So my wife and I both raced at Fortaleza last weekend and I thought I would let you all know some of the positives and negatives. First, travel to get there was really rough. We left for the airport in Dallas at 10am and got to our apartment in Fortaleza at 1pm the next day (which is 10am Dallas time, so 24hrs of travel). We flew to Miami, then down to Brazillia, then back up to Fortaleza on TAM. That is hard on the body the Tuesday and Wednesday before the race. The city is pretty cool. It is an Urban Beach with restaurants, high rise apartments, and great little beach huts to party at. There are a lot of very poor people sleeping on boxes, but we had read a lot about crime, but never felt unsafe or in danger.
To give some perspective, this is my 10th Ironman and I am a 2 time KQ (counting this one). This race was very well set up. The transition area was compact, but well organized.
Swim- No Wetsuit. The first 1/4 of the swim is inside a man made sea wall, so the water was calm and fast. Once you cleared the wall into the open ocean, it was very rough. 8 to 10 ft swells and a hard current pushing you left. They used a large sail boat as the first turn boey, then you went with the current for 500-600 meters which was obviously fast. When you turned on the last out boey to head home, it was really bad. The waves were breaking right in your face and it felt like we were swimming in place and on top of each other. It took a long time to get home and most people went really wide to the right to get closer to shore (another sea wall) to get calmer water. Once you were back inside the sea wall it was fast again to the boat ramp to get out. I swam a 57 and was one of the top 5 amateur swimmers out of the water. I usually swim sub 55.
Bike- The first leg of the bike goes out the run course through town. It is not very fast because of frequent turns and rough repair patches on the road. You then head out to the loop for the first 20k, this road was similar, some rough spots, but not to bad, you also go up and over 2 bridges, so slightly rolling. Once you start the loop the road surface is really good. They were handing water up in the large green Gatorade bottles, like you might get in Soccer, I had a hard time getting water out of them and getting them to fit into my cages, but the volunteers did a great job of running along and getting bottle up to you. They ran use in the fast lane of a modern 3 lane highway. As it go later in the day the car traffic really stacked up in the other to lanes and we had more motorcycles and a few cars jumping into the race course, which was scary. The wind was high all week up around 20 mph out of the SE which would have been a straight head wind on the out part of the loop, but we got lucky on race day and the wind was around 15 mph out of the east, so it was more of a head to cross wind than a straight head wind. You were a few mph slower going out, but you got it back in a hurry on the way home. The course also rolls nicely, no out of the saddle climbing, just enough couture to keep it interesting. I will also say that this was the cleanest bike I have even seen in an Ironman as far as drafting. There were only around 1000 athletes, so that helped, but I could see both sides of the highway and maybe saw one or two people cheating. At the race meeting the Director went off on Drafting, he said the would be 30 marshals and the penalty was 10 minutes? It worked, because it was very clean. Interesting, he is the same race director from Floranapolis which is famous for drafting. The final 20 k back to town after the 2 loops was worse due to crazy vehicle and foot traffic. There were several people walking in the bike route, and frustrated cars from the huge traffic jam really cutting into the bike course. A few tough turns and rough roads also before we got back to T2. I rode a 5:03 which is about what I normally ride on the easier north american course (Woodlands, Arizona)
Run- This run was set up great. You came out of T2 on a small loop around the Hotel, then basically ran an 8.7mi out and back, right through the fun part of Iracema Beach. The fans were going crazy and because it was out and back, it was easy to tell where you were in the race. They also gave out different colored arm bands after each loop, so when you same someone in your AG, you could tell if they were on your loop. Aid stations were well done, even though they did not have gel, just liquid’s and fruit. They handed out the water in those little plastic cups with foil tops, so you could carry them and bust into them as you wanted, I think this really helped me as I was able to get a lot more water into my body per cup. They also handed out bags of ice. It was hot, but not terrible. The sun comes up at 5 and goes down at 5 so it is already starting to cool off a little by 2 pm, the humidity also goes down during the day, and the breeze helped. I have races at the Woodlands twice and it seems much hotter that Fortaleza. I ran a 3:41 which is on par for me with other races. As you can see from the results, there was not a strong field of runners in this race. That time normally puts me outside the top 20 run times in my AG and it was 2nd at this race in my AG.
In the end, it was a very well produced race in a really cool town. It is hard to get there and it might be hotter and windier in future years, but I would recommend this race. Its time of year (right after Kona), its cost of travel, both cut down the field of people from North America (I want to say there were only about 50 USA and Canadian Athletes, and a small group of Europeans. Let me know if you have any questions, I would be glad to answer them.