Check out the date of the post. Some April fools gags are hard to decipher (there was also an active Seneca Epic website with course maps, descriptions, etc). Since the response was so positive at the time, I think Jeff put some feelers out in an attempt to actual consider holding it -but sadly, it never happened.

I never thought about the bike distances not being quite as important, but it totally makes sense for the reasons you gave.
Distance is not always a good measure of how hard a bike ride is. You really need to include elevation or ideally the course profile. With swimming, distance is generally enough. Yes, current and waves are important, but most triathlon swims are loops and don't have huge waves. With running, hills make it harder, but it's not like you can coast the flat and downhill sections. You still have to run. So distance describes a run pretty well.
Plus, I like the idea of the bike ride fitting the local geography and being more unique. So if this course is within their +/- 5% distances, then I'm all for it.

I can't believe that I actually spent several precious moments of my time writing a very long and well-thought out post only to be kicked off slowtwitch this morning!

That being said, I have spent a lifetime reading through the whole forum and wanted to weigh in. I am sorry that I am only weighing in now because I did not know that this forum thread was going on. Thanks to the couple of people who pointed me into the direction of this post.

I am sorry that I haven't replied until now, and with respect to the change in the bike course, I was not fully made aware that this was a done deal. I know that it was being discussed, I wasn't aware that was finalized. When it comes to race course design, our local input is sought-after but the final decision ultimately lies with the race company.

A little bit of history.

I must agree with the comments regarding the Outside Magazine article, namely the sentence:
"many obstacle races are determined by the natural landscape"

Although this is not an obstacle race, our natural landscape defines this course. Leaving Deerhurst, you bike down North Portage Road and get your legs warmed up a couple of sales there before heading on a circumferential bike loop around Lake of Bays. There aren't any roads that go across the lake that I know of so we are defined by the road that goes around this massive body of water right in the middle of our region. Yes there are side roads that can provide in out and back, But several of them are gravel or typical country roads. Fox Point Road is a beautiful road, however it is the only road that several residents live out on. If the bike course went down there, You would it be essentially cutting those people off during that point in the race. Obviously emergency medical services vehicles would be able to get down there, but residents that might want to go to church or get out would have a difficult time during this period of the race. Fox Point Road is winding and has several blind spots for vehicles so if a car decided to head on the course, it would provide safety concerns for the cyclists should a car decide to go forward and try to pass, but it also result in frustration for the motorist. We do send in advance notification to our community members where the races taking place so that they know to sit tight during the race day if they can, Or even come out and help cheer the athletes on as the race goes on. So bypassing Fox Point Road makes it logistically easier, safer for the athlete, and more community minded.

Dev, I know what distance you can add on that you're suggesting, and I agree that people are not going to like it and it's going to have a lot of time to their run.

I appreciate all of the comments that you have all been putting forth, But we are defined by our geography. The course is challenging and we think that is what athletes are looking for. Isn't it? We do this for the challenge and for the love of the sport. We also do it for the experience. Experience of the athlete, the experience of our support team and family members that come to cheer us on, and to accomplish a physical challenge that we can be proud of.

Again from the magazine article:
"I’d argue, however, that training to crush a certain distance isn’t bad. Time can be a powerful motivator, and earning a new PR is a thrill. But athletes should still make room for races of goofier layouts to remember what it’s like to race for fun, with no expectations other than to enjoy the experience. "

To help us create the experience for you and your support crew which might be friends and family. Our community is in the midst of starting to plan all of the experience around the race that people will have. We are looking at things from the athlete perspective, from the family and kid perspective, from the volunteer perspective and from community residents point of view. You want this to be an event that you are proud of. This is not only Muskoka's Ironman, it is Ontario's Ironman.

If you haven't seen our Ironman Muskoka website or watch the video from this years 70.3, head over to our IMMuskoka page.

