I recently wrote about the importance of previewing the bike course ahead of a triathlon, and how I did this for Ironman 70.3 Musselman.  My wife is thinking about doing a local sprint triathlon in September, and wanted to do a course preview ride.  We both had easy effort bike workouts today, so we headed out to do a preview ride.

This particular triathlon has quite a challenging bike course.  There are several, lengthy hills within the 12 mile course.  Having done this race several times myself, I  knew that these hills were longer than anything my wife has ever faced before.  I was confident that she could successfully navigate them, but she needed to know that for herself.

It was a nice day for a ride and we started off by cycling on the bike path near the course.  This allowed us to warm up nicely, before tackling the largest hill on the course.  Having turned around and joined the course, we had a nice gentle downhill section, before reaching the climb.

My wife started the climb and I stopped to take a photograph of her on the hill.  She was climbing well and I had to work hard to catch up to her.  When I did catch her, I noticed she was working hard but was very much in control. 

This particular hill keeps going for quite a while. It is mentally challenging because it curves and you cannot see the top.  It seems like every bend that you go around, the hill just keeps going.  Eventually however, we made it to the top and started coasting downhill towards our car.

My wife did really well this morning. Now she has done a course preview ride, she is much more confident about her upcoming race.  Building confidence, is a great reason to go ride a course ahead of a race. I am glad we did that today.