I enjoyed racing at Gurye. The second time I have an Ironman distance race in Korea after doing the old IMK back in 2005. The course is great, but only if you wipe out the last 20km on the bike from your memory. Was on a narrow, one lane motor way slighlly uphill and into the wind. No shade either. Brutal. The rest was fine. The swim was great and I enjoyed the multi lap run course. Logistics are fine, just factor in the close to 3 hour bus trip from Busan or from Seoul. One small quibble. No one speaks English or other languages. At hotels or in restaurants. Restaurant menus in English would be a huge help. Liked it so much I will go back. Either in 2019, or more likely 2020.

This was my first IM so I was impressed of course. The event was well organized except for the shuttles from the airport to the hotel. The swim was very well marked and therefore easy to navigate. The bike starts with a bit of a climb to warm you after getting on the bike wet but soon enters the loop section (3 loops) with just one modest hill to contend with. The end of the ride is a long climb back to T2 in the heat of the day. The run is largely under trees and is relatively flat.. Running into the stadium and down the chute was amazing. Not a great deal of support from locals on the course but we were with a large group so we generate our own support. Very convenient when traveling over from Tokyo so I would do it again one day.

Exec Summary: Great race, close to Tokyo and with neat logistics and organization. Beautiful, gently hilly course, well managed and served, with few improvable, minor glitches. Definitely a must-do if it fits your racing season. Prep: For the swim, it's a lake swim with a lot of rookies kicking and with poor sighting skills: to train for that… I don't know, find some local triathlons or crowded pools. Biking: it's a hilly course, and I rode it virtually about 3-4 times (in different pieces). Not excessive elevations, but a lot of gentle hills where it's hard to know how much to push. The best way to race there is learning how to gauge by feeling. For the run: flat loop, with some gentle incline, so no special tips there. Organization and Management The local shuttle services were nicely arranged: spacious, convenient, and frequent enough. I couldn't attend the Friday welcome banquet, but I heard it was athlete-conscious, with reasonably nice food. The swim practice was, as standard, on Sat early morning, in a bit of a narrow timeframe, which I missed. Given the kind of swim, it was really not necessary (unless you're an insecure swimmer). I instead rode my bike all downhill from K Jirisan hotel to transition, then to check in, and back up to bike racking in transition. Race morning I headed out towards the shuttle stop - made it in time for the 5:30am (there were a bunch of buses waiting, so it left earlier at 5:25 am or so as soon as it got full), with only a 10-minutes drive, arriving at T1 at 540am. I put the last two items in the run bag (in spite of the guide saying we couldn't access the bags the morning of), and got ready for the wetsuit-legal swim. Swim Easy, nice swim in the midst of the Jirisan lake, in a u-shape loop (outside of the u-shape first, then inside the u-shape). Swimming is my developing area, so I self-seeded myself into the 1h10-1h20m group (the only faster option being sub 1h10m). I started my watch 10sec earlier as always, so at to lock it (don't forget to, it's important!). The swim often felt like a migrating herd of salmon up a stream…. too much kicking/overreacting to contact, slow swimming, blocking, and poor sighting in general. The rope on the side, though, made it very, very easy to sight and to follow the course. The half-way mark sensor made it easy for friends to track. After about halfway more of the slow pack had gone away, I could finally power through the water at a faster pace. T1 The transition area was reasonably clear and with showers, no issue there, and after around 3-4min I was out and onto the bike. Bike The first section was quite smooth and flat, soon followed by a gentle uphill and the steeper incline: a 5k climb, never too hard though. The downhill was quick and nice, with few, well-signaled pot/manholes. After 20km I got to the first aid station, and the only negative surprise of the bike course: they were giving half-full water bottles only. That was ok, but it meant I had to actually replenish at every single aid station. In my case the nutrition is fully liquid with a concentrated frozen bottle placed in my bike in the morning, so that wasn't a problem, but other people relied on aid stations' sport drinks, thus having to adapt a bit more. After 33km or so I entered into the loop section. A set of gentle hills, with beautiful scenery, trees, and shade for quite some sections. The weather was wonderful, perfect for racing, i.e. sunny with clouds: according to my bike computer, 11 celsius min, 19c average, 26c max. After 7km or so into the loop a right turn introduced us to the main uphill of the loop section: a gentle, long uphill, even though it didn't look like one. On the downhill it was a long, fast ride, safe and with reasonable traffic. The first lap had very few athletes to pass, so it was mostly traffic free. However, quite some people were drafting - I saw some people behind me and had to waive at them to take over. Seeing friends at the roundabout of the lap was a nice confidence boost, and a motivation to do well… About drafting, on the second lap I also had to yell "complete the pass!" after a girl was riding her roadie for a while next to a guy she had been drafting off from… and I had to shout again, at FULL lungs, "complete the pass!!", after she was blocking and they had 4 bikers plus me behind them. I really didn't want to get a draft penalty, which meant I had to burn a match and power through, so as to overtake 6 riders at once. It was alright, but irritating. There were a few race officials roaming on scooters, but they weren't carrying a passenger - which (as a friend pointed out) meant that, although they were whistling at riders occasionally, they couldn't appropriately card them or note down their number. Maybe they had an open radio/phone connection to communicate regarding penalties, but I doubt it. Given the profile of most of the course, a continuous up-and-down of gentle hills (with only 5 major, clear climbs throughout the course), it was very hard to understand when to push and how much to push. Later I spoke to other younger podium finishers, and they also had similar problems. The last 20 km were mostly on the highway. A brutal, unpleasant section, uphill and with cross- and headwinds, no aid stations, no shade, and cars going past us on the right lane, separated only by orange cones. But well, it was almost over... T2. Eventually I approached T2, dismounted, saved my ride, and picked up my run bag. I shouted a few times for sunscreen… until eventually a volunteer could point me to the right tube on a different table. Aaaaand off I went for the run! Time: 4m36s Run Nice stretch with quite some shade. Aid stations ran out of ice though…. for a while. Not nice. End-of-race massage felt great Post-race: The evening continued with friends arriving, cheering, some eating and hydration, and such. I had some, but should have brought warmer clothes as it got pretty chilly pretty quickly! On Tuesday we took the shuttle back to airport, flew again with Air Busan without issues (1000 yen only for the bike, again…!), and got to Tokyo safe and sound. Race Logistics: Arrived on Friday around 4:15pm at the Gimhae/Busan airport, plenty of time to get the event shuttle at 6pm - a bit slow of a ride, with stop after 2h, ended up being an almost 4h hour trip to the hotel in Gurye. For the shuttle fee, I could pay in USD or Korean Won (and there were ATMs and money exchange services at the airport). The shuttle was a bit small and crammed (25 seats or so max), so our bikes were handled separately (but arrived safe and sound, no worries there.) On Tuesday we took the return shuttle in spite of not having the right ticket - but somebody from the race showed at 7am to check the number of passenger, and everything worked out nicely (bigger bus this time, plus a second truck for bike cases.)

