As a data nerd I’ve been collecting information about the Ironman Mont Tremblant course where I intended to race and qualify for Kona. Unfortunately a couple days after returning from my inspection of the course I was diagnosed with a stress fracture so won’t be able to participate. Apart from the disappointment in not being able to race, it is also a disappointment not to be able to test out my race strategy and see if all the effort I’ve been through has been useful. Maybe I’ll go back and race another time.
As a NYC-based athlete there’s a bunch of stuff below related to travel that you might not care about. Please do comment with your experiences and feedback!
Logistics
As most people are probably interested in the course, scroll way way down for stuff on logistics.
Swim
So the swim is in Lac Tremblant. The photo below shows you the swim start on the far side (i.e. the beach), and the swim exit on the near side next to the town. If you’re going up to train you can swim for free in the lake by entering here. There is a purpose built hut with Ironman branding where you enter. You’ll have to give your name in order to gain access for free. Of the 4 days I swam here this was only attended once (on the Sunday) the other days there were multiple gates open and we just walked through. In the hut is some Ironman branded stuff and huge posters showing the various courses. Most of the hotels also have race guides printed out and available next to their hiking/biking/activity guides. If you’re not racing the Ironman (and not smart enough to realise how to game the system: *cough* *cough* the participant list is available online) you can pay an entrance fee and swim. Once through the hut there are toilets (with warm water showers!) to the right which are normally unlocked by 7 or 8am.
There is an Ironman branded corral where you can leave your stuff and launch your swim. Once you’re 50 yards out you turn right and you’ll see the buoys.
During non-race weekends the lake is full of boats and there is normally activity from the early morning (e.g. water skiers) and you can’t swim the actual course, but there are marked buoys that take you at least 1.2 miles out allowing you to swim the whole 2.4 uninterrupted. Once I got to 1.2 miles there were still some buoys further in the distance so you could probably go for 3+ mile swim. Here’s a couple swims I did that show the direction you should swim, the basic idea is to just stick to your right on the way out and follow the buoys which are every couple hundred yards and very visible: swim 1 and swim 2. Swim #2 is straighter just because I made a point to concentrate on sighting! There is no chop other than that created by the water skiers or fellow swimmers. In the morning the water is typically more glassy and even in the windier afternoons, the surrounding mountains keep the water pretty calm. The picture below gives you an idea of how calm it is and that the water is pretty clear.
Both the half and full distance races are pretty simple: swim out turn right, turn right again and then swim all the way back. The start of both races are at the tennis club with the swim exit at a different location. It’s a half mile walk from transition to swim start so it’s worth taking some flip flops/sandals for the walk. Mont Tremblant is very clean so you’re unlikely to step on anything sharp but early in the morning it is likely to still be chilly so best not to lose all your body heat through the ground. To get there you just walk to the lake and keep walking with the lake on the right until you get to the swim start.
70.3 course guide and Ironman course guide links
Being a non-technical course, sighting during the race should be pretty simple and there isn’t any current to speak of and there are buoys on a regular basis. Being mountainous it is also easy to pick a point on the mountains as a reference. If you’ve got people swimming around you, you won’t have to climb high out of the water to see buoys if you’ve pick a point in the distance to use instead. Here’s an example where you can see a mountain in the background in the middle and a ‘valley’ on either side. Once you get to the race site you can see exactly how the buoys are lined up and pick a reference point in the distance. For the return leg you can pick out the reference point once you’ve turned around at the halfway point:
Depending whether you’re doing the half or the full the swim waves vary a lot. Generally there will be more traffic closer to the buoys so if you’re not a confident swimmer then line up on the left hand side and stay wide. The bonus of this course is that you can swim very wide and it won’t cost you much extra time versus a more technical swim course. An unconfirmed source told me that penalties were not being handed out to those swimming on the inside of the buoys AS LONG AS they don’t cut the corners. If you’re getting beat up and see some space on the inside you might want to use that as a way to avoid the crowds, but speak to the race director before the race or raise it as a question at the race briefing.
