IRONMAN 70.3 · Madison · Last raced 12 Sept 2026
How to train for IRONMAN 70.3 Wisconsin
Most people who pick Madison pick it for the finish, the run to the Capitol and the crowd support the organiser promises. Then they train for the hills, because the organiser calls the bike rolling and the run hilly. Both instincts miss the thing the numbers point at. This is a rolling bike you win by refusing to race the rolls, followed by a run that the heat, not the gradient, decides.
The last edition was raced on 2026-09-12, and the organiser has not yet published the next date. What follows is the course they published and the weather they recorded for that edition and the two before it.
By Kian Briel, founder. Analysed by engine 1, updated
What is actually on the road
The organiser's own course files, drawn the way the Event Analyzer draws a member's race.
- Swim1.98 km0 m upCourse file
- Bike91.7 km551 m upCourse file
- Run20.9 km93 m upCourse file
The swim is one clockwise loop of Lake Monona, 2 km from Law Park Beach to a finish at the concrete boat ramp, with buoys every 100 yards. It opens with a rolling start, so athletes seed themselves by their expected swim time. From the water you run up the Helix, the spiral of the Monona Terrace, to reach T1, and the bike comes back up the same Helix to T2.
The bike is one loop of 91.7 km, a tour of Madison and the country around it that climbs 551 m. The run is an out-and-back of 20.9 km through downtown Madison, ending in front of the Capitol.
Read the bike profile as a flat ride with interruptions. The engine counts eleven rises of 3 percent or steeper. Most are a few hundred metres long. The steepest is 276 m at 10.5 percent near kilometre 38. The longest, 817 m at 4.3 percent, begins near kilometre 73 and carries you to the highest point of the loop. Between them sits flat road, and the single largest stretch of it, from kilometre 20 to kilometre 35, holds 15.3 percent of the bike leg on its own. The steepest climb holds 1.5 percent.
Course shape by distance
- Flat 93%
- Climbing 4%
- Descending 3%
The longest stretches
- Bike, flat14.7 km15% of the bike
- Bike, climbing0.28 km2% of the bike
- Run, flat20.5 km98% of the run
Each row is one unbroken stretch of the course that keeps the same shape the whole way. The number is how much of that leg you spend inside it, and it comes out the same whether you are fast or slow.
What this course asks of each leg
Twelve training dimensions scored for each leg against its own course, the way the Event Analyzer scores a member's race.
Aerobic endurance and muscular endurance lead on every leg, and the bike carries the most of both. The demand model scores them 85 and 82 there, with threshold capacity at 70 and the two durability scores at 67 and 66 behind. Because the bike fills 53 percent of a Trained athlete's race, the eight largest demands on the course are all bike demands.
Two scores separate Wisconsin from a flat half-distance. High-intensity capacity reads 58 on the bike, and strength and force reads 52. Those are the eleven rises talking. Build a session from this file and the engine returns eleven one-minute efforts above threshold, each followed by ten and a quarter minutes of easy riding, which is roughly how the course spaces its questions. A minute of hard work, then a long stretch of steady road to get it back.
The third is heat. Environmental resilience scores 60 on every leg, and the organiser's own record explains why: highs of 30 C in 2024 and 28 C in 2025, against 21 C in 2023. The water sat at 20 C in 2025 and 22 C the year before.
Now the bands. A Trained athlete swims 39:51, rides 3:07:00 at 182 W and runs 1:58:41, for 5:55:32. The Competitive band finishes in 5:10:45 from 4.15 W/kg at 75 kg, twenty-one minutes quicker on the bike and nearly eighteen on the run. That difference is not bought on the 10.5 percent ramp. It is bought on the flat road between the rises, where the stronger rider holds 249 W and still has a run left afterwards.
- Aerobic endurance85
- Muscular endurance80
- Technical skill70
- Threshold capacity70
- Aerobic durability65
- Threshold durability65
- Environmental resilience60
- Fueling resilience55
- High-intensity capacity40
- Anaerobic capacity25
- Strength / force20
- Sprint power5
Nymiva reads what you can already show, from your own data
Connect your training history and the Focus Lab scores the same twelve dimensions this course demands against where you sit today. The gap between the two is what you train.
- MeasuredFrom your thresholds and testsThreshold power, threshold pace, critical swim speed and field tests you have done. The dimensions they can carry are scored directly.
- EstimatedFrom your training historyConnected activities are read for what they prove: long efforts, late-session fade, repeated hard work, fueling on long days. Each score says how it was read.
- ProxyFrom a stand-in, and named as oneWhere only an indirect signal exists, the score carries the proxy it came from and a lower confidence, never a number dressed as a measurement.
