Doing my first 70.3 this weekend. Can’t wait. Taper has been great. Did a sprint and Olympic in June. Had a handful of 14-15 hour weeks in June/July. Ready to toe the start line.
Tips for Steelhead? Any help is much appreciated, whether it’s logistics or course intel. Thanks!
Enjoy!
Great course 
Go to Silver Harbor brewing for post race
I pre-road the course a couple weeks ago. Not a lot of turns and usually regarded as a fast course. The final stretch along m-63 is like 18 miles of minor rollers. I road it in an easy 2:40 and that was into a fairly stiff headwind on those last 18 miles and a missed turn. Roads are pretty crappy, a few others said it was worse than previous years. No idea on the run course but heard one decent hill you do twice. With being able to bring bikes in race morning I’m just riding in from my hotel that’s about a mile away. And I’ll second the Silver Harbor Brewing!
Amazing. Thank you so much! Have you (or anyone else reading this) done Steelhead before? I’m hoping to be in the 5:50-ish range. I’m a slow-ish swimmer, but a decent biker, and a lifelong runner. I imagine I’ll be passing a lot of people on the bike. M-63 should be easy to pass people on, right? Can’t imagine that much traffic on a Sunday morning.
Doing my first 70.3 this weekend. Can’t wait. Taper has been great. Did a sprint and Olympic in June. Had a handful of 14-15 hour weeks in June/July. Ready to toe the start line.
Tips for Steelhead? Any help is much appreciated, whether it’s logistics or course intel. Thanks!
I have some general 70.3 tips here. As for Steelhead specific tips, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to walk down to the start, it is a long walk. It is a long T1, with a good amount of sand and uphill elevation. Take it easy coming out of the water, no need to hit the gas, sure way to nuke a race without even realizing it.
Doing my first 70.3 this weekend. Can’t wait. Taper has been great. Did a sprint and Olympic in June. Had a handful of 14-15 hour weeks in June/July. Ready to toe the start line.
Tips for Steelhead? Any help is much appreciated, whether it’s logistics or course intel. Thanks!
I have some general 70.3 tips here. As for Steelhead specific tips, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to walk down to the start, it is a long walk. It is a long T1, with a good amount of sand and uphill elevation. Take it easy coming out of the water, no need to hit the gas, sure way to nuke a race without even realizing it.
They have changed the swim course so you now start/exit about 100 meters from each other. It is also now a rolling start versus the previous wave starts. Can drop of bike on race morning, which is what I have done the past 2 years. It’ a great race and a great venue. Nothing super special, just a fun race that seems to be a bit more casual then the usual WTC 70.3 races, almost has an independent feel to an extent (They give you pizza hut at the end ).
I haven’t done the race this will be my first time there. M63 is a major road and I’m wondering about that myself since I’m in the same boat as you. Slow swimmer decent bike and run. There wasn’t a lot of traffic when I road it but that was a weekday. I haven’t heard others say it was dangerous or hard to pass tho fwiw.
rode not road.
Doh! The consequences of long run exhaustion is poor spelling and grammar apparently
Doing my first 70.3 this weekend. Can’t wait. Taper has been great. Did a sprint and Olympic in June. Had a handful of 14-15 hour weeks in June/July. Ready to toe the start line.
Tips for Steelhead? Any help is much appreciated, whether it’s logistics or course intel. Thanks!
I have some general 70.3 tips here. As for Steelhead specific tips, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to walk down to the start, it is a long walk. It is a long T1, with a good amount of sand and uphill elevation. Take it easy coming out of the water, no need to hit the gas, sure way to nuke a race without even realizing it.
They have changed the swim course so you now start/exit about 100 meters from each other. It is also now a rolling start versus the previous wave starts. Can drop of bike on race morning, which is what I have done the past 2 years. It’ a great race and a great venue. Nothing super special, just a fun race that seems to be a bit more casual then the usual WTC 70.3 races, almost has an independent feel to an extent (They give you pizza hut at the end ).
Well I lost all my advantages at Steelhead. I used to love seeing pros realize they were going to miss the start and sprint to the start line.
