It's around an hour outside Barcelona to the north by coach, but easy to get to. Really nice seaside village and the weather was around 20C in the days leading up to the race.

It's a really "easy" IM course, flat swim, flat bike, flat run. Definitely a PB course if that's what you're looking for. Roads are in good condition and the local support is a mix of locals and expats who live there. There was a large German, Russian & British contingent when i raced on '16.

A huge amount of draft packs form on the bike, so you may need to burn matches to get away/race honestly. Or sit back off the packs and save it for the run. The referees tried but again WTC don't want to crack down too heavily on this blah blah blah.

I would go for a different IM race if i'm honest. Probably one with a slightly hillier biker to break up the packs. The one in Northern spain in June looks interesting.

Overall it's a good experience and the area is cheap for accommodation and entertainment.

Tips are pay a bit extra for better accommodation, don't draft. Enjoy the Spanish sun at the beginning of the euro winter.

There wasn't too much sun there this year. :) Otherwise I'd tend to agree.

The swim is usually flat calm. However this year it was very rough with a huge swell from the thunder storm the night before the race. I think there were over 100 people pulled from the sea this year but not sure how true that is. It's always a wetsuit swim. A very easy swim course to navigate when calm.

Lots of packs but you can ride clean if you want. They added a 7km hill to each loop this year, I believe it was there in 2016 also. That means the bike is a little slower than previously but still a fast course. It was 181km this year versus 176km when they used this route in 2016. The road surface is great. However, there were a lot of people coming off the bike this year in the rain. There are a lot of mini-roundabouts on the course and this caused issues. There were quite a lot of people in the draft tents but not near as many as was drafting.

The run course is quite boring and not that well supported compared to Copenhagen. From the swim start & transition to the finish area is great but support is patchy after that with some big groups in certain spots.

We stayed in Pineda de Mar instead of Calella and it was only a 1.5km walk to the swim start. The area is very cheap and your euro goes a long way. There's a bus service that's very cheap that'll take you from the airport to Calella. Very easy to find.

Personally I'd prefer Ironman Copenhagen but I really enjoyed Ironman Barcelona.

ETA - Barcelona is a really well organised event. My tip would be to get to the top of the rolling start in the swim to avoid the packs on the bike as best you can.

P.

Thanks all, very helpful. My primary concern is excessive heat and humidity since I’m very wimpy in those conditions. Sounds like that isn’t too much of a concern?

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Randy Christofferson(http://www.rcmioga.blogspot.com

Insert Doubt. Erase Hope. Crush Dreams.

It's usually comfortable there in October. I did it in 2015 and it was about 15C in the early morning and peaked about 21C when I was on the bike.

It's an easy race but I wouldn't recommend it if you're trying to KQ. Lots of drafting and lots of uber bikers. That year in M40-44 for me, the top 8 guys all went sub-9 hours. But it is a very nice race as part of a vacation. Calella is small but there's lots of stuff to do in the nearby area. And the race itself won't destroy you for the rest of your trip.

Glad to hear you have another one in the tank. You have knee issues, right? If you want low heat and humidity I would recommend Ironman Norway. It's an incredibly small race (525 finishers for the inaugural this year). The European heat wave this past summer took the temp during the run up to a blistering 68 or 69 degrees. The locals were dying and stuffing sponges down their kits while I was avoiding all the sprinklers that had been set up. Too funny.

Good luck on whatever you choose.

Hello, I went to support a friend last year.
Nothing against thsi venue but nothing special about it.
It should be called Ironman Calella and not Barcelona since the race starts 60 km outside of Barcelona and never enters the city.
This is a decent local race, convenient for the spectators (except for the bike part) but it is by no mean a destination race.
I wouldn’t travel from outside Europe for this race (I flew from France).
Weather is usually very good for racing.

Here's what to like about the race: Well organized. Flat, fast, and festive. Good opportunity for a clean PR if you don't draft. Not sure "easy" is ever a valid description for an IM but definitely on the less strenuous side of the IM difficulty scale. Roads in great shape. Run is part blacktop, cement, and dirt road surfaces. Goes through parks, town, and beachfront. Transition area is on a futbol/soccer pitch with great drainage. Great crowd support in Calella and at the far end of the bike course near Barcelona. Triathletes from all over Europe and a mix from other continents. Beautiful beachfront. Finishing line set-up made you feel that you finished inside a big stadium which was unique and cool. Inexpensive lodging. Clean water. Great race temps for air and water with minimal variation from daybreak to nightfall. Low humidity. Easy fly in to Barcelona and easy travel to race site. Great add-on vacation to spend 2-4 days in Barcelona. Also, an old fort towards France from Calella is worth 1/2 day tour plus time walking around the town.

Here are the downsides: drafting all over the bike course. Passed by pack after pack as they formed on the course. Saw only one pack pulled over in penalty tent. About ten minutes later the same pack had been released, added more riders, and passed me again. Ugh! Food in Calella marginal (though in Barcelona food was awesome). The run was four laps of redundancy though views of the Met Sea were great. Again, lots of awesome crowd support too.

Tips: take plenty of your own nutrition and bike accessories. Limited options in Calella to buy supplies. Take rain gear.

Comparisons: it's unique, especially if coming from outside of Spain.

Best non-race viewing: guys in their 60's-70's riding top-of-line fiberglass bikes and components costing 5K+ Euros on the road by the Mediterranean Sea (and about the same number of high-end bikes leaning against the outside walls of coffee shops). That's what I want to do instead of playing golf in retirement!

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Yes, probably not the best thinking. I had promised the Mrs. that IMFL would be my last (#15) but I melted in the heat and DNFed for the 1st time in 154 races. No choice as they wheeled me into the med tent and put me on an IV after my bike. I’m not good in the heat (but I’ve been able to get through Kona 3 times so I’m not sure what happened).

Oh well. I’m negotiating to be able to do one more and the Mrs finds the idea of a Barcelona trip on her birthday (6days after the race) appealing so may be able to pull it off...I’d love to do Norway (being Norwegian) but my wife not so excited about that....beggars can’t be choosers!

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Randy Christofferson(http://www.rcmioga.blogspot.com

Insert Doubt. Erase Hope. Crush Dreams.

You gotta do what the wife wants! Mine is totally different...she couldn't give a rats ass about going to any country on the Med and her choice was Norway. We had a great time touring the country followed by a few more days in Iceland on the way home.

Do you think you might have picked up a bug from the water at IMFL? There were a number of people who got sick after the swim or had hives and a rash. I stopped at an aid station about 3/4 through the bike and downed a full bottle of water because I just couldn't take enough in while pedaling. That got me through the ride. I had a hernia was hurting me on the run, but I hobbled to a 13:24 finish. Four days later I had the hernia surgery and I am cleared to start training slowly this coming Monday. I've got Ireland and Kona (legacy) next year, then I'm going to take a two year break from IMs.

Good luck at Barcelona!!