- UnmeasuredHonestly blankA dimension nothing in your data can answer stays unmeasured. It is never a zero, and the plan does not pretend to know it.
Every dimension ends in one word
- Develop the course asks more than you can show
- Maintain close enough to hold at the minimum dose
- Covered nothing to build here
- Unmeasured the course needs it, your data cannot say yet
In Nymiva the same twelve dimensions are scored twice. Once for the course, from the organiser's files. Once for the athlete, from their thresholds and connected training history, each score carrying a note on where it came from and how much weight it bears. Only where the course asks for more than the athlete can show is there a gap, and gaps are ranked by the share of the day they occupy. The bike here is more than half of a Trained athlete's race and the swim about a ninth, so a bike gap outranks a swim gap of equal size by a wide margin.
This page has no athlete, so its season cannot know where anyone's gaps are. It takes the plainest assumption, that they sit where the demands are largest, and lays out 24 weeks in 5 developmental blocks with a two-week taper. Aerobic endurance opens in all three sports. The second block turns to threshold durability on the bike and the run, with threshold capacity in the water. The third swaps those, and the swim leads with technical skill. Muscular endurance takes the fourth, and aerobic endurance leads again before the taper. A member's season starts from their own numbers and will disagree with this one.
Train the bike to protect the run
Which demands matter most across the whole race. A leg's demand counts for as much of the day as that leg takes, so a score of 85 on the bike outweighs the same score on the swim.
- 01Aerobic enduranceBike leg, 53% of the day85 × 53%45
- 02Muscular enduranceBike leg, 53% of the day82 × 53%43
- 03Threshold capacityBike leg, 53% of the day70 × 53%37
The bike takes 53% of the Trained reference band’s day, so its demands carry the most race weight. What the bike leaves in the legs is what the run gets.
Which demand gets a block, and when
The engine freezes one lead focus per sport on every developmental block, holds the rest at maintenance, and verifies before it reprioritises.
An illustration, not your plan. This page has none of your data, so the season below is the engine’s answer to one stated assumption: that your gaps line up with what IRONMAN 70.3 Wisconsin demands. Your own season is built from your history, your thresholds, the days you can train and the races you have entered, and it will differ from this in its priorities, its sessions and its load.
- 01Run muscular endurance, a practice block4 weeks
- 02Run aerobic endurance, a development block4 weeks
- 03Bike muscular endurance, a practice block4 weeks
- 04Bike aerobic endurance, a development block4 weeks
In the order the allocator places them, general first, most race-like last.
- Week 1PrepPrep
A lead-in week. It develops nothing by design.
- Weeks 2 to 5Foundation 1Closes with a recovery week
- PriorityBike aerobic endurance
- PriorityRun aerobic endurance
- PrioritySwim aerobic endurance
- SupportBike muscular endurance
- SupportRun muscular endurance
- SupportSwim muscular endurance
- SupportBike threshold capacity
- SupportRun threshold capacity
- SupportSwim threshold capacity
- SupportSwim technical skill
- SupportBike threshold durability
- SupportRun threshold durability
- Weeks 6 to 9Foundation 2Closes with a recovery week
- PrioritySwim threshold capacity
- PriorityBike threshold durability
- PriorityRun threshold durability
- SupportBike aerobic endurance
- SupportRun aerobic endurance
- SupportSwim aerobic endurance
- SupportBike muscular endurance
- SupportRun muscular endurance
- SupportSwim muscular endurance
- SupportBike threshold capacity
- SupportRun threshold capacity
- SupportSwim technical skill
- Weeks 10 to 13Foundation 3Closes with a recovery week
- PriorityBike threshold capacity
- PriorityRun threshold capacity
- PrioritySwim technical skill
- SupportBike aerobic endurance
- SupportRun aerobic endurance
- SupportSwim aerobic endurance
- SupportBike muscular endurance
- SupportRun muscular endurance
- SupportSwim muscular endurance
- SupportSwim threshold capacity
- SupportBike threshold durability
- SupportRun threshold durability
- Weeks 14 to 17Event shaping 1Closes with a recovery week
- PriorityBike muscular endurance
- PriorityRun muscular endurance
- PrioritySwim muscular endurance
- SupportBike aerobic endurance
- SupportRun aerobic endurance
- SupportSwim aerobic endurance
- SupportBike threshold capacity
- SupportRun threshold capacity
- SupportSwim threshold capacity
- SupportSwim technical skill
- SupportBike threshold durability
- SupportRun threshold durability
- Weeks 18 to 21Event shaping 2Closes with a recovery week
- PriorityBike aerobic endurance
- PriorityRun aerobic endurance
- PrioritySwim aerobic endurance
- SupportBike muscular endurance
- SupportRun muscular endurance
- SupportSwim muscular endurance
- SupportBike threshold capacity
- SupportRun threshold capacity
- SupportSwim threshold capacity
- SupportSwim technical skill
- SupportBike threshold durability
- SupportRun threshold durability
- Weeks 22 to 23PeakPeak
The taper. Load comes down toward the race, content stays specific.
