Ironman Canada : Official Thread (Page 4)

Hope everyone is recovering at this point. Curious to get impressions of the course. I personally found this course far more difficult that the two I did previously (CdA and Zurich). I read up on it and looked at the course maps ahead of time but was frankly surprised by how difficult it was, particularly the climbs out of Permberton. Beautiful throughout but it really kicked my behind.

congrats to you! sounds like a rough one.

yes looking fwd to reading any race reports from IMC.

All I have to say is HOLY that was hard. I have done a ton of cycling and that was THE hardest ride ever. Unfortunately, my day ended early with a busted bike, although I did finish the course 8 minutes after the cutoff. It's hard to get much speed up with just two low gears going up those hills and then hope for any energy to be left to run 26.2.

Kudos to anyone that completed - that was a tough one!

Yeah that course was brutal.

I had a tough swim as I really hadn't swam that much this year. Ended up at 1:16 (expected 1:08-1:12). I think the swim was a little long though as my GPS said 2.7 (as did a lot of my friends).

I knew the bike was going to be hard so I kept myself in check early on and was making really good progress until right after the turnaround out on the Pemberton Flats. Ended up getting a flat that cost me 7-8 minutes (and another 3 minutes later in the course due to my Speedbox popping open). As I hit the bottom of the climb out of Pemberton my power meter cut out (on my 510, my 910 on my wrist kept recording most of the time) so I was "blind" going up the climb. Ended up at 5:50 with all the issues I had so felt pretty good but a lot slower then the 5:30 I was hoping for.

Another issue that popped up for me from the bike didn't really impact me until mile 6 of the run. I have been dealing with Morton's Neuroma for a few years now and thought I had it sorted out. It turns out the placement of my cleats were also causing it to flair up a bunch. I hadn't had a ton of issues with it on my longest rides but the amount of climbing really impacted how my feet felt. At mile 6 or 7 of the run I knew it was going to be an issue and ended up walking on and off until mile 13. At mile 13 a buddy of mine passed me. I powered my way up to him and he offered some kind words. It turns out he was having some major GI issues as well. We ran together for a few minutes and I decided I could do anything for 13 miles no matter how bad it hurt. Turns out my first 13 split was 2:22 and my second was 2:01 for a run time of 4:23.

Tack in a longer T1 and T2 from some stupid mistakes and I ended at 11:40. I know I have at least 25-30 minutes faster in me, so even thought I swore I wouldn't do another IM, I will likely be back next year.