I am loosely looking to see if I can myself in shape to do the full St. George IM in May next year. On paper it looks like the bike course has less climbing than all of Tahoe, Whistler, LP and Tremblant, but all the stories were about St. George being the toughest IM course out there. The run course is also pretty hilly. The bike looks like sub 6000 ft climbing and run around 1500 ft. Can anyone who really knows the area and done any of the races I mentioned confirm.
May is early in the year for me, but I can be in really good aerobic shape from winter XC skiing, run and swim and have a high FTP (for me) on bike, but all of that is theoretical without a few long days in the saddle in advance (somehow a 4 hrs day on the bike feels harder than 4 hrs day on XC skis early in the year). I like that the back part of the course is climbing when I likely have to spend less time in aero, and the final run in to T2 is largely downhill. That helps when you don’t have a ton of aerobar riding miles.
Thoughts and inputs. It would be my first Ironman in 7 years. I am a strongish swimmer and biker for my age group (55-59) and a relatively bad runner if this helps you guys guide me. I am toying with doing IM Florida or Arizona this fall if I can keep my motivation up and if work scedule allows for a 5 day trip to do one of those (unlikely the way it looks right now).
As an FYI I qualified for St. George 2022 70.3 WC at Muskoka70.3 so I will be going back next October and hoping to do IM Tremblant in August if it happens, but not knowing it happens, I kind of want to try doing an IM next year for sure.
I raced Placid many times, Mont Tremblant once, and St. George. St. George is definitely the hardest one. But it’s not horrible, it’s just a lot slower. Longer, steeper grinds than anything on the Placid course. And the end of MT has those steep climbs but it is such a brief section of the course. It’s nothing you won’t be able to handle though. Honestly the run course is what is by far the most brutal. That is what would make me think twice about racing there again much more than the bike. It’s a gorgeous race and I think you would like the swim and the bike (although the year I raced there the swim was BRUTALLY cold, probably the coldest swim in any race I’ve ever done) but the run is for sure just crushing. So if you want to race there, you definitely need to be prepared to run straight up and straight down very long hills for 26 miles.
ETA: I don’t consider the Lake Placid marathon course challenging. It has 1 hard hill you have to do twice but is otherwise fine. Just wanted to clarify that so we know that I don’t think that any marathon is really hard if it has hills. St. George run is just really hard.
The bike course for the new version of the ST. 140.6 is a bit easier than previous version imo. First, there will no longer be two loops through the Gunlock area and up what locals call the “wall”. Instead, riders will ride up Snow Canyon itself and then go down the wall once into Gunlock. I will say though, there are very few flat portions (only through the Washington Field area I believe).
I did St. george 10 and 11 I think. I’ve done placid 19 and 21.
I don’t know if I’m older and more out of shape but I felt like lake placid bike course harder than St. George. They have changed the run course since I did ST. George but I remeber the run course being very hilly and worse by far than placid run course. Swim more unpleasant at St. George (was pretty cold). Wind has the potential to make St. George a beast. that was what got everybody in 12 (?) the last year they originally offered the full
I am also thinking about St. George because the race venue looks amazing. I have done Tremblant, Whistler, and Wisconsin a few times and none of those courses are truly bad in person. The bike at St. George looks slow, but manageable. It’s the run that I keep hearing is truly awful. It sounds like it brings new meaning to “embrace the suck”
I did St. george 10 and 11 I think. I’ve done placid 19 and 21.
I don’t know if I’m older and more out of shape but I felt like lake placid bike course harder than St. George. They have changed the run course since I did ST. George but I remeber the run course being very hilly and worse by far than placid run course. Swim more unpleasant at St. George (was pretty cold). Wind has the potential to make St. George a beast. that was what got everybody in 12 (?) the last year they originally offered the full
It seems the stats on the new St. George course are lesser than all of the above races (I did them all previously), but stats on hilly courses on IM website are notoriously wrong (seemingly intentionally to not drive away registration).
The run as 1500 ft vertical over 42km. I just did Muksoka at 338m vertical over 21.km (so 1115 ft over half marathon) 1500ft does not seem insane, but not flat either.
