I just completed this one yesterday, as did a few others on Slowtwitch. I would recommend it but I am biased as this is pretty close to home for me (Vancouver, BC).

Swim: warm clean lake, always been wetsuit legal as far as I know. 21 deg C yesterday. Simple loop with two 90 degree turns.

Bike: More technical than many courses. It is a rolling hilly course with a mix of winding roads through forested areas, windy open coast roads, some country roads, and a bit of roads through a town center. Road conditions range from great to not good, and there was a few gravelly corners to watch out for. The bike course is not closed to traffic and isn't even segregated in many areas but these are typically low traffic / low speed roads. there's only one longer sustained climb (willis point road, 2 km long) but there are lots of rollers that bring up the total elevation.

Run: 2 loop course, 95% trail on compacted dirt and gravel. The run is probably 80+% shaded by tree canopies. Some areas with exposed roots and rocks. Again, rolling hills and since these are walking/hiking trails there's some steeper pitches that will tire out the legs. The run can also be lonely, as there is not great spectator access except at the transition area.

Amazing volunteers and community support. This feels like a grassroots race but with a big and strong field that you usually get at IM branded events. The course is tough without being punishing and is a very fair course.

ive done the victoria race many times but it is very close to home.

The lake and run are great. The run course does get a bit congested of you are a faster competitor. the second time around you get the middle of the pack and slower on the path.

the bike course has a lot of up and down so seems more like grind up and coast down. That is the fault of local topography though. The roads as mentioned were not closed and some have no shoulder. I was stuck behind a truck and trailer atone point as it gingerly tried to navigate past a line of cyclists. On the large willow rd climb a couple of cars came up the ,iddle of the road and if a cyclist was not paying attention could have had a head on at very high speed.

I find the Ironman vibe somewhat overwhelming and this race has it for sure. It does retain some of the grass roots feel that it had when Lance Watson and crew were running it.

good volunteers.

I've done it 4 times. It is one of the best IM 70.3 in North America. Maybe the best. We are just across the water from it, in Seattle.

It's a great travel destination race, if that's important to you. The course is both scenic and challenging. Swim is really nice. Bike is rolling hills and lots of 90 degree turns. Run is a soft surface double loop around the lake you would be swimming in.

I just did this race and although the course is beautiful and the volunteers are great (per the previous replies). I really would not do this race again for a couple reasons.

1) Race Logistics - The transition/spectator area was tiny, little to no parking, and really terrible to access on race day and the day before the race day. There were very little food options for my family during the race and almost no water for them (free or available for purchase). Checking in your bike and getting it from transition was probably the worst though. You had to drop your bike off, go to the shuttle parking area, ride the shuttle (no bikes on the shuttle), put your bike in transition, and then ride the shuttle back (we got lucky and found parking there, but it was still a mess). Even worse was checking the bike out. We were told by a volunteer that you could ride the bike back to your car (a couple miles down the highway which I wasn't about to do after the race) or get someone to ride the shuttle back to the car and then meet up with you near transition. If I didn't have multiple family members there, this would have been even more of a nightmare than it was. If I am paying hundreds of dollars to race an event, I would hope a little bit more thought was put into these types of things.

2) Bike Course: Open to cars for most of the ride and at one point I merged into a huge pack of road bikers for 1km (would that have been considered drafting? haha). Also, a car took a turn about 25m in front of me forcing me to go into the other lane. I also heard about a couple bad crashes from other people I talked to - cars turning into roundabouts, cars turning in front of bikes or passing bikes. Needless to say there was a lot of uneasiness on the bike. I would be much more comfortable if they doubled the amount of people monitoring traffic, but with such a windy course it would be difficult to monitor even turn and intersection.

I flew into Seattle to race this event. If you live closer you could get familiar with the bike course and figure out a plan for the transition area shitshow, it would probably be a much better experience. It was an absolutely beautiful and fun course and if they work out those kinks, this race would be a top destination race for me. I was happy to nab a PR for my 70.3 time even with the tough bike section. Hope this helps!

To answer the bold, yes it is. Shame they were on the course, I usually see non-race riders using closed courses in the opposite direction.