- Week 24RaceRace
Race week.
Held at maintenance between blocks
- Runmuscular endurance, aerobic endurance, aerobic durability, threshold capacity, threshold durability
- Bikemuscular endurance, aerobic endurance, aerobic durability, threshold capacity, threshold durability
- Swimaerobic endurance, aerobic durability, threshold capacity, threshold durability, muscular endurance, technical skill
Touches scheduled by each capability’s own decay, at a fraction of its development dose, so earlier work is still there on race day.
The sessions the blocks are built from
One entry per kind of work the block trains, at the intensity that work is meant to be done at. Where the same work runs at several lengths, the entry shows the span it grows across rather than one entry per length.
- Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 575 to 240 min
150 to 210 min at Zone 2
BikePower, Zone 2Trains aerobic capacity - Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 540 to 270 min
180 to 210 min at Zone 3, then 30 min at Zone 4
BikePower, Zone 3Trains aerobic capacity - Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 535 to 120 min
90 min at Zone 2
RunPace, Zone 2Trains aerobic capacity - Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 550 min
4 x 1.5 min at Zone 3, 6 min easy between
RunHeart rate, Zone 3Trains aerobic capacity - Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 545 to 51 min
4 x 8 min at Zone 2, 1 min easy between
SwimPace, Zone 2Trains aerobic capacity - Foundation 1 · Weeks 2 to 547 to 81 min
3 x 1000 m at Zone 3, 0.3 min easy between
SwimPace, Zone 3Trains aerobic capacity
11× rolling-course surges
1 min at Zone 5, then 1 min at Zone 5, then 1 min at Zone 5, then 1 min at Zone 5, then 1 min at Zone 5, then 1 min at Zone 5, then 1 min at Zone 5, then 1 min at Zone 5, then 1 min at Zone 5, then 1 min at Zone 5, then 1 min at Zone 5, 10.3 min easy between
Compiled by the deterministic course compiler from the organiser’s file: the course’s one repeatable requirement, rehearsed at a dose the progression allows.
- Bike
- 139 min
- Trains threshold durability
- Supports muscular endurance
- Supports high intensity capacity
24 weeks, laid out backwards from race day
The shortest runway Nymiva builds for this event type, with its blocks, recovery weeks, taper and race week in place.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- Prep
- Foundation
- Event shaping
- Peak
- Race
- Recovery week
Your own season carries these same phases on your own dates, with the load solved from your fitness and the days you can train, and it changes when your data does.
What each level does on the day
Reference finish times per peer band, the pacing plan the model holds each band to, and where the day is decided.
| Band | Swim | Bike | Run | Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recreational2:11 /100m critical swim speed · 2.47 W/kg at 75 kg · 6:08 /km threshold pace | 0:47:02 | 3:22:59 | 2:22:44 | 6:42:45 |
| Trained1:51 /100m critical swim speed · 3.03 W/kg at 75 kg · 5:06 /km threshold pace | 0:39:51 | 3:07:00 | 1:58:41 | 5:55:32 |
| Competitive1:36 /100m critical swim speed · 4.15 W/kg at 75 kg · 4:20 /km threshold pace | 0:34:28 | 2:45:26 | 1:40:51 | 5:10:45 |
| Elite1:26 /100m critical swim speed · 5.27 W/kg at 75 kg · 3:50 /km threshold pace | 0:30:53 | 2:31:05 | 1:29:13 | 4:41:11 |
Pacing plan
- 0 km0%30.8 km/h7:31
- 3.86 km3.9%15.4 km/h0:47
- 4.07 km0.1%30.3 km/h23:14
- 15.8 km-2.3%42.1 km/h0:44
- 16.3 km0.4%28.8 km/h2:03
- 17.3 km4.2%14.6 km/h1:51
- 17.8 km-0.3%32.3 km/h4:00
- 19.9 km3.2%17.4 km/h1:17
32 more segments in the full plan.
- Run: reach 4:20 /km and this course gives back 44:47.
Where it is decided
At kilometre 38, by what you do not do there.
The wall at 10.5 percent comes shortly after the longest flat stretch of the day, nearly fifteen kilometres of steady road that a Trained rider has ridden at 182 W with nothing to push against. Then the road tips up hard for 276 m. It is the one place on the loop that looks like a race, and it holds 1.5 percent of the bike leg. A rider who stands up and attacks it gains a few seconds and spends them many times over across the six rises still to come, each one a smaller copy of the same temptation.
