Ironman 70.3 Mont Tremblant - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

From the start, it was chaotic like always and I was sighting every stroke for the first 150 m or so, Mainly trying to go straight but also attempting not to get swum over/swim over anyone else. The sun was on the right, so I ended up breathing only to my left as I would get blinded every time I took a breath on the right. This went well for a while, made it to the first turn, no problems and attempted the middle section. Well, when you sighted you were looking straight into the sun. I was all over the place, had to breaststroke a few times just to get my bearings and then continue with freestyle. I have been working a lot on my swimming this year and really wanted to be able to complete the full course with freestyle. Oh well. Made the second turn and headed back to shore. The next wave was starting to catch up with me and I got completely swum over a couple of times. Sighting was also an issue at this point, but as I haven't had any open water swim practices yet this year I can't really complain. With about 200 m to go the lake bed rose dramatically and I was in about 2 ft of water. Thought I should stand up but when I realized how much farther I had to go, decided against it. Eventually made it to shore, stood up and "waded" in.

My time was great for me!! That is a PB by almost 4 minutes even with the lack of sighting, so I was super happy going into T1. This was one of my goals for this race to swim under 40 mins.

Definitely need more open water swimming practice for sighting and breathing as bilaterally breathing was an issue. N.B. I only learned Bilat breathing this year, which I think was a huge improvement in my overall swimming.

They had wetsuit strippers, which my wife told me afterwards, were getting instructions on how to do the job 10 mins before swimmers started exiting the water. Ran over and the wetsuit got stuck on my watch, the girl kept pulling as I was trying to ease it over without ripping the suit. The suit also got stuck on my heel and they just yanked the suit really hard to pull it off. I was a little concerned with how hard they pulled but nothing I could do about it then. (Unfortunately, I think they put a hole in the suit, which I found later on.)

We then had to run 500 m to transition, which seemed to be taking forever, but it was carpeted the whole way with fencing on either side and TONS of cheering volunteers and spectators. The atmosphere was great! Helmet, sunglasses, socks and shoes on, grab bike and off I go.

This was a long transition for me, but I think the majority of the time was due to the run from the beach as I can never find my "land legs" as I get out of the water.


Just bought new triathlon bike shoes 3 weeks ago and haven't mastered getting into them while they are on the bike still. Didn't feeling like attempting this and doing a face-plant in front of everyone, so I just put them on in transition. Now that I have the shoes I will need to master this technique.

I had ridden the course previously, so I knew what to expect and I knew to conserve some energy for the last section of the course. The first 30 km went really well, I took it easy for the first 10 km to allow my stomach to settle and I got passed by a lot of guys from waves starting after me (I was in the first wave) but I knew that this would happen. Just before the large climb on Rte. 177 coming back towards MT, a large group (20+) riders went by in a peleton! I couldn't believe that they were in such a big group. The section through the town of Mont Tremblant was great with lots of people out cheering and making noise. After that, we passed transition and headed up to Lac Superior, I knew this is where the fun would start! Lots of grinding and getting out of the saddle, if I was to do it again, I might get a different cassette for this section to see if it would make a difference, but overall I was happy with my time as I wanted to ride under 3 hrs for this course.

Nothing. perhaps a different cassette, especially if I was going to do the full distance.

Approaching transition, geared down and spun the legs a little, as mentioned above I still haven't fully mastered the shoes on the bike part, so just unclipped and jogged to my spot. Everything was ready in my hat, just had to put on my shoes, take off the helmet, grab my hat and do the rest while moving. A good transition considering the size of the area, I would say most of the time was spent getting from one end to the other.

Nothing, perhaps run through transition faster to get a better time.

Started out the run a little slow to allow the legs to work through the "brick" feeling. About 600 m outside transition there was a large hill that seemed to go on forever to me. After that the hills kinda took there toll and I was relieved when I had made it to the gravel section of the P'tit Train du nord. Being a bigger guy, running is not my best disciple and I knew that this would be about heat management and nutrition more than endurance for me. I decided to walk the aid stations to get ice and nutrition in and then continue running. This worked really well until km 17 when I just couldn't start running again. It was just starting the hills again and I knew it would be tough but I jogged slowly until I could hit the downhill and continue. The volunteers were great, they definitely motivated me to continue running even at a slow pace and they were always cheering us on, telling us how far there was left and that this was the last hill!! (that last part was definitely a lie, but it worked.) Back to the village and we could see transition, but had to continue up the mountain before turning around. I decided to pick it up here and passed about 5-7 people. A teammate of mine passed me with about 400 m to go right as we started down the finishing chute. I thought that I wasn't going to kick at the end but I couldn't just let him pass me like that. I gave it my all and only lost out by about 2 seconds!! The finishing chute was unbelievable, so many spectators and volunteers cheering and shouting encouragement. I crossed the line and looked at my time. I had beat my super ambitious goal of 5:45 and it felt great!

Run more hills!! Heat was a bit of a factor as I wanted to break 2 hrs, but still a good result.
Need to learn to take nutrition while running as I am sure that cost me 20-30 sec per km as it definitely felt faster than running 6:00 min/km

Water and stood in the shade, grabbed some food, chatted with my wife and teammates about the race. Picked up my stuff from transition and headed back to the room to shower, head back down for awards and roll down and then beer and dinner with some teammates.


Could have pushed the bike more but didn't want to overcook it for the run.


The organization and the Volunteers were awesome!!! I couldn't believe how helpful and enthusiastic they all were. Everyone was cheering all day long, out on the bike course there were volunteers and police at every intersection or driveway to make sure no one came onto the course, in the town of Tremblant they had tons of people out cheering, beeping car horns at a taxi stand, and blowing horns/using soundmakers, they were super nice and friendly, by far the best experience I have ever had at a race! Especially for a first time race, those doing the full Ironman are in for an awesome time in August!