Montreal Esprit triathlon

Nathalie:

I haven't done it, but I ran into someone at my hotel in LP who had and the only thing he mentioned was how incredibly mind-numbing it was to ride the track for 41 loops.  He did say it was a very well run race, and great for spectators.

If you are signed up on Slowtwitch it would probably be worthwhile to post the question there.  There are several people who have done the race and despite the multiple loops, most reports I have heard were positive.

Shane

Ditto, I've never done the race but have ready MANY positive reports about it on ST. Just go and do a search, you'll find a ton of reports on it especially from some of the big guns in Ottawa. DEVASHISH_PAUL has some good writeups on the race.

Hello,

 For what it's worth...

I haven't done the full Esprit yet, but I'm signed up to do it this year.  Montreal will be my second IM distance race.  I did the half IM distance in Montreal and Florida IM in 2007 (finished 12:00:20), so I have some basis of comparison.  Based on last years experience with the race, I had no problems signing up this year for the full distance.

My previous best half IM time was just under 6 hours (Peterbourgh), but I managed to shave almost a whole hour off that time in Montreal and finished in 4:58:04.  I was shocked at how well I did at the race. 

Why?  Well part of the reason was the looped course.  You heard right.  I thought it might be mentally tough but, I really enjoyed the 19 laps on the F1 circuit.  There was no boring hours in aero along a straight road to make the mind wander.  I used the turns and esses on the front half to see how much speed I could take through each turn. I turned it into a game trying to better my line from the last lap.  The small climb gave me a reason to get out of the seat once every lap for four or five strokes and the straight away on the back half let me put some turns in powering down pit row.

Swim: Two laps in the rowing basin.  You can't get lost or very far off course, if you do, you'll run into the wall. There was never a problem with sighting or swiming in a straight line, as you can see the cables on the bottom that they use to string the lane markers.  It's almost like swimming in a two kilometer long pool.  Well, except that it has weeds on the bottom.

Bike: Like mentioned above, it's multiple loops on a 5 km course.  The great news is that you have access to water for support every lap and your friends can cheer you without having to negotiate closed roads to find you. Road surface is excellent, everyone is going the same direction and you don't have to worry about yellow line infractions or inadvertantly picking up a drafting penalty because of riders bunching up (ie. three lanes wide and no vehicular traffic). 

Run: The IM distance will be 8 laps around the rowing basin. Yeah, this part is a bit mind numbing, but once again, you have support available every lap and your friends just have to move 100 yards from the track to the basin to set up your cheering section.  The interesting thing I found was that the race director schedules races all day, so unless you are at the back of the pack you can watch the shorter distance racers do their swim. 

Oh... And I'll mention the bridge that you have run over every lap. The swimmers exit the water and run under it to get to T1.

Positives: Very flat, very fast course.  There are enough undulations on the bike that you get to coast a little bit on every lap.  Small venue, inexpensive, very spectator friendly. 

For a club event, it's great.  Not only do they do the IM and half IM distances but Du's, sprint and Try-a-try distances all in the same day on the same course.  There's something for everyone at this race. 

And it's in Montreal!  Can it get better?

Negatives: The only down side that I heard was that the IM guys complained about some of the shorter distance, fast racers that were not being considerate to the slower IM people.  Quite a few of our back of the pack club members had issues with the sprint guys getting too close and being squeezed on the turns.  That's a case of racer rudeness, rather than a baddly organised race.

Summary: No, you will not experience the full "Official" IM hype machine.  You pay big bucks for all that rah-rah and marketing.  However, the Mondreal Esprit is a well run, inexpensive, smaller race that has the potential of letting you set a monster PB, if you can get your head around doing all the laps.  I can recommend it from personal experience.

And with a little luck, I'll do a sub eleven hour IM in September.

Mark Collis
www.ontherun.ca

Member of Finish Line Du/Tri Club, Hamilton Ontario.

Mark,

Thanks for sharing your experience.

What is the normal weather that time of year? 