Swim waves 70.3
Swim waves Ironman
Water temperature can be found here. For those whose worst nightmare is a non-wetsuit swim, Mont Tremblant is very likely to have wetsuit-legal swims at all times during the year. You should still do some open water swimming without wetsuit though so that you’re comfortable with the idea. As always, all else being equal, a sleeved wetsuit is going to be faster than a sleeveless.
In terms of goggles, I went with tinted and even though they fogged up a lot (my lack of maintenance to blame) I was still able to sight pretty easily using the mountains in the background rather than the buoys to sight. The sun will appear behind the mountains at different times during the year, but it is likely to appear slightly to your left as you are coming towards the end of your swim even if you’re in the first wave and a solid swimmer. For a back of the pack swimmer in a late wave you are likely to have the sun in your eyes for a large chunk of the swim. If it’s a clear day I’d opt for tinted as even before the sun came out visibility wasn’t an issue. If it’s certainly going to be cloudy then clear are your best bet. Being a non-technical course, choice in goggles are unlikely to impact your race.
As an alternative you can also swim at Lac Mercier. Being a smaller body of water it is normally warmer than Lac Tremblant. To gain access you can enter via the pier (see the link before and look in Google Earth Mode). You can see it by standing outside Hotel Mont Tremblant or outside the post office, and there is a small ladder you can use to get into the water. It’s deep enough to dive into too! There can be boats on the lakes and there are no signs up to warn them of swimmers so swim in a safe manner (in a group, bright coloured caps, colourful saftey floats, etc). There is also a beach there but if you are not a resident you have to pay a fee to enter the water via the beach.
The water in both lakes is fairly clear so if you’re looking for feet to follow you should be able to see them ahead of you they are not kicking air bubbles into your field of vision.
Mont Tremblant is aligning itself to be a very triathlon-friendly destination so here’s the link to their training tourism web page again: http://mont-tremblant.ca/en/training-mont-tremblant/. Each day I left my stuff by the water with no-one attending it and there wasn’t even a hint that anyone might steal it, by the way.
Transition 1
When you come out of the water you have a ~400-500 metre journey on foot to get to the transition area. It’s flat the whole way and smoothly paved so you should be fine. Most people opt to bring their wetsuits down towards their waist as they’re running then take it off fully in transition. Here’s a *rough* google map as to the transition run. Transition 1 masquerades as a parking lot on non-race weekends.
Bike
The bike leg is the same across 70.3 and full distances except in the latter you do the loop twice. You’ll exit T1 (the parking lot) and there will be a penalty tent directly on your left as you leave. As in all triathlon races, make sure the first thing you do is stick your helmet on your head when you get to T1 so that you don’t take the bike off the rack before your head is protected. Otherwise you will have to serve a stop and go penalty early on in the bike leg!
So the bike loop. It’s 3000 ft per lap. No, it’s 3300 ft per lap. No it’s 3800ft per lap. I rode the course twice with two setups (more to follow) and without Garmin’s elevation correction they came out as 3000ft and 3300ft. With it turned on they both came out at 3800ft. If it’s 3800ft then it’s a pretty easy 3800ft.
Ride 1 (July 9th 2015)- P5 with Reynolds Strike Front and Back with GP4000 tires, 53/39 up front 11-25 at back.
Ride 2 (July 10th 2015) – P5 with Reynolds Strike Front with GP4000 tires and a Corima tubular disc wheel out back (courtesy of Fitwerx), 53/39 up front 11-28 at back.
In both rides I was wearing the same kit (I washed it the night before). From the video below you can see it blowing around a little bit so in my tri kit I would probably have saved a watt or two. Apart from that everything was pretty much optimized.
Same across rides:
– Average power was 220w on both days (with NP of 224w on Day 1 and 222w on Day 2).
– My Full Throttle Endurance Racing Bike Kit. It’s not a TT-specific kit so it rippled in the wind a little. (Yes, I did was it between days)
– ‘Hairy’ legs both days.
– XLab Stealth Pocket 300 on the top tube containing a multi-tool, 2 CO2 cartrdiges + adapter, 2 plastic tire levers
– Riding the Cobb test saddle (again courtesy of Fitwerx!). The reason I mention it is to explain the random green that screws up the colour scheme 😉
– Spare tired jammed underneath the seat and taped lightly to try and make it more aerodynamic
– Tire pressure pumped up to 105 PSI immediately before the test.