One other thing. If you haven't heard about the Muskoka TriSummit, this is Ontario's only triathlon conference and hands-on clinic. This year we are holding on May 8th to 10th and the theme is "Race Ready". We have several professional coaches and triathletes including Barrie Shepley, Cody Beals, Sean Bechtel, Ryan Grant, Tara Postnikoff, Dave Buzzanko, and many more to teach or the course of this weekend. Lots of details to come but sign up for our preregistration e-mail list at www.muskokatrisummit.com so let you know when registration opens and you can get updates as you come. This is the third year that we are running this event and is receiving excellent reviews.

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Jon Morton
President, Triathlon Muskoka (TriMuskoka)
http://www.trimuskoka.com

IIRC you actually said in a post when this race was announced that you considered making the bike 170 km, but decided to go with the full 180 km to avoid controversy.

An Ironman is supposed to be a fixed distance, just like a marathon. Marathons are not shortened because they are hard.

And what are you medals going to say the distance was? Every IM finisher medal I have ever seen has the real IM distances on them. Every Ironman finisher hat that has the distances has the real Ironman distances on them. Every real Ironman finisher shirt I have ever seen has the ironman distances on them. IM Lake Placid has a really weird out and back, which if eliminated would shorten the race, but there it is.

I hope you have an epic race. I hope it sells out. I hope everyone who does it loves it. But I will NEVER consider it an ironman under the current course. And while almost no one will care what I think, the whole point of this otherwise worthless forum is to express view points. I respect yours (and Dev's). I will just never agree with it.

I'm also as you've certainly noted on your side and I think the best way to express our viewpoint is with another example. If you take two 5k races, one going straight uphill and one only downhill of course the first will take much longer and in that sense be harder, but they are unmistakably both 5k races. Then if you have one flat 5k race and one race of let's say only 2 km but climbing up an almost sheer rock face you would probably say the second is harder, but does this make it a 5k? The answer is no and the same logic applies to Ironman Muskoka, it may be an amazing race but it does not meet the distance requirements of an iron-distance race and therefore the term Ironman is only a misnomer. We have iron-distance races not iron-difficulty races.

Thanks for chiming in Rich and providing some colour on this one. I am very excited to do this beautiful race. I love racing, and there is nothing better than racing with a view. I personally could care less about the name Ironman or the marketing/brand that comes with it. If the distances are close, I'm good. Put a * beside the name, don't give me a medal, don't call me an Ironman, give me a medal with whatever distances you want on it (what a collectors item, an Ironman medal that says 170km). I am going to race, race hard, and have an experience that many are not all because they have some unknown allegiance to a huge corporation that doesn't care about them. I encourage you to show off your tattoo proudly, tell everyone you are an Ironman, and enjoy those extra 10km on the bike. I know I am going to absolutely love all 170km of this one.

No problem. I totally understand where people are coming from with respect to the true distances of what an IM is. That being said, there has been a lot of thought that has gone behind this, from the athlete perspective and the community perspective to come up with this decision. Ultimately, it is the race company's decision, which has been made with our community input.

Yes, the event will be fantastic. We hope that year after year the event builds to be a family and athlete centric event. Feedback provided by all will help it become an experience and an event that will be memorable, and one that will leave people with the feeling that they want to come back to train, to race, and to relax.

The event is happening at a great time of the summer in Muskoka. The crowds of tourists are calming down, the weather is perfect (usually) for racing, and there is a week after that families can hang out in cottage country to reconnect after a summer of long hours of training. Muskoka is world known for playing host to people who want to kick back and escape the business of everyday life.

McNabb, I echo your sentiment. I hope you take in the event experience for all that it will be.

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Jon Morton
President, Triathlon Muskoka (TriMuskoka)
http://www.trimuskoka.com

You mean you can live with fewer McDonald's fries?

I almost believe we have a thread on this topic, but at least Dev has brought it up about 10KM....

-Robert

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

Honestly, I think by not having the full distance you are making it much harder to create a race that's sustainable in the long term, and could become a 'classic' just like Mont Tremblant is starting to become. I signed up when it said it was 180km, but with the discovery of the reduced distance my interest in this race has dropped significantly (for now and forever as long as it's 170km). There are other races to choose from in the area within a similar time frame. Lake PLacid, Wisconsin, Mont Tremblant, Chattanooga, Maryland, Louisville, are all pulling from the same group of triathletes to a large extent, and are essentially your competition. Time will tell how important the distance is to others, whether you think it's irrational or not doesn't really matter. The customer is always right in the end.

