Given the heat and humidity in Ottawa in early August, it’s likely going to be a miserable day… lol.
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yeah, everyone it going to expact “flat and fast” and then have a Tokyo style running
sauna when the afternoon sun comes out after massive torrential downpours nad typhooon style winds on the bike
sounds like a nice place to live, no
Ottawa is an amazing city to live in. Spent a year there. Just visited again this summer. Expensive housing and terrible traffic now but it is still a place I would live. Could never quite get used to the humidity though.
Realistically if you can get access to a pool these days with Zwift, advanced trainers and treadmills, you can live anywhere with crazy traffic (ex Bangalore etc) and still train quite effectively for triathlon. Specific to Ottawa, back when we did not have all those tools, it has great cycling 8 months a year, excellent winter sport 4 months per year, lots of variety for road and trail running, several locations for open water swimming, an extensive network of good qualigy 25m and 50m pools with public access and we have endless racing all summer and all winter plus road running races all fall and a really big master swim community and insanely huge nordic ski community.
Weather largely sucks in 90% of the world for PART OF THE YEAR. So then it is a trade off of all of that and be able to get gainful employment. For myself we have a big technology sector so that’s what I did for my career outside of when I first got here with the Air Force. Yes, the city also benefits massively in an unfair way taxing all Canadians and spending that money hire lots of Federal Govt workers and the quality of life of the city is jacked up because tax dollars are spent for national capital beautification and infrastructure via the National Capital Commission. Personally I think that is BS that Ottawa citizens get their unfair share of Canadian taxation spend on stuff like that (for example there are 90km of roadways that the NCC owns that are closed if you measure out and back for cycling every weekend, and those are the roads of Ironman Ottawa…tha’s all owned and maintained by the people of Canada, not the City of Ottawa), but if Ottawa citizens get access to that special stuff, I figure I may as well get the access. Elsewhere in the nation there are national parks and federal facilties that I don’t get access to so I picked those literally out my front door.
Is it a great place to live? For me with my lifestyle and professional life it is awesome. I think if I was a banker, I would want to live downtown Toronto, if I was in aviation I would live in Montreal, if I was in oil and gas in Calgary. I worked a decade for a silicon valley company and turned down yearly offers to move to San Jose to stay here in Ottawa as I used to spend a week a month over there, and on the balance preferred life here.
My wife and I are getting close to retirement years, and we have no plans to spend part of the year elsewhere (maybe that changes, but I doubt it).
Anyway, I think we all here look forward to having you all. It could be a fast day which I hope for year one because then the momentum builds, but that weekend in early Aug, Kona heat, humidity and wind can easily hit us.
Dev, i’m greatful to live in a part of the country that has almost ideal weather, south Vancouver Island for most of the year to train and play golf etc…We do get snow usually once a year that lasts for a few days and Nov - Jan it rains a fair amount but less then half of Vancouver
I grew up in Southern Ontario and remember the heat and humidity and Mosquitos. I do miss thunder and lightning storms.
Dev, do you feel that LP will continue well into the future, I would like to do one more IM and I don’t have much desire to do Ottawa?
I thought LP just announced a new three year contract? So I think you are set. A local friend of mine said he has no interest in the Ottawa course. But I think the magic of the course happens on race day as you whip in and out of the downtown core around three times per bike loop and also on the run loop you’re in and out of nice surrounds by the canals and then into the core of the Parliament area. It will be pretty cool on race day. On a regular day, not so much.
Good to know, I turn 58 late this year and my plan is to ride huge bike miles over the next 2 years (mostly moderate pace) and mostly easy run miles, thats what has always worked for me to get in top shape. i’m currently keeping pace in the pool doing intervals with a former Canadian 100M champion, sounds impressive but he is 74 
Dev - any idea if they said where they’re putting T2 and the finish line area - specifically Wellington vs Parliament Hill.
It’s my understanding that a private company can’t use parliament hill for a private event (or am I wrong)?
I did a loop of the IM course today and I couldn’t see how they’d fit all of the following on Wellington alone:
-2 run lanes
-1 bike lane
- A finish line and finish area zone
- Space for 3000 bikes
- 2 change tents
- hooks for T2 bags
- a med tent
-recovery/food area
-a bank of Port a potties
And also likely a volunteer HQ and race command center. Plus somewhere they also have to put a merch tent and a registration tent - this can be anywhere but usually is nearby as well.
Anyway, curious as to where this will all go
I just hope they get all the construction done on the Western Parkway in time.
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Yeah Kichi Zībī Mīkan is pretty awful, but who knows what the NCC’s priorities are.
When I was at the kick off event, the talk about T2 and finish line was in flux and could be on Wellington or acroos from City hall. It sounded like the T2 would be across from City Hall and finish line actually on Wellington, but they were trying to figure out timings and flows. I don’t think anything ends up in the Parliament grounds.
On this thread there is talk about the westbound pavement and the worst seems between the war museum and Island Park. I ride from Champlain bridge west towards Andrew Hayden park frequently enough and that is more or less fine on a TT bike. I hope they repave from war museum to Island park…YIKES that’s some bad pavement