I did St George 70.3 this May. I assume 2022 full is a doubling of that course. My point of comparison for a hilly bike course is Coeur d’Alene, where I’ve done both the half and full (this year). I found the bike course less challenging than CDA. I biked St George half in +5 minutes ish over a typical flatter course, whereas I biked CDA half +10 minutes, ish. St George is 3-4 small climbs and net downhill from the Reservoir to town. Snow Canyon is the one significant climb but it’s beautiful and less than 20 mins. (I had never done St George before so can’t speak to whether the current course is significantly less hilly than earlier iterations.)
The run course, on the other hand, holy hell…! Did not enjoy that one bit.
I did St George 70.3 this May. I assume 2022 full is a doubling of that course. My point of comparison for a hilly bike course is Coeur d’Alene, where I’ve done both the half and full (this year). I found the bike course less challenging than CDA. I biked St George half in +5 minutes ish over a typical flatter course, whereas I biked CDA half +10 minutes, ish. St George is 3-4 small climbs and net downhill from the Reservoir to town. Snow Canyon is the one significant climb but it’s beautiful and less than 20 mins. (I had never done St George before so can’t speak to whether the current course is significantly less hilly than earlier iterations.)
The run course, on the other hand, holy hell…! Did not enjoy that one bit.
From what I see the full 140.6 is not doubling the bike but it run course is double. It is hard to tell from map, is the 1500 ft on the run is for the full marathon or if it is 1500ft per loop, but if I look at the high elevation and low that is 400 ft apart and you do that twice per loop so end up roughly with 1500 ft for 26.2 miles. But the entire run looks like 4 hillclimbs up and down over a marathon. No wonder both Sam Long was fried at Tulsa after his drag race at St. George
Dev, I have done the new bike course and while tough it is very doable. The run is a nightmare. By itself it would be a challenging marathon but after the bike it is just silly tough. A cloudy day could help the situation somewhat but the chances are that the day will be sunny and hot which will result in a very tough run course. Regardless of how tough the course is I still St. George is one of the best places to race in the world.
Dev, I have done the new bike course and while tough it is very doable. The run is a nightmare. By itself it would be a challenging marathon but after the bike it is just silly tough. A cloudy day could help the situation somewhat but the chances are that the day will be sunny and hot which will result in a very tough run course. Regardless of how tough the course is I still St. George is one of the best places to race in the world.
From some offline messages I got, people are saying that the run course is like the paved part of the Wildflower run course. That’s pretty brutal strung together on a full marathon (given my running weakness). The bike looks pretty enjoyable given what my relative strengths are.
If I can get into IM St. George run shape in May such that I can just shuffle thru without walking (relative achievement in 55-59), then I can go on this massive 6 month taper for 70.3 WC St. George since “run base will be in the bag”.
I would imagine that this race will not sell out so I would have till March to decide if it is totally crazy or a great challenge for my first IM since 2015.
I haven’t read all the replies but the run is not double of the 70.3 course. The 70.3 WC course for 2021 is even different than the 70.3 course they just ran in May. I think the run for the IM will be easier than if it were 2X 70.3 course, but still not easy. I selfishly think you should do the IM next May because I will be there, and because I raced with you in your last IM in 2015 (We even chatted for a quick moment on the run).
I haven’t read all the replies but the run is not double of the 70.3 course. The 70.3 WC course for 2021 is even different than the 70.3 course they just ran in May. I think the run for the IM will be easier than if it were 2X 70.3 course, but still not easy. I selfishly think you should do the IM next May because I will be there, and because I raced with you in your last IM in 2015 (We even chatted for a quick moment on the run).
Well it can’t be worse than IM Tahoe, but I will be 7 years older so that alone makes it a LOT WORSE. But at least there is more air!!! If I closed my previous IM “career” with something hard, maybe if I start with another epic one, then the rest after will be easy…or it will be so miserable, I will have sense beaten back into my brain to just stick to Olympic. Muskoka 70.3 was hard enough but it looks like I beat my Wildflower 2015 time with a slightly easier run course (not much) and a slightly quicker bike course (but not much easier, it’s just constant hills, no long climbs, so there is some speed carrying and no braking to bleed speed).
What it means is a decent winter running block (totally doable) and then decide in March if still open and body intact. Losing 7 lbs would be helpful rather than hauling around the last 7 years of gaining roughly 1 lbs per year (funny how that works)