I had considered this race as my first IM but went with the hype and vibe of M Dot. It was my back up race if I didn't finish IMLP this year for a strange reason like bike issue or something like that.

I had friends that went up 2 years ago and the young women did the sprint, her boyfriend the HIM and her dad the IM. They liked the town and the race, but the Dad didn't like the loop aspect to the IM. He did like the support and comradere of the other athletes as you see them over and over through out the day. 

Hope your race goes well and you post back after you do the race. 

Race report - 2008

Well, I took a while to report back but that's what I'm doing now.

Great race, darn near perfect weather, new PB.

Rained Thursday evening and all day Friday. The forcast called for heavy rain all day Saturday (race day) until around 10:00 PM when it changed to sunny with cloudy periods.  How does that happen?

Weather was as about perfect as it gets.  The only quibble was that it was mid to high 20's C on th e run on the far side of the rowing basin during the run. 

Swim was ok... With a small IM distance field (less than 80), I knew I might not have to draft off of.  In fact, I swam most of the race distance all by myself.  The fast guys were way too far ahead and the slow guys were too far behind.  I might have been able to push a little bit more than I did, but I really try to get out of the swim portion feeling refreshed and eager for the bike.

Swim time: 1:16:50 (Predicted - 1:10)

The directors changed the bridge so that you went over it out of the swim rather than during the run. Only one climb up and over this year.  I made a pit stop at the portapottie so my first transition was a little slower than I intended.

T1: 4:56

The bike was shorter and flatter than I remembered it, but the corners were just as much fun.  Minimal wind, made for a great bike section.  After experiencing it, I will confirm that there were issues when the sprint distance people came on the track.  They bunched up so tight that I was surprised that the whole pack wasn't called for drafting.  Two laps in, some poor guy went down and took out a bunch of other people, my guess mostly due to riders inexperienced in riding in a peleton. Yeah, that's what it looked like.

Me?  Well, I just stayed out on the edges and worked the tangents on the corners hard when I could, and tried to stay out of trouble with other riders.  There were a few moments, but I made the assumption that the person I was passing was out to get me and I gave them all a wide burth.

Also... Why is it that people insist in riding in the middle of the road, even through turns?  I try to ride the tightest corners possible to minimize the distance I have to peddle.  On this course, over 41 laps, you can add a significant distance by riding the corners wide.  Although, others (especially the people on the mountain bikes) might have thought that I was being a jerk going from one side of the road to the others to tangent the corners. 

Over all, I had a great ride, held a 34 kph average (I think), including a bathroom break and a stop to refill waterbottles. I also purposely held back in themiddle 20 laps because I was afraid of spending too much before the run.

Bike time: 5:19:35 (Predicted - 5:30)

T2: 4:25 (I couldn't find one of my socks)

The run was ok... Not the performance I wanted but it was the performance that I had that day.  Out of the 9 laps, I ran the first three according to plan, but on the fourth through sixth, I really felt the heat on the far side of the swim basin. Between the radiant heat reflecting off the water, a slight tail breeze, it felt like you were running in a furnace. No air at all.  In order to offset and keep from getting over heated, I had to increase the amount of time I was walking at the aid stations.  It worked.  When the sun dropped a bit and the breeze picked up a little and the temperature dropped, I was able to run the last three laps strongly.

I did however lose track of what lap I was on and thought I was on lap nine when I was only on lap eight.  I sucked it up and ran the last lap as my strongest lap of the day.  I was over my predicted time but I conciously managed my effort based on the conditions and never had a hard "crash".

Run time: 4:19:35 (Predicted - sub 4:00)

Total time: 11:05:18 (Predicticed - Sub 11:00).

Not bad... Finished 4/9 in my AG, just out of the hardware and 20/63 over all.

Overall?  Well, my training plan and nutrition plan worked like a charm. I never bonked, or got dehydrated.  Got off the swim feeling refreshed and the bike feeling feeling like I could do another 10 laps easily.  Run?  Well, I was just glad to get'er done.

Would I go back and do it again?  You betcha I would.

Mark Collis
www.ontherun.ca