Hi STer’s, I decided at this time, I am not entirely comfortable with my original spring “A” event with travel to St. George and plan to stay in Canada. Europe, Latin America for upcoming racing and travel at least for this year. Looking back over time, I just went with what is convenient racing in the USA close to home or where flights were easy so maybe current situation forces some more exploration in my own country and do some more racing in Europe, Carribbean etc. Hopefully things settle down, but its an opportunity to do things that I have not done.
So I can fly direct in and out of Victoria from Ottawa, so it makes 70.3 Victoria easy. I have not been to Vancouver Island in ages, so I have a few questions
If I arrive early can you recommend where to stay for easy riding and swimming.
Access to quiet roads for 2-3 hrs rides and access to pool (any 50 LCM options ?)
Based on the above, is there a place that I can stay at requiring no rental car where I can walk everywhere to restaurants/groceries. I can take taxi/uber back to hotel/airbnb after bike drop off and to race start if needed if I have no rental car
Or get rental car, stay somewhere convenient for training and have the option for transport for bike check in and race day
How cold is the water?
Anything to know about the bike course (technical sections), or can I just ride it race day and go with the flow
Run course mainly flat on crushed gravel?
I have option of making it a long weekend “in and out” or taking a few extra days to explore the local culture.
Dev, the best place I can think of is the Holiday inn on Elk lake drive…
You have Commonwealth pool (50m at times) next door, easy access to the run course, walk across the highway to Thiftys for groceries at Broadmead mall, including a couple great restraunts. Thai, pizza, sushi etc
Riding, you be out in country (West Saanich road) in 2 minutes…the bike course is fun, technical and hilly. If you can I’d definitely ride the course beforehand, lots to learn. Recommend keeping your effort in check the first 20k
Water will not be cold, but the ride after will start out this way…so you’ll want to have a windproof layer for the top to strip off…I’d also recommend toe covers for this race, maybe lightweight full finger gloves.
Run is gravel or just dirt…it’s flat as can be… lots of potholes and roots in some spots so need to keep eye on your footing. It’s a great run course.
Hotel is not downtown, but to sightsee etc you could use uber
There’s also the Cherry Tree Inn in the same area but not sure if it’s ok…
Hey that Holiday Inn looks like an awesome spot and thus SOLD OUT. I think I am just going to get a rental car. Any other spots to stay at so that riding from the hotel/airbnb is easy enough?
Also for gearing if I did Penticton 70.3 with a small gear of 39x28 is that sufficient or do I put my 12-32 cluster on?
For these cold races, what I do is a swim with no top under wetsuit and at T1 put a loose T shirt on my body, then put a full sleeve top on top of that, and stuff a platic bag inside the long sleeve top and at T2, I take the top layer off and I run in a T shirt. It’s kind of old tech, but it tends to be aero enough and warm enough as I am cold wimp (which I why I have been avoiding this race in favour of US spring races in the pass, but in the theme of 'elbows up", I better suck up the Canadian cold because that’s what we get around here
My advice would be to look for a place to stay on the Peninsula - Sidney, North Saanich or Central Saanich. If you are looking for something more walkable, then somewhere in Sidney would be best. A ‘sleeper’ spot would be Brentwood Bay. It’s not far from the swim start, quiet, but walkable to a small grocery store, a few restaurants and coffee shops.
The race start is at the north end of Elk lake and is easy to get to from anywhere on the peninsula. You’ll have easy access to quiet, rural, country roads to ride on. A good chunk of the bike course takes place on the peninsula and it’s a popular riding spot in general.
There is also a smaller community pool in North Saanich which is relatively quiet but well equipped and Commonwealth isn’t hard to get to if you want a bigger pool.
It also really doesn’t take long to get to downtown Victoria. I commute in and it’s a 30min drive.
As for the bike course. Relatively hilly I’d say. The front half of the course is the flatter section so it’s common to positive split the back half of the course. The run is a mix of dirt and crushed gravel that goes around the lake. I wouldn’t call it flat or fast - there are technical sections and a small climb on each lap. It’s nice and shaded and beautiful spot to run.
The last time I raced in Victoria we stayed at a little seaside motel in Sidney. Older but clean and very economical. Gives you easy access to the venue for runs/swims or you can swim right in the ocean across the street from the motel if you so desire. I haven’t actually seen a bad place to ride bikes on the island so long as you stay off the highway as much as possible.
It looks like I will have rental car, so options to stay on the peninsula would make sense. Now that I made a decision towards Victoria I am, in a weird way, getting excited about racing in cold rain in BC and if we get sun it will be BONUS!
I also looked at Oliver half IM near Penticton a few weeks after that, but the timing does not work due to family committments but that looks like a nice race!
I can’t reply about bike rentals, but we look forward to having you in Canada !!! And if you’re in M60-64 you can also kick my ass since I have a slot to Marbella WC (its not hard to kick the ass of my pathetic run) !!!
For the technical sections are they long or short and are they narrow and lots of roots or mainly rocks? I guess we will need to decide what type of footwear (due to my previous spine injuries, left leg balance is not great on off camber right turns)
Funny, I live in the pacific northwest and I was considering Victoria but changed my mind and signed up for Hawaii 70.3 instead. I’m definitely not excited about cold rain these days.
Yeah, that’s why I previously did IM70.3 St. George 2x, IM70.3 Hawaii 1x, IM70.3 St. Croix 5x, Wildflower 5x, IM70.3 Galveston TX 2x, IMTexas 2x, IM70.3 Puerto Rico 1x…looks like that adds up to 18 races before June 1 and never in Canada and always because I wanted hot weather to race, but as my country is cold and freezing if I want to support local tourism industry, well, I need to suck it up and face the cold that is part of Canada.
On a plus note my XC skiing here is always awesome and spring tri fitness off a solid ski season ends up being my top performance of the year…as the summer moves on I just get slower and slower haha! My last workout before 70.3 Puerto Rico on March 16 was on March 9 which was a 42km XC ski (roughly 3 hrs) followed by 7km run (40 min). It feels less mind numbing than long trainer efforts in the winter and I don’t do long runs anymore and regradless winter long runs just suck all around !!!
Best of luck at Hawaii 70.3. Do you have a slot to Marbella? Are you interested?
I took a slot to Nice for September so Marbella was off the table. I don’t think I would have a shot at qualifying in the Hawaii 70.3 anyway - just doing it for fun.
You need the pro lifestyle so you can do Nice and then hang out in Monte Carlo with Djokovic and random protour riders train all day, hang out at the casino at night, then do a training camp with Jan Frodeno in Girona and then head over to Marbella
There won’t be much traffic on a Sunday morning coming from Sidney. It should only take 10mins to get to get to Elk lake.
There is however very little parking at transition. So I’d probably suggest taking an Uber/Taxi or parking and taking the shuttle
Definitely take the shuttle from the remote parking, but there was a huge wait last year making folks really have to scurry to make their swim waves. Although, that could have also been due to the rain and cold temperatures.
Dev - See you in Victoria as I’ll be announcing the race. It is one of my favorite venues in North America! Great course and wonderful volunteers! Lance Watson and his LifeSport coaches do a great job with clinic talks during the expo! Lance’s daughter won the race last year! Z