Rev3 Quassy Bike Course Preview

On Saturday I met my coach and some of his other athletes for a bike course recon of the Rev3 Quassy Half course. Other than getting pulled along by a super fast young 21 year old dude heading for Vegas in Sept, I had a good ride, with my legs finally opening up during the last 90 mins.

My overall thoughts of the course? Its pretty dang hilly!

Even though I am only doing the Olympic distance, it shares some of the same roads, but I got the "gist" of the terrain in that area: HILLY. You are either going up, or you are going down, with only a handful of flat spots.

What stood out the most on the Half course was this awesome 7 mile downhill + fast flat section immediately followed by this 5 mile climb from Route 6 up to Route 118 along 254. We ended up big ringing 95% of the course (including that 5 mile climb! (I DONT RECOMMEND THIS!!!))

But what a day for the ride! It was barely 50 degrees when we started, but within an hour we were stripping clothing off because it warmed up so rapidly. But it was that awesome dry heat. Can't everyday be like this? Oh wait, I could move to San Diego....

Then we put on our running shoes and bricked it for 45 mins. And when I mean brick, practically raced 45 mins. I ended up popping at mile 2 then hanging on for dear life before running basically a 10K in 48 mins and change. OUCH! That hurt....I think the run course is tougher than the bike, IMO.

After the ride, I drove the missing parts of the Olympic bike course. Yes, you have to go up that stupid little wall of a hill right before Rt 63. Then I drove the run course. There is this winding right hill that looks like a total POS and will HURT on race day, followed by a pretty steep downhill. The brick run we did included the last mile or so, which is ALL uphill.

Glad I previewed all of it, since doing that course (especially on the bike) would be downright dangerous. There are a few intersections on the bike that have some blind stops (they will be open and police controlled on race day) but you don't want to be bombing through them regardless!

Finally, I must have driven across half of CT, because I wound up down in Norwalk @ Calf Pasture Beach for a picnic, which also happens to be the venue for a future race in July, the Sobe Mossman Sprint. Talk about a day of race previewing!