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Don't forget to attack!

Staz, I totally understand what you are getting at, but as I said, somewhere in the bowels of an IM website there is an entire list of guidelines for what the race layout must conform to in order to meet their requirements of calling it an Ironman. I wish I could find it, but I can't but it gives an entire range of tolerances to account of logistics and topography. Some of you think that Ironman means 2.4/112/26.2 but actually a long time ago, it's been a fairly wide range of tolerance. While WTC may market the distances, just like a can of coffee grinds from Nescafe is supposed to be a certain weight/volume, the tolerance for what Nescafe delivers to you may be different to account of manufacturing tolerances or product settling and other attributes which result in the final product being delivered to you being somewhat in the range, but not exact. I'm not trying to justify wussification, but I don't think anywhere on WTC website it actually makes any guarantee that any course is exactly 2.4/112/26.2...to my knowledge the only course where even a part of the course is exactly measured is the Kona run course that is Boston Certified. Everything else in the entire series can be slightly off.

Some of you seem caught up on the semantics of the distance, and they truely are semantics, when it comes to cycling and you Staz of anyone fully understand that. When it comes to the swm (in still water, not river) or run, the distance largely comes close to the magnitude of actual effort, whereas in cycling, the magnitude of the course relative to Hawaii can be wildly off.

As the entire Ironman series is about providing a Hawaii IM like challenge in our local back yard, as long as they give us a Hawaii equivalent challenge which more or less comes close to the 2.4 miles in the Kona swim, comes close to the 112 miles in the lava fields, and comes close to the 26.2 miles in the lavafields/Alii, then we got ourselves something worthy of being in the series and be called an IM. If all of the legs are substantially easier, then I would expect as a bare minimum, they conform to the distances in Hawaii, but as we know from a variety of Euro events, there have been serveral RD's who have been notorious for shaving the courses somewhat short on terrain that is already substantially easier than Hawaii. Then guys crank on 7:4x times and it is great for marketing while claiming the full distance...at least cut the Muskoka guys some slack....they are being up front that they will be 6 miles short but will give you an almost zero drafting Ironman Brand race that will be as hard or harder than Kona....and as I said, this happened 10 years ago already with IM France, except the guys in Nice/Yves Cordier still won't admit that you only did 173K. There is a stupid sign that says 175K 5 K from T2 as you get on the Promenade des Anglais, when your bike computer says 168K. Then when you get to T2, your bike computer says 173K. Seriously ZERO people are complaining there, and I don't see anyone from the outside saying, "IT DOES NOT COUNT, those slacker did not do the full distance"

Finally Staz, if i can ask you, exactly how many Ironmans have you done? I don't like to pull the "don't complain till you did it" card, but once you have done enough and seen the world of IM through the eyes of the participant as well as from the angle of seeing the logistics "live" perhaps it is more understandable.

To be clear, I am totally against wussification, but at the same time, what I have seen in the name of holding on to the 180K distance what happens is some of the best terrain in some venue can't be used. Organizers don't want to turn the 5.5 hour biker into a 6.5 hour biker, but more importantly they don't want to turn the 7 hour biker into an 8.5 or 9 hour biker. You just can't run a profitable races when bike leg gets that long, and unlike many around here, I am for profitable races. People don't organize these events for charity and they won't be around unless they make money.

Well said Rich and Dev, I'm looking forward to the race and having the entire family in Muskoka as support. Thanks for the extra info Rich and I look forward to hearing more about the spectator plans...

Let me ask you a question. If you feel you did a legit amount of effort to get to the finish line (no drafting, no course cutting, did the full course) and did a kona equivalent of effort, would you have a problem telling your friends in the office that you did an Ironman? Or would you feel you are lying to them? In your heart if your truly know you did the work, then what's the big deal? Do we really care about bragging to others and their perceptions? Is the real achievement not really from inside...who cares what other people think. You do a race that gives you as much or more difficulty than Kona and I for one won't question if you did an IM.