Lake is unpredictable. Water temp and wave action can change very quickly. Non-wetsuit swim last year. Choppy in the morning, calm after the race. Make a plan ‘B’ for swim cancellation just in case. Good luck!
Vehicle traffic was not an issue anywhere on the course for me last year. Some bike clustering at points, but marshalls did a nice job.
Basic advice - start the run easy to finish strong.
Amazing. Thank you!
In terms of logistics for spectators: Parking isn’t too much of a nightmare? Can spectators bike along the run course? Or is it best for family to just post up in transition and watch from there?
This can help to watch water temps:
http://www.coastwatch.msu.edu/michigan/m5.html
Tom Z puts on a great race.
Steelhead is a great venue. My only advice is that somewhere between mile 20 and mile 30 of the bike there’s a sneaky steep hill: you’ll know it when you see it because you’ll go down a short but steep hill and then up a steep hill. The hill you go up is over a 10% grade in the last 100’ or so so make sure you’re in your granny gear and keep you momentum. It catches a lot of people off-guard.
Depending on your fitness, there’s also a couple of steep hills on the run you might walk.
The earlier you get there the closer to transition you can park.
Otherwise, have fun!
Steelhead is a great venue. My only advice is that somewhere between mile 20 and mile 30 of the bike there’s a sneaky steep hill: you’ll know it when you see it because you’ll go down a short but steep hill and then up a steep hill. The hill you go up is over a 10% grade in the last 100’ or so so make sure you’re in your granny gear and keep you momentum. It catches a lot of people off-guard.
Depending on your fitness, there’s also a couple of steep hills on the run you might walk.
The earlier you get there the closer to transition you can park.
Otherwise, have fun!
Huh, weird I do not remember this hill, but I’ll keep notice.
I have done this race three times. I have started in the second to last wave the last two times. I am a mediocre swimmer. This is my way of saying that I have had the opportunity to pass somewhere near to 1,000 people on the bike each of the last two times and never felt like it was dangerous or sketchy to be doing so (and I am not an uber biker by a long shot). There is plenty of room on this course. The roads are not closed but there is very little traffic.
The run is moderately hilly and most of it is unshaded so it can get very hot but it is a good run course.
The swim is spectacular. Lake Michigan is so clear and beautiful. It can get rough but the last two times it has only been moderate chop (a storm blew through last Friday that would have cancelled the swim but that is pretty rare, despite what everyone says).
Transition is huge! Very long from entrance to exit. Everyone has to cover the entire transition so there is minimal advantage to be gained from position. It is so large that you will need to really concentrate on where your transition spot is located.
A very fun, fair race.
As a good runner, you’ll be happy to know that they cancel the swims quite often. I did the relay a few times and the whole thing on my own once. out of those 5 times, the swim was cancelled twice.
There’s a decent hill on 63 on the way back in, I think on strava it’s called the Ugh Hill, probably around mile 50ish. Maybe that’s it? But it’s not much compared to hills on the Wisconsin course
Doing my first 70.3 this weekend. Can’t wait. Taper has been great. Did a sprint and Olympic in June. Had a handful of 14-15 hour weeks in June/July. Ready to toe the start line.
Tips for Steelhead? Any help is much appreciated, whether it’s logistics or course intel. Thanks!
Couple things so far that I didn’t see mentioned:
I’m not sure where you’re coming from, but a lot of people forget there’s a time change if you’re coming from west of the venue like WI/IL. It seems everybody gets there towards the end of packet pickup because of this and it gets way backed up. I literally waited 2 hours to pick up my packet last year. I can’t get upset with a couple thousand people doing the exact same thing I was, but that’s something to keep in mind. It can be more draining than you would like standing out in the afternoon sun for that long.
Stick to the right unless you’re passing. It’s a fast bike course that utilizes a single lane for so much of the course. It can be deceivingly fast and lots of people will hang out on the left thinking they are not going to get passed often. With a decent amount of vehicles coming the other way and only one lane to work with, there’s a lot of areas passing can be a pain.