The real bill arrives later. A Trained athlete starts the run nearly four hours after the swim start, into a day that reached 30 C in 2024. The out-and-back through downtown Madison is flat in the file. Heat makes it long anyway. The rider who answered every rise with a surge meets that heat already short, and a run that should take 1:58:41 from an input of 5:06 /km threshold pace becomes an argument with every kilometre. The rider who held one number over the rolls gets to use the crowd.
Getting it wrong
The first mistake is at the water's edge. The rolling start asks you to seed by your honest swim time, and people seed by their hopeful one. They spend the loop of Lake Monona being swum over by faster swimmers, then run up the Helix with a heart rate that has not come down, and start the bike already behind their own plan.
The second is training for the wrong run. The organiser calls it hilly, so people build hill repeats. The file climbs 93 m over 20.9 km, and the engine reads 98.1 percent of the leg as a single flat segment, with the last short rise saved for the finish at the Capitol. What the run tests is steady pace in heat after three hours on the bike.
The third is the long climb at kilometre 73. It is 817 m at 4.3 percent, it tops out at the highest point of the loop, and it arrives when the legs have ridden well over two hours. Ride it at the same number you held on the flat. The descents that follow give the minutes back to anyone who kept some power for the ride home.
Conditions on the day
- 2025high 28 C, low 12 Cwater 20 C
- 2024high 30 C, low 12 Cwater 22 C
- 2023high 21 C, low 9 Cwater 22 C
From the organiser’s own records. Not a forecast.
Every session is a claim, every block is a test
A plan is not a calendar. Each key session states what it trains and how that is checked, and each block ends with a public verdict before the next one is chosen.
What a block promises
Bike aerobic endurance moves from your baseline to a stated target by the end of Foundation 1
- The baseline is your measured score when the block starts. The target is the score the model predicts for it.
- Verified at the block’s recovery week, by a field test or a refresh of the supply read from your history.
- Confidence rises by agreement between independent signals, never by one metric crossing a line.
- A block that misses its target is a public miss. The next block is chosen from what was proven, not from what was planned.
- 01Stimulus achievedThe work landed in the zone the session named, for the dose it named.
- 02Partially achievedSome of the work landed. The session banks what it can prove.
- 03Not achievedThe load may have been there. The stimulus was not, so nothing is banked.
- 04Data insufficientNo usable stream. The session is neither credited nor blamed.
- Session verified
- Progression banked
- Block verified
- Priority reassessed
- Plan adapted
Your numbers, this course
Analyze IRONMAN 70.3 Wisconsin against my fitness
The same simulation and the same Focus Lab read, on your thresholds instead of a band’s. Three numbers give a finish estimate and a partial read. A connected history gives the whole table.
The first 14 days are free.
- Trained band finish
- 5:55:32
- Of the day on the bike
- 53%
- Dimensions scored per leg
- 12
- Season runway shown
- 24 wk
Questions people ask
- How hilly is the IRONMAN 70.3 Wisconsin bike course?
- Rolling, as the organiser says. The one-loop ride out of Madison climbs 551 m over 91.7 km, spread across eleven short rises of 3 percent or steeper. The steepest is 276 m at 10.5 percent near kilometre 38. The longest is 817 m at 4.3 percent near kilometre 73.
- What water temperature should I expect in Lake Monona?
- The organiser logged 20 C in 2025 and 22 C in both 2024 and 2023. The swim is one clockwise loop from Law Park Beach to the concrete boat ramp, with buoys every 100 yards and a rolling start. The wetsuit decision is not on the organiser's course page.
- Is the IRONMAN 70.3 Wisconsin run hilly?
- The organiser's header calls it hilly. The file for the out-and-back run through downtown Madison climbs 93 m over 20.9 km, and the engine reads all but the final rise to the finish as one flat segment. Heat is the harder question, with highs of 30 C in 2024 and 28 C in 2025.
- How long is the season on this page?
- The illustrative season runs 24 weeks, with five developmental blocks and a two-week taper. It is built from the course alone. A member's season starts from their own numbers and can be longer.
Course data from the organiser’s published files, analysed 25 Sept 2026 by engine 1, demand model 4. Reference times are simulated for a peer band at a stated reference athlete and are not a prediction for anyone. Nothing on this page is medical advice.
IRONMAN® and IRONMAN 70.3® are registered trademarks, and 5150 is a trademark, of World Triathlon Corporation. Nymiva is an independent training platform and is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by World Triathlon Corporation. Course data is read from the organiser’s public course pages for the purpose of describing the event.