Challenge Sanremo: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

The swim start, both transitions and the finish sit together at the Portosole marina, so the whole race is organised around a single point. The swim is 1.9 kilometres in one or two laps inside the harbour area; whether wetsuits are permitted or required is decided by water temperature on the day.

Out of T1 you go straight onto the single bike lap. It leaves the coast eastwards, takes the short village ramps beyond Riva Ligure, and only returns to the sea after the long climb to the Ghimbegna and the descent over Ceriana and the Poggio. Drafting is forbidden at this distance, and the bike cutoff is 5:20 hours from the start.

The half marathon, by contrast, never leaves the shoreline: two laps of the coastal cycle path, tunnel at Capo Nero included. This sequence of serious climbing followed by complete flatness shapes the race more than any single discipline does, and the eight-hour limit is set so that it mainly bites on the bike. The middle distance is also a qualifying race for THE CHAMPIONSHIP, Challenge Family's own final.

Pacing Strategy

Plan the day backwards from the Ghimbegna. With a 55-minute limit the swim is not a time factor for most people, only a question of how calmly you reach T1: a frantic start costs more than it gains on a course with seventeen kilometres of climbing ahead.

The bike decides which half marathon you get. Your power on the Ghimbegna, not on the flat coastal kilometres, determines the run; ride too hard to the pass and you will walk the second run lap. The long descent that follows is the best place to take on carbohydrate and loosen the legs again.

T2 is the real breaking point of this race. After more than a thousand metres of descending in the aero position the running muscles are cold, and the course then offers not a single climb on which the rhythm finds itself. Run the first two kilometres deliberately controlled and only move to target pace once your cadence is back.

Training plan for Challenge Sanremo: 12-week build

Reckon on five to eight hours of racing depending on your level, with the bike as the longest and by far the hardest block. The demand is two-sided: a long, hilly, non-drafting ride and then a completely uniform run.

The key session is therefore the brick run after hilly riding. Ride long sessions with the climbing loaded into the second half and run 20 to 40 flat minutes at target race pace straight afterwards: that exact transition from climbing and descending into flat running is what your body needs to know.

The second focus is the ability to ride an hour of climbing evenly below threshold. Long climbing intervals in race position prepare you better than any flat interval; train only on the flat and you will never find the right gear on the Ghimbegna.

Conditions are mild but not harmless. In early October the sea is still around twenty degrees while it is markedly cooler at the pass: plan your clothing for the descent, and rehearse fuelling for a day on which swimming, climbing and flat running make very different demands on fluid and carbohydrate.