– Barometric air pressure virtually the same in both days (1012-1016mb)
– Road traffic levels the same
– Was using a borrowed Garmin Edge 800 from The Domestique. The theory from Joe at Fitwerx was that I would have a much flatter power profile when the numbers are constantly in my face! He was right, as usual.
Differences:
– On each day when stopping mid-test (e.g. to get water or take a picture at the turnaround) I would stop the recording as close to my stop as possible and stop before I start breaking. This will introduce some minor noise but this should be minimal across the two rides.
– On Ride 1 I only drank 2 bottles and on Ride 2 I drank 5, so I guess Ride 2 had a slight weight penalty.
– The historical weather for Mont Tremblant can be found here. Ride 2 was done in warmer and windier conditions. From what I can tell the wind statistic on Ride 2 was understated as there really was a stiff continuous headwind heading to Labelle. Speaking to a local rider in Mont Tremblant he said it was the windiest day he ever remembers (it still wasn’t that bad, compared to the winds of Kona!).
The results. Despite being a much windier day for ride 2 I maintained the same average speed which I can only attribute to the disc wheel having much better aerodynamics. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back at some point and retest in race conditions. It, like all North American Ironman courses definitely favours a disc wheel.
In terms of gearing I found the 53/39 11-28 set up to be pretty close to optimal. When using it I was able to spin up the bigger hills at a cadence of 80rpm+. On the steeper hills on the tail end of the course (maybe 5-6 in total) I still got out of the saddle but the easier gearing option allowed to go up them really steadily. On the other end of the gearing spectrum I think a 53×11 is mandatory if you want to be able to maintain your power targets on the downhill or with tailwinds. More details below on the various sections of the course.
High Level Power Numbers
So before we get talking about numbers, a few caveats, both rides had water breaks, photo breaks, etc. These were done at points in the course where there are turns so shouldn’t impact the numbers.
Ride 1:
Ride 2:
Ride 1 has a higher average heart rate, higher heart rate spikes, higher max power, higher normalised power, etc. Ride 2 had lower ‘effort’ metrics across the board although had a higher max speed. Looking at the power files in Golden Cheetah I can see that this highest speed came late in the loop on the downhills and having ridden it the previous day I knew I could power down even the steepest sections. (More on that section below).
Additionally, I think the change in gearing are the main causes why the lower max efforts exist in ride 2. Being able to switch into 39×28 (versus) 39×25 meant I could go slower while keeping my cadence up. My general riding style is to maintain cadence so if I get to a steep roller I prefer to go a bit harder, maintaining cadence above 80 if possible, rather than drop cadence and go slower. Once my cadence drops below 75rpm I find my muscles are taxed a lot so even though the effort exhibits a lower cardiovascular impact, it has a large impact on my muscular endurance.
Description of sections of the course
For the purposes below I’ll refer to power as watts per kilo. Right at the bottom of the cycle section I’ll add some notes for those without power. For those who are concerned on gear ratios check out this calculator. Enter in the details of your cassette setup and then you can see a matrix showing speed depending on what gear you’re in and your cadence.
Riding Montee Ryan
Coming out of transition you could be forgiven for thinking that you’re about to enjoy one long fast downhill section given you’re coming out of a ski resort but that’s not the case. In the first 7 miles you finish about 150ft lower than where you started filled with gentle rollers and one short very fast downhill across the bridge as you cross the river. It has a couple bumps but nothing that you need to come out of the aerobars for it you’re a confident rider. If you click on the photo below (from Google Maps StreetView) it’ll take you to the interactive maps. The line across the road is the bump I’m referring to. In this section I to spin up to ~110rpm on the 53×11 to maintain my power target.
Once you get to the junction at the bottom (you’ll see McDonalds on the right) you turn right onto 117.
The steep hill on 117 – Going out
After a short stint on 117 you’ll come to a hill. Going out it’s less steep thankfully. On the subsequent downhill, things get very very fast. You’ll need a 53×11 and the ability to pedal quickly to maintain power targets. I’m only 134lbs and get blown around quite easily and you’ll need to stay calm and focused if you want to keep your power targets on the way down, remembering Einstein’s quote: “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”. You’ll be much more stable if you keep force in the pedal rather than coasting and allowing the wind to dictate your movement. Will cover this in more detail on the way back.