I do question many of the guys (not all, but many) who do IM Florida and have times that are 60 minutes faster than Lake Placid or more. I wonder how much of the 112 miles they cut by sitting in someone's draft. Trust me, no one is going to question if you sat in someone's draft and cut the course at Muskoka when they see the times of the top pros, just like they don't question the achievement from the 173K Nice course.

Nice has taken the tact of claiming they have 180K.

You're asking a couple of questions so let me try to answer them.

First, do I have a problem telling anyone I did an Ironman with a legitimate effort but deviating distance? Yes, I absolutely would. My colleagues and most other people have no idea what the distance is, they only know it's some long swim and some long bike and a marathon at the end. Nobody knows how long the bike is. But I do. For me, it's 112 miles. So while nobody may care but me, it is important for me and not telling that the distance was off would seem like I'm lying. Or hiding something, or whatever you'd call it. It simply wouldn't feel right to me.

If I did the work, then what's the big deal? Well the deal is that for me I signed up expecting a certain distance (actually being promised a certain distance) and difficulty level has nothing to do with it. I pick my own difficulty by selecting specific races. I've done fast and 'easy' races as well as really difficult ones, because I want to try different venues and learn and see what I am good at and what I am less good at. I'd like to compare how my times change across all these different venues and race conditions.

You bring up the subject of cutting the course or drafting, and this is exactly what it feels like to me. We're cutting the course, or drafting to the equivalent of 10km 'gain'. And by agreeing with the 170km thing, to me you are approving cutting the course to that extent. After all, it's still gonna be tough, right? So a little cutting ain't so bad... I understand this is not what you meant, but approving a shorter distance just feels this way to me.

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Don't forget to attack!

Racing a precise long-course distance is more important than the scenery and beauty, the way the course fits in with the existing environment and roads, the competition and the overall racing experience? It's not like times can be compared, even between two precisely measured IM courses. When you say "we will all know the truth" are you implying that those who race Muskoka are somehow not worthy and they are just trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes and falsely claiming they have accomplished something they have not? Such strange priorities! Especially when for most people, the distance is impressive precisely because it is difficult to cover, but even though Muskoka is much tougher than most "true" IM courses it is not worthy because the bike leg is 10km short?

I guess people do race for different reasons.... But instead of worrying so much about Muskoka, why not just sign up for a race that meets your requirements?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Maybe the disagreement is because many folks don't understand physics. Most people in the know who use powermeter have come to realization that "work is work" and is largely decoupled from distance. A 4000 KJ ride is a 4000 KJ ride and that is the real metric of how hard a bike ride was. The 4000 KJ could come from a 100K ride or a 200K ride. Distance in biking is meaningless, whereas in swimming (in still water), distance is a very good metric of work load. In running it is also that way. In biking, distance has zero meaning. It is somewhat loosely correlated with what one actually did, but can defer dramatically. The only thing we can say is that for a given terrain profile (on the average) the more distance you do, the more work you do. But for another terrain profile you can accumulate much more work in less distance and your powermeter will bear that out.

Have you done IM France? Trust me, if you do it, you won't feel you are lying to anyone, you won't feel like you cheated, you won't feel like you are misrepresenting anything. As you said, no one outside of triathlon knows how long these Ironman races are...they just know that the stupid event goes on all day and they have a marathon of running at the end. If you do 4000 KJ of work (pick what your typical IM is based on your weight-height-aero), you'll end up right in the range....then you can decide for yourself, if your time was too short (or long) and if you cheated. If after you cross the line you felt you cheated, then don't go back to Muskoka. I bet you, that you will feel you earned a full IM and will have zero qualms telling others you did so.

