Las Vegas Triathlon Official Website

The "Nitty Gritty" Details (User Opinions)

Gregory L.
San Francisco, CA

  (03-18-2010)

"This was my first half ironman distance race, and I chose it because of it timing and...duh an excuse to goto vegas!

Overall I'd say it was a pretty good first time experience. The race actually has a half ironman distance, olympic distance and a sprint distance. Everyone starts at around the same time, which has some implications for the longer course participants (which I'll get into later). As for size there were about 70 people doing the half ironman, 120 doing the olympic distance and close to 300 for the sprint.

The swim is in Lake Mead, which is about 30 min outside of vegas. It's actually a very pleasant swim, the lake is calm, not too dirty, and I'd say water temperatures were something in the mid 70's range. Coming out of the swim I'd suggest leaving a pair of sandals or something as the jog from the lake to T1 is pretty far, and the road had a bunch of gravel on it that can make the barefoot run pretty uncomfortable. The transition area is relatively small, but it well organized by distance.

The bike course is an out and back, i'd describe it as rolling with a steep rollers every so often. The road is NOT closed to traffic, so make sure you're comfortable with riding on shoulders before doing the race. The half ironman bike course can get pretty desolate (I wondered a couple times if I was going the right direction =P) since there aren't many people to cover the 56 miles. Other than that it was a great day for riding, and less windy then people said it normally is.

To my point of the other races before, T2 was where it got interesting. By the time you return from the half iron bike, it's a good 4-5 hours into the race, which means almost everyone else doing the shorter distances are done! So when I got to T2, the transition area was basically empty! Not too huge a deal, but just something that I didn't really think of.

Off to the run, the run is mostly an out and back, except for a small section that gets repeated to make the 13.1 miles. The course is mostly on crushed rock, not too bad for running, then the rest on pavement.

The finish did have some good supporters still hanging around, but not nearly as much as the beginning of the race ;). Overall it's a great race if you just want a no non-sense smaller tri...but come on let's be serious, the reason to do this one is you can go to vegas!"

Reviewed by a: First Time Participant for 2007