The wife and I just signed up for IM Swiss, and we couldn’t be more excited. The full trip is going to Paris for the last weekend of the tour, hang out in Paris a day or two, take the train to Zurich, race the IM, celebrate the wife’s big 4-0, then high tail it home. It’s going to be such an exciting year of training and anticipation, and I figured this was one of the only places where I could talk about it and folks would appreciate how special it was. I’ll definitely be checking in for (more) training advice. Anybody done the race before? Tales, pics, etc?
I did the race this year and totally enjoyed the experience (knocking 96 mins off old IM pr helps with the enjoyability of it…).
Assuming the course is the same as this year:
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The swim is very nice. The water in the lake is cool but not cold and very clean (you can (and will) drink it). It’s a bit funky in that you swim out from shore, down, then in to the shore, under a bridge, then you get out, run across a small island, and hop back in for loop 2. Swim (for me) was pretty full-contact, but that’s what you get if you swim mid-pack (1:07).
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Bike is very nice. I live in Florida, where it is completely flat, but I trained with a SRM, so I paced the bike on watts. 2 loop course, 4 hills each loop. 1 short and mild, 2 longer and mid pitch, and 1 short but steep. Lots of flats and rollers, lots of cute towns, lots of dairy farms and cow poop smell. Lots of people hammer the first loop and die on the second loop, or hammer both loops and then walk the marathon. The first 18 miles out of transition is flat along the lake, so there is plenty of drafting in the first loop just due to biker volume, and lots of drafting the second loop due to tired people cheating. Great pavement and great traffic control.
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Run is 4 loops around town and PACKED with spectators. About halfway thru each loop, you get an arm band to signify which lap you are on. When you have no or only 1 band, that sucks. When you have 3 or 4, it rules.
Temps this year were perfect, about 60 and cloudy. Lots of VERY fit racers. Overall, a very nice race. I have a pretty detailed report that I wrote up for my coach, so if you want 5 pages of crap, pm me your email address.
Last, point, unless you are a wall street bonus baby, start saving today. Zurich is one of the most expensive places I have ever visited.
I did Paris for the last day of the tour last summer and it was very cool. Plan out where you want to be and how you plan to get there, as they shut down the streets pretty early in the day, but you can metro pretty easily.
Cheers.
Steve - saw you did IM Switz this year and I’m thinking of signing up. Also live in Fla - the very flattest part - and am worried about the climbs. Can you share your thoughts? Will training in Clermont a few weekends give me enough experience? Thx.
i’m jealous.
that’s certainly going to be a lot more fun than going to madison again (as we are)!
Great info! How bad were the logistics of traveling to Europe to do an IM? Was it a royal pain to get your bike, wetsuit, other gear, etc. over there? Any suggestions to make the process smoother? My wife and I are looking at the possibility of Switzerland in 2011. Thanks!
I did the race last year and the climbs are pretty easy. Heartbreak Hill which is the steepest is quite short, maybe 10 min tops and the other longer climb is not very steep just a bit longer maybe 20 min long. The rest is fast and flat and more down than up. The climbs are shorter than the descents which really help. Just do some big gear work on your flats and you will be fine.