it takes to win them.
All courses are tough, you have to define what you mean by tough to have this discussion though. St Croix, Wildflower, and a few others would routinely put the best pros in the world at 4 hours. Most other half ironman are won in the 3;40’s now. But of course doing a 3;40 for that distance is really, really tough…
you have to define what you mean by tough to have this discussion though.
That is very true. I like to point out to people that doing your absolute best Ironman, Marathon, 5k, 1 mile are all equally difficult. The nature of the difficulties may be different among them.
I suppose what I mean in this case is that time it takes one to complete this 70.3 vs. other courses given equally good performances.
Honu hasn’t regularly had a pro field in a while, but last time there was a real pro race there in 2013, Crowie won in 4:05. Paul Matthews was second in 4:12. Luke Bell only managed 4:16 in 4th. Pete Jacobs did 4:33!
Run course has changed since then and this year the swim was at a different beach due to permitting issues… But the general characteristics remain the same.
Is it a tough course just because you caught it on a tough day? Would it be tough if there was no wind and it was 70 degrees?
No, in that case it would be harder than average, but not a contender for the toughest. But is it useful to consider an implausible case? It is rare to be windless and I doubt that it has ever been 70 degrees on a June day on Hawaii… I do not know if the winds for Honu this year were worse than normal, but I do know that very capable triathletes complain about those winds almost every year at Kona, so I gotta think what we had at Honu was not too far out of the normal range.
Edit - and yeah, there are some tougher races, but I mean to limit my claim to IM branded races.
I believe Wildflower and St. Croix WERE considered generally harder
I’d agree Dev…Wildflower was much harder than when I did Hawaii 70.3. Although the course has changed, I would not say it was really that big of a deal (yeah it was windy but whatever, you can get that anywhere)…Wildflower on the other hand…you best have your gearing figured out well in advance.
Buffalo Springs is the hardest half I have ever done. Hills on the bike and run. Also hot hot hot.
I’ve heard good things about that race but never been there. Looks like 2018 was a particularly difficult year. In other years it looks like people were much faster there than in Honu, so I am assuming 2018 was hotter than usual. Is that the year you did it? in 2018 a top 10% AG’er (combined male & female) was 5:25. similar to Honu this year, but in 2017 & 16 4:56 and 5:01 got you top 10%. The “fast” years in Honu only get down to about 5:18.
Buffalo Springs is the hardest half I have ever done. Hills on the bike and run. Also hot hot hot.
I’ve heard good things about that race but never been there. Looks like 2018 was a particularly difficult year. In other years it looks like people were much faster there than in Honu, so I am assuming 2018 was hotter than usual. Is that the year you did it? in 2018 a top 10% AG’er (combined male & female) was 5:25. similar to Honu this year, but in 2017 & 16 4:56 and 5:01 got you top 10%. The “fast” years in Honu only get down to about 5:18.
No probably twenty years ago. Back when it was an Ironman qualifier. I think James Bonney won the year I did it.
In Hawaii, days when the conditions make the swim and bike slower appear to be days when the run is faster; and vice versa. The condition that make the swim and bike slower is wind; but windy days appear to keep the temperatures a little cooler for the run. OTOH, low winds make the swim and bike faster, but low winds also make the run hotter.
The normal swim at Hapuna is usually easy. A couple of years ago when I did Honu we had some light rain near Hawi and no wind. The heat and humidity does make that run just awful. St George is always hard (there will be bad weather), but is not awful either.
Wildflower was challenging, but not as bad as Dev makes it.
First off congrats on a Kona slot Ed. I have done Hawaii 70.3 twelve straight years on three different run courses and here are my thoughts:
I have done St Croix 2 x and I thought that was the toughest until they put the run 90% on the golf course in Hawaii. Now I can say I am confident you won’t find a slower sun course regardless of heat. When Macca/Crowie/Armstrong/Bennett etc use to race here they did the one loop run with tons of street running and crowie never broke 1:21. It’s at least 3-4 min slower than that course now.
I did Wildflower 2 x and super tough bike (if hot and windy) and run but the swim was flat out a drag race. Honu and St Croix ocean swims are minutes tougher. Wildflowers run was KNARLY but guys like Jessie and Terrenzo went low there…they would not go that low on this course.
2021 conditions at Hawaii 70.3 were far from what we can normally see. The crosswinds did not cut speed if your able to stay aero. I feel the bike this year was actually fast as the course is by far slower on paper than last years course. The climb out of Mauna Lani itself is 1.45 miles from the round about. You don’t ride 2:08 as a AG (Justin) if the conditions are brutal. I would bet anything you won’t find a slower 13.1 run off the bike on the circuit….just no footing and no chance to gain momentum.
We were discussing ST G vs Honu with a few athletes that did it this year and they all said not even close. Most were 20-35 minutes slower at Honu.
Wildflowers run was KNARLY but guys like Jessie and Terrenzo went low there…they would not go that low on this course. //
You have to keep in mind that once wildflower was finally measured out, I believe it came to 12.9 to 13.0, so a short course. Which makes sense when you see some of the better times there. So you can add a minute+ for accuracy sake. I dont know what Honu measures out to be, like wildflower it is all over spots that are hard to measure…
Wildflower, Auburn half (formerly Worlds toughest half??), Best in the West, Savageman, Lubbock all come to mind. But Lubbock is the only race that’s IM branded.
In the world, no way.
All the South East Asia races are hotter. Too many to list.
Emburman in France is way harder than Wildflower. A few more that I can’t remember the name of.