My IM rides over 180K (+/-) between LP, France, Whistler, Tremblant, Kona, Texas have been 3400-3750 Kilojoules. When you think of it, this is a massive range...around 10% off. 10% of 180K is 18K. So if all the courses were perfectly flat and smooth and had the same wind, one might be 180K and the hardest would be 198K. If you guys are so hung up on standardization, let's put the IM in a velodrome, and not use local geography so that every course is the exact same distance and same work load, because clearly they are not.


Distance has nothing to do with whether a race is similar to Kona or not and in the end for the guys that put on the IM series, they are trying to give you a local flavour variant of the Kona challenge. If some of you guys feel that 170K in Muskoka is not that, then don't sign up. The number of kilometers is just a guideline...and as I said before, I am OK if WTC uses it is a guideline as long as they don't wussify the race like they did with the swim in Chattanooga. Sure it met the distance criteria on the swim, but it does not meet the sniff test on being a proper IM swim which is why they need some proper criteria for river swims. You can't have 100% downstream, because it takes away the total swim workload.

...and on this thread, you guys in the "other camp" will really get tired of me brow beating you guys with these broken record responses....you guys will say "the distance is the distance" and I'm going to reply back, "its an Ironman as long as it is tough as Kona"....and this thread will probably stay alive right until the day after the race when all the finishers will basically join my side and brow beat anyone questioning their accomplishment.

If we opened a thread about IM France today, I'd have 10 years of finishers telling all the arm chair QB's to go away and stop questioning whether they did an Ironman or not.

...and if you guys don't feel you can honestly look at yourself in the mirror and say you did an IM after crossing the line at Muskoka then seriously, don't do it. If/when I do it (sadly it is the same day as 70.3 WC this year), I'll have no qualms about feeling that "I did an Ironman".

I'm in no way saying that a triathlon under the full distance is in any way less than a full IM other than in distance, but as long as that is the case then it's not a full IM. There are many amazing races, including hopefully Muskoka, which aren't the full distance, but are possibly harder than other races which do meet the distance requirements. I have never done an IM race, but if I were to do one I would surely much rather sign up for IM France than a race such as IMFL because for me it's more about the venue and beating the competition on the day than conquering some mythologized distance. However those doing IM France didn't do a full Ironman if it is the case that bike is short and that's that. It doesn't mean it's any more or less meaningful than an IM, because an IM actually doesn't mean so much in it self, it just means the distance is a bit less. Either WTC has to ensure equal race distances, liberalize the meaning of Ironman to mean a race of relatively equal difficulty to Kona as you suggest or they should just drop the Ironman name and market the races as the unique races that they are.

  




Maybe the disagreement is because many folks don't understand physics.

No Dev...the disagreement is simple. An ironman is 140.6 miles or it isn't. Cobble, Staz, the rest of the world, and I think it is. You, and your friends at TriMuskoka think its not.

And I do get physics. Do you get how a GPS works? When it says 112 miles...stop pedaling. And next time, don't think you are smarter than us because you have some bullshit excuse for cutting these courses, think again. You are usually better than that.

This has got to be one of dumbest threads I've ever read on ST and there have been many. People who aren't even going to do the race are complaining about the bike course length? Really?

Muskoka sounds like it's going to be challenging even if it's not a "real" IM, whatever real IM means anyway. Sorry for bumping the thread.

Don't forget the ITU, they allow for +/- 5% on the bike too :)

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

This has been mentioned and to be a pedant even in that case it comes in at 5.55% less than 112 miles, which is more than 5% and if rounded would be rounded up.

You don't seem to understand our point and are trying to debate an emotion some of us have through math and by keeping hammering on the point that it will be tough either way.

But that's not the point any of us is saying. Not at all. Just like there are flat and hilly marathons, in moderate and more challenging climates. We get it, nobody is arguing with it but you keep bringing it up when it's totally irrelevant. We want a marathon to 26.2 miles regardless of which marathon it is. Easy, hard, cold, hot, dry, rain, snow... all are good as long is you give us 26.2 miles when you call it a marathon.

Same with an IM. I think the main reason why I'm annoyed is because it changed after I signed up for it. Now it's just less exciting to me.

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Don't forget to attack!

