Joanne's Blog: Savageman - Sept. 16, 2007

I know, everyone questions my idea of fun, but this really was fun. Deep Creek Lake, MD is the perfect venue for a race, thanks to David and Kyle for putting together a truly spectacular one!

The Savageman is without a doubt the hardest 1/2 ironman around. I only did the "aqua-velo" (just the swim and bike) and I feel like its taking me longer to recover than it did after my last ironman.

The swim was awesome! It was definitely the most fun I've ever had swimming in a race. With a water temp. of 72 degrees and air temp. of ~40 degrees, the entire surface of the water was covered with a dense fog. You couldn't see a single buoy (despite what the pictures indicate...). Since I'm a horrible sighter anyway, this leveled the playing field for me. It is the only swim race I've done where people were talking to each other in the middle of the race, trying to figure out which direction to go. Although at one point, I stopped and I couldn't seen anyone or even hear anyone. Kind of eerie...but I figured the fog would burn off eventually and I'd find my way back to shore. And the water was so warm in comparison to the air, I could have stayed in all day! But a few second later, one of the support boats, with a blinking blue light on it yelled that the buoys were to my left, and before I knew it I was back in the pack and across the finish line.

The bike course was INSANE! No one hill was any harder than anything I'd ever done, but there were so many hard hills in just 56 miles that I was beat by the end of it. Here are some highlights, thanks to Rodrigo:

Mile 19.5 - the "Westernport Wall". On the first 1/2 mile it climbs 356 ft. and on the second 1/2 mile it climbs 261 ft, for a total of 627 ft. in the first mile. The entire town of Westernport was out cheering. Rumor has it, they even canceled church to come cheer. That is awesome!

Mile 24 - 617 ft. climb in 1.5 miles, of which 250 ft. comes in the first 1/2 mile.
Mile 26 - 274 ft. climb in 0.6 miles.
Mile 31 - 642 ft. in 2 miles.
Mile 36 - 301 ft. in 0.7 miles.
Mile 43 - 233 ft. in 0.7 miles.
Mile 51 - 201 ft. in 0.5 miles. (This was without a doubt the hardest - not statistically, but because it came so late in the ride and after all the other monsters!)