Overall a solid race with beautiful scenery. The swim is super fast, a wetsuit swim in a calm lake with easy sighting. The bike has some rolling hills but the climbs are well worth the downhills earned in exchange. The run is a super flat loop course through rice patties and along a small river. Aid stations are plentiful and the course markings are easy enough to follow. Local support could be better, not too many people cheering on roadside. But a large number of volunteers at transition and each aid station. However language is a problem and don't expect too many people, at the race or in town, to speak English.

This was my first time doing this race, and overall it was a great experience. As the race hotels and venues are fairly spread apart you can't expect the type of atmosphere and buzz you find in European events. That said, the locals do put their hears into it, but make sure you have Google translate handy as English is hard to get by. Food can also be an issue as the menus don't have many Western options, which is ok if you're here on holiday but not ideal before an Ironman. I would suggest you're fully self-reliant food-wise for pre-race dinner and race day breakfast. Swim is gentle and easy to sight, with a rope on your right hand side along the whole course. Bike not flat but not a tough course either as the hills are gentle and road surface good throughout. Run is mostly flat and fully-stocked aid stations every 1.6km. Was very impressed that drinks were cool throughout the day and volunteers were really great. This is an event that takes quite a bit of effort to get to, closest international airport is Busan which doesn't really have that many direct links to European or US airports, so you'll have to transit via a big Asian city airport, and then it's another 2.5hrs on the bus from the airport. Flying into Seoul is another option but then it's a 4-4.5hr bus ride to Gurye. Overall a great experience but best to be prepared for some frustration around logistics and food.