The ‘flats’ of 117
Once you crush the downhill you have about 20 miles of pretty much flat riding. This is unquestionable the fastest section of the course. There are a some false flats and gentle rollers but you can just get in the zone here. You’ll want a disc for this section without doubt and any improvements you make to your aero position will payoff. Here my averages speeds were 24.4 and 24.8 mph @ 220 watts for ride 1 and 2 respectively.
Make sure you pick water/nutrition at the aid station at the turnaround so that you can hydrate on the way back before tackling the climb on the way back towards the resort.
The ‘Make-up’ loop on 117
Before you get to go to Montee Ryan you have to do an extra little loop to make up the distance. Although the majority of riding on this course is pretty open and you can get into the zone, this short section of the course requires lots of turns. Hopefully the previous sections of the course will have broken up the field so that you’re not dodging people at this section.
You’ll exit 117 and take the exit road down past a gas station on the right. A litte further on the road diverges, take the right. You can power along through this section, just remember to keep right.
Don’t keep your head down too much because you’ll come across another intersection where you need to turn left. You turn left before the Ford dealership. Again you can power through this section but it’s a slight downhill so you’ll need to switch onto the brakes pretty quickly.
The following sections are only a few hundreds yard each so if you want to make a series of passes this might be a good section if you’re willing to potentially burn a couple matches powering out of the corners. It’s not long before you’re back on the open highway and can make passes there too. So after turning left at the dealership you:
– Go under a tunnel and go straight until you hit the end of the road
– You turn right onto Rue de San Jovite into town where I would expect there to be lots of people
– After a minute of being on that road you’ll have to make a U-turn
– After the U-turn you continue straight until you’re back to the highway
– You’ll have to make a slight left turn to the highway
If you’re training I’d advise taking this section easy as there is lots of traffic and they won’t appreciate people with funny bike helmets flying around and making unpredictable turns.
Coming back on Montee Ryan
So now you finish the flats you’ll be confronted with a long looking climb. In both rides I went up at 230 watts although on the 39×25 my cadence dropped to 80rpm, whereas in ride 2 it stayed above 95rpm the whole time. The speed across both rides were pretty close (within 0.2mph). I was glad to have the 28!
The climb is ~1.3 miles with ~ 350 feet of elevation gain. That works out to an average grade of about 5%, that doesn’t sound to scary right?! The gradient (a.k.a. the steepness) of the climb is pretty consistent overall although the first half is ever so slightly steeper (~6% and then it flattens out a bit later to about 4%). I didn’t notice that while on the climb though. When targetting your gearing choice this is the hill you should think about, if you don’t have enough gears you’re going to be hammering your way up the hill, or worse, walking!
As a reference point for those with power I was at ~ 4w/kg in the 39×28 spinning at 90rpm+ at about 10-11mph. The domestique challenged me to stay aero the whole way up but it was not comfortable!
The ‘hilly’ loop
So once back at the ski resort you’ll blaze straight past with the route on your left and continue straight out. On this section there are some short sharp punchy hills, each one probably less than 100 metres in length. In the 39×25 my cadence dropped to 70-80 each time requiring me to get out of the saddle and go way above my target watts. The extra gears on the 28 were useful because on ride 2 the spikes were much easier. These hills whilst short can really sap your legs so the first time up you need to really hold back on the first lap if you’re doing the full distance. Once you hit the turnaround it’s pretty much all downhill from there. It winds but you can literally put on the gas the whole way back to the end of the lap without braking. You’ll want good handling skills to take full advantage of this and if you hit traffic it’ll turn a fast section into a potentially dangerous and frustrating section.
Modelling your time
If you haven’t heard of BestBikeSplit.Com you can use it to model your finishing time for courses based on power. I managed to recreate my time pretty close to the real time including average and normalised power. My actual race target watts was to be 210 rather than 220, but I figure I’ll be somewhere around the 5 hour mark. To calibrate the model you’ll need to give it good information about size/weight/bike/etc.
Another benefit is that you can put in limits to how hard you want to push (in terms of power) when going uphill. This is really great for training if you have the patience to do it indoors on a Computrainer.