Sorry to hear about the car and other business on the course, though, this is helpful. My wife was considering this race but open roads are a big consideration for her as she is a nervous rider.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

I did the race as well and echo some of your thoughts. We luckily had family that lived close so parking was a non issue for us but it looked bad, especially once the race was winding down.

I found the course tougher than the stats as the congestion with riders on those roads made it a little tougher to find a rhythm. I was stuck in a long draft line on the highway section as we just had the should there which was interesting.

I will do this one again as it’s an easy one for me to get to but would not make it a destination race in my opinion.

I've raced here 2yr in a row.

There aren't a ton of completely closed to cars course in NA that I'm aware of. Victoria 70.3 has minimal traffic. Whenever I saw a car, which was going into/through the traffic circles the cars just yielded to me/pulled far L and let me pass on the inside. It was NBD. I certainly wouldn't let that stop me from going to this race.

If you're in the M45-49 then you should stay home or bring a road bike ;-)
Otherwise show up.

The biggest drawback of this race is the drive in from downtown. No matter when you do this drive it seems to take longer than I think it should, allow a minimum of 30 min from downtown Victoria no matter what time of day/morning/night. Well TBT that early start time, 0610 iirc for AGers and 0555 for MPRO, ugh.

It's an awesome race, one of the best half's I've been to anywhere in the world.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Raced this past weekend, and echo pretty much what everyone else is saying. But...there is a guy who sells parking spaces on his property about 200 yards from the race site. $40US for 2-3 day parking, and not on the bike course so you could get in and out all day, and was so so worth the money. Think I even saw an RV and pop-up van where some folks just camped there. About 100 spaces, and looked to be some available even race morning, but I wouldn't wait until then. Just add this as a cost to your weekend; you'll thank me later.

I stayed in Sidney to the north of the course, it took like 15 mins max to get there, hardly any traffic any of the times we drove to and from the lake.

Would also echo the other comments. It was a great race. I didn't have any problem with the logistics. Compared to the other Ironman I did (Indian Wells) everything was a breeze. As others have said, the course isn't completely closed to traffic, but I didn't have any issues with it at all. Never came close to any cars.

Bike course is certainly on the technical side, have to be comfortable with descending hills in your aero position to keep a good time.

Run course was great. May not be the fastest course as it's partly on dirt trails but it kept it interesting and was almost all in the shade.

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Strava

I'm glad I did this race way back in the day when it only had about 600 entrants.
Amazing course, but 2000 entrants now? WTAF?!?
That sounds like a draftfest and a logistical pain.
I'm honestly surprised this race goes off every year with the extreme NIMBY's in the area...

There were only 1660 finishers. The typical DNS rate is ~ 10% and you figure you probably had some DNF's. So let's call it 1850-1900 registered for the event.

Where I was in the event it felt like a local race with 200 people. It never got congested on the bike. There were at most 3 spots on the second loop of the run where I had to dodge people.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Brian, Congrats on the AG win! I recognized your name from here when I heard it at Awards.

Completely agree, plus the bike has enough hills and windy bits to break up any packs. I only saw one "group" of 3 riding pretty tight but I also saw an official near me for lots of the ride. Not sure if there were lots of officials or if I just happened to be riding near one.

Second loop of the run wasn't too bad for me. I raced just under 5 hours. The only real pinch point is on the Northeast side of the lake from the last aid station into the finish area. There's about 400m of narrow single track and it can be tough to pass through especially when you are suffering down the closing stretch but I didn't have any real issues. Last year it was busier on this stretch when I raced about 5:30.

Also, for those speaking of logistics. I took the shuttle and had no issue. The logistics here are much easier than a race with 2 separate transitions (e.g., Whistler) where you have to do 2 gear bag drops etc. Victoria doesn't require transition bags and you just set up like a regular short course transition.

Nice. Good to hear. Maybe I'll have to give it a go again.

Not to hijack this thread, but does anyone know if there were other photographers other than FinisherPix on the course?

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Strava

Perfect description.

I raced it this past weekend and enjoyed. I came from LA, so it was a bit more of a trek for me. Went it into the race thinking it was a fast, PR course but I was wrong. Gorgeous bike, but I really struggled to find a groove.

Overall would recommend this race.

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Tough Times Don't Last, Tough People Do.

It was awesome before Lance Watson had it...

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2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)