Sports
Racine Ironman Bringing 1,700 Athletes and Traffic Trouble to Mount Pleasant and Sturtevant
Bicyclists will be on the roads all over the county early Sunday morning.
Get ready, Mount Pleasant and Sturtevant: on Sunday, you’ll be invaded by 1,700 athletes taking part in the Racine Ironman 70.3.
Particpants will swim 1.2 miles in Lake Michigan, bike for 56 miles, and run for 13.1 miles.
The running and biking sections start in Racine at North Beach and weave along through the County, along 4 Mile, 4 ½ Mile, and 5 Mile Roads, on County Highways H, V, G, U, and K and back again (see map here).
The race will means heavy traffic and delays for people in parts of Mount Pleasant and Sturtevant. And it takes folks a while to swim, bike, and run all that way; the official start time for the race is 7 a.m., but athletes are given 8 hours and 30 minutes to complete it, so expect complications all day long.
Racine County Sheriff’s Lt. Dan Klatt, who is overseeing police coverage for Racine County, including Mount Pleasant and Sturtevant, said all the first bikes should be heading out all over the County by at 7:15 a.m. or so, and should be off the road by 2 p.m. The running portion of the race is focused along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
“We won’t actually close routes, but we will hold traffic in intermittent spots. We give the athletes the right of way,” he said.
Ironman is directly paying all police officers who will direct traffic for the race; Klatt said that includes about 60 law enforcement staff who he is directly supervising. Ironman is also paying for 12 members of the Racine County Water Rescue Response Team, including SCUBA divers, to help with the swimming portion.
The race is a huge boon to some businesses in Racine, including hotels. Last year, the Racine County Convention and Visitors Bureau estimated that it would flood the area with $1.25 million.