What did folks who raced IM Canada last weekend think of the new event? Course? Elevation? Organization?? Is it one to do?
Thanks.
People cut the swim…
The bike course had a lot of hills, drafting and a poorly placed aid station… The only positive was that the wind coming back from Pemberton was less than expected.
And it is very likely that a bear either ate a few people or someone cheated and had a guy in bear suit that slowed down competitors so he could KQ…
There are already a few threads on this.
Nicely done; perfect recap. 
Whistler was my 10th IM start having done IMC Penticton 5 times, Kona x 3 and IMCDA x .95 (ran into a problem)
Whistler is tremendous.
The lake is small and should be reliably calm most years. Not sure why but every person I know including me commented that there was significantly more contact during the entire swim (including the last 200m to the beach) than we have had in Penticton. I’m guessing everyone tried to swim close to the buoys.
The bike course is beautiful, its challenging, its fun, its safe (road surfaces in general were very good and the highway being closed to traffic gave us lots of room and the descents were for the most part very manageable at high speeds - I’m 58 and less brave than I was when younger but was comfortable on all the descents and hit a max speed of 78 kph (49 mph). It is a little harder to pace due to the long climb back to Whistler from Pemberton at the end and lots of people including me got their pacing wrong last sunday. I will save a little more for the end next time. Race conditions were perfect this year, no wind and cool and I think that helped the times. In general, I think this is a tougher bike course than Penticton - more total climbing and descending made even tougher by the fact the last 30 k is predominantly uphill, so no nice rest like we had in Penticton descending from Yellow Lakes to finish the bike.
The run course is interesting, scenic and challenging as well. It has lots of shade on it (I was sceptical of this but in fact it is very true) which even on a moderate day like this year was nice and in a hot year will be very nice. It’s two loops so you get to see the family more and fans more but you go over the same terrain twice. Some like that some prefer a single loop.
In general, the race organization was fantastic and in particular the number and quality of volunteers was absolutely great. I was worried about this. Penticton to me has for years set the gold standard for vounteer and fan support and I doubted that whistler could come anywhere close to equalling that standard. But it did. There were lots and lots of volunteers at every station and they were into it in a big way. Lots of costumes, lots of high positive energy.
Others have pointed out little things that can be done to improve things, I agree with many of those suggestions and I’m going to list some of them too, but these are suggestions of how to make a great event that was amazingly well run even better. This did not look like a first time event, it ran so smoothly and so much was done so well.
Here are my suggestions :
On the second lap of the swim, the sun was right in my eyes after the first turn. Made it impossible to sight. (this was a problem one year in Penticton and they fixed it there with a re-jig of the course) My impression was this lake is big enough for a single loop swim and I hope they move to that. Having the first turn only 700 m from the start meant the field converged very quickly there and then we were all over each other the rest of the swim. A longer distance (say 1700 m) to the first turn means those who started wide can stay wide a lot longer.
Bigger change tent coming out of the water.
Move the downhill aid station on the bike (somewhere between Whistler and Pemberton on the way out) to an uphill location. (this was the one thing all day where I thought the organizers made a clear error and I am certain they will fix this easily for next year.).
Hmmm - seems like a short list. I guess that is a reflection of how well they ran this event.
Summary - great town and area to visit, really, really good bike course and nice lake, a run course that I enjoyed and great volunteers.
Definitely going back to race there again.
Didn’t do the race but was sent the following pic. That would get my heart rate up.
Awesome! Thanks for the great intel…I also was unsure if it could live up to Penticton’s tradition. Looks like I’m gonna have to put it on the list to do!
The Whistler IM course is a tough but fair course. The bike ride was the toughest I have done next to St. George. It’s tougher than the other IM courses I have finished in Penticton, Lake Placid, Couer d’ Alene, Wisconsin, Arizona, Louisville and Florida. My bike time in Whistler was 28 minutes slower than my Penticton bike last year in 2012. My transitions in Whistler were also slower. The Whistler swim course seemed a little longer to me than the Penticton course but I attribute that to the two loops rather than one loop and the congestion around the several turns. The run course in Whistler compares favorably with Penticton. The Whistler IM was very well run. And thw Whistler and Pemberton community supported the IM race beautifully. Whistler Village itself is an outstanding venue. I recommend the Whistler IM, but be prepared for a tough bike. I am an aging back of the pack finisher at age 64, so factor that in when reading my comments.
This was my first mass swim start and I’m very surprised to see everyone saying there was so much contact. I got hit in the face once, but that was it. Swam 1:09 so FMOPish? I thought the swim was beautiful. i can probably count on 2 hands the number f times i sighted because i could always see another swimmer in frint of or next to me.
Bike was insanely hard. I was dumb enough to think the hills in Austin would prepare me for it and it wasn’t even close.
The run was nice because it wasn’t all on pavement and I enjoyed seeing everyone in Whistler twice.
The biggest wildcard was the volunteers. I can’t even begin to say enough good things about them. They were there in abundance, with smiling faces, ready to help. It was like no race I’ve ever been to. I made sure to say “thank you for your help” to every one of them, but that didn’t do them justice.
Gonna publish my report Monday to my blog.
Threw mine up on my blog today.
Link here.