Darn....you told me to stop pedaling at 112 miles. If I did, I would have never even gotten to T2 at Kona (this file says 180.29 km....112 miles is 180.209 km...even Kona is LONG)! 5:21 for 180.291km

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/390070351


I totally get what you guys are saying. But you're not getting that WTC own guidelines for race directors allow for tolerances...and like the delivery of any product in any market what is marketed to you, what you get have tolerances. They are not cast in stone. As long as WTC delivers a Kona level challenge in all three sports (don't cut the challenge short in any sport), then it's good enough.


I am yet to see anywhere in any WTC/Ironman communication EVER where they guarantee that a course will be exactly the advertised distances. Even when you go to buy gas, there are all these disclaimers at the pump saying the liter you buy may not exactly be the liter advertised, since the volume of the gas varies somewhat by temperature even in the liquid form. Or if you buy a tube of toothpaste it has an advertised volume, but what you get may be slightly off.


As long as the tolerance is not too far off to call that 90 mL tube of tooth paste 90 mL then it is fine. The consumer will decide if they got what they paid for.


Some of you will decide that you're not getting what you pay for at Muskoka. Then seriously don't sign up. Others like myself and many who signed up (and I will go on a limb today and say 99.5% of finishers) will say they got more than an IM of experience.


...and as I said, the train left the station a decade ago with the 173 km long IM France course. I am yet to meet a single IM France finisher who has ripped up his finisher shirt and thrown out his medal and said, "those con artists at WTC ripped me out of an IM".


By the way, here is my IM Whistler file at 176.73Km for 5:28. Pretty well everyone si saying that is the toughest bike course outside of France, Tahoe and Lanzarote. But don't tell people it was short in distance. Looking at my file it looks like I captured the who course right out of T1.


http://connect.garmin.com/activity/554672517

I'm signed up (when it was still announced as 180km / 112 miles).

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Don't forget to attack!

I get you may be annoyed, but I really don't think your challenge is diminished or accomplishment reduced. There are a few good options for your though. You can transfer to Tahoe (don't know the bike course length), or Whistler (176.73K) or Tremblant (179.5K) as none are sold out. I believe IMCDA is still open too as is IM Louisville. At the same time, I appreciate that perhaps Muskoka was an easy drive and timing was right for your personal life.

So you have:

1. transfer
2. withdraw and get a sliver of your money back and then take WTC to court for misrepresenting the product (I bet you they will pull up their fine print saying something about tolerances and no guarantee that any leg even comes remotely close to what is advertised, but that they will make their best attempt to get close....kind of like an airline and how the advertise flight schedules)
3. just do Muskoka and love it

I would also like to ask you how many IM's you have done...this may shed some context our on discussion. I've done 27 so maybe I am not so hung up on the distance number. By the way my first IM in Penticton in 1991 was a full 1.5 miles short ON THE RUN....no reason other than "we messed up and put the turnaround cone in the wrong place". No one of the Penticton class of 1991 is saying they did not do an IM. You guys are welcome to discount Penticton 1991, Whistler 2014 and no doubt many others that were off. I'm not though. I was there and did the work and if it was longer I'd just have done more work.

if you ran the toughest race in the world that is 25.5 miles, advertised at 25.5 miles, and do it 30 minutes under BQ time ... good luck in getting BAA to allow you to get into the Boston Marathon. Every runner out there knows that a marathon is at least 26.2 miles, not 26.0 or 25.0. I don't know of any pure runners, whether they are 2:40 or 6:40 runners, who would support or be cool with a race that is 25.0 or 26.0 miles and advertises itself as a marathon. Why should triathletes accept anything that is not at least 140.6 as not an Ironman? We make fun of Crossfitters for some of their antics but yet we are ok with calling a race, "an Ironman," that is 136.0 or 144.6.

Hey, how far is your Ironman? 136.6

Hey, how far is your Ironman? 140.6

Hey, how far is your Ironman? 144.6

It's just plain stupid. When one thinks of a marathon. One thinks 26.2. When one thinks of an Ironman, one should think 140.6, not 130.6 or 144.6

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My marathon PR is "under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."