I’ve also done IM Austria twice. The swim is the one of the most beautiful I have done. A friend of mine doing the race, said she stopped about half way thru and just treaded water for a minute to take it all in. The castles around the lake are pretty cool. Coming into the canal get tight but you can feel your speed increase. Very fast swim. My IM PR both times. The bike course is also very scenic and fast. The run is flat and scenic also with lots of crowd support. IM Austria is an awesome venue and race. I intend to go back for third time so my wife can race it. She broke her arm in a bike crash 3 weeks before the race and was not able to start. We both love Klagenfurt. It also has great train service for touring Italy after the race if you have time.
I would be the friend who treaded water halfway through the swim course…it is really that gorgeous and I felt like I could spare the thirty seconds to just appreciate the fact that I was looking at something that closely resembled a castle in the middle of a lake in Austria. As a girl from a rural town in NC, I certainly never envisioned myself doing an IM, much less one in Austria! As for the bike, it is hilly, but fantastic. I trained in SC/NC mountains and felt very prepared, so the course is easily doable. The Rupertiberg is the biggest hill and it is a doozy, but the crowd support and music blasting (I recall John Denver’s “Rocky Top” and The Pointer Sisters) gives it a Tour de France feel, and you will find that the crowd helps motivate you up the hill. The year I did it, on the second loop of the bike, a horrible thunderstorm came up complete with lightning and thunder that literally rattled my bike! I was so terrified that I didn’t even notice the Rupertiberg the second time around. The run is flat and scenic with lots of crowd support along the way. It was a fantastic race and one of the few where most people are able to finish in daylight! Klagenfurt is IM friendly and supportive and you are close enough to hop a train and travel to several neighboring countries. I would LOVE to go back to this race one day. It is really that fantastic.