How do I choose my cassette?
So if you have a powermeter, find a climb where you’re going about 4watts/kilo @ ~10-11mph. At that point you will know you are on a climb that is similar to the one I refer to above on 117. At that point just go up and down the hill trying out different gears until you find one where you can find a comfortable cadence. If you have access to multiple cassettes, it’s worth putting on the most conservative cassette you have and once you’ve found a ‘nice’ gear take note and that will be the biggest gear you’ll need at back.
If you don’t have a powermeter and you can find a hill that’s a mile long and a pretty steady 5% then use that instead. Go up at your target effort level for the race and play around with your gearing until you figure out whether you’ll need more options for the race. Remember that if you are going to race by heart rate you will need to start the climb already at the target heart rate so you don’t get noise from changing heart rate levels.
I prefer the former method because you can just show current speed and w/kg on your computer and give it a quick look while on your normal training rides and it doesn’t cost much time. So if you run out of gears you can go to your local bike shop and tell them you’re running out of gears on the hills and need more. They should know what you mean. Your options are to change the cassette out back to make the range wider (e.g. from 11-28 to 11-32), or change the chainrings up front to make the numbers smaller (e.g. from 53/39 to 50/34). I’d advise you go in with actual numbers like “I was on a hill and I was in my easiest gear and my cadence drops to 60rpm, and I want it to be 80rpm”. If they’re knowledgeable they can use the gearing calculator to make an educated guess.
One note on gearing, the number of gears won’t change despite the cassette you put on the back. E.g. a 11 speed 11-25 will have lots of options between the smallest cog (11 teeth) and the largest cog (25 teeth). If you switch to an 11 speed 11-32 you have the same number of gears but there are larger ‘steps’ in the intermediate gears. So if you choose to change gearing make sure you do it a few weeks ahead of the race to see if you miss the intermediate gears.
Transition 2
Not much to say about this. Just remember to rack your bike before you take off your helmet 🙂
Run
So you finish the bike and you’re feeling awesome. Now time to crack the run. The overall run was much easier than I was expecting. It’s easy saying that knowing I’m not going to be racing but I was pleasantly surprised when I was training on the course. Having used Central Park in NYC as the training ground (it is also undulating with a a short sharp hill) the course at MT is definitely easier.
Here’s a run that includes the full loop plus another out and back on the rollers.
The Initial Half Mile
When you come out of transition you have just under a half mile before you hit a steep short hill. The race program shows this as a wall that you’ll have to climb over to get running again. The Garmin elevation profile shows it to be much more sane. I’ll leave it up to you to decide, but in truth it’s somewhere in between. It’s a steep hill of 8% but only lasts a couple hundred metres.
If you’re careful to maintain your cadence and take small steps you can control your heart rate to a decent extent. If you’re not a svelt ‘runner’ you might want to powerwalk up this section. It’s very early in the run to let your heart rate spike a lot. As soon as you get to the top you have an equally sharp downhill leading down to a roundabout. I’m a fan of trail running and practise running fast downhill fairly regularly. It requires loose muscles and fast turnover of your legs to go down at full speed. If your legs are jelly after the bike then best to go slow down this section.
The Rollers
From this point on you have approximately 2.5 miles of rollers. If you were able to run down the first hill you’ll probably enjoy this section as there are some inclines where you’ll want to slow your pace in order to not redline, but with every incline you get a decline on the opposite side. If you’re able to loosen up and use gravity in your favour on the downhills you’ll make time on those who don’t have experience on downhills. I’m not trying to portray them as steep downhills but experience mediating your effort on undulating run terrain will pay dividends here.
Your elevation at the start of the rollers is exactly the same as the end (i.e. when you get to Hotel Mont Tremblant).
I ran the rollers a total of 6 times across 2 runs. The long run goes over the rollers 4 times and this one goes over them another 2 times (This run is the rollers only). There’s a few places where my pace drops to 9 min/miles on the uphills and then jumps to low 6 min/miles on the downills, whilst my effort remains more or less consistent.
An example incline:
An example decline (even though you can’t really tell):
The Gradual Decline (Petit du Nord Part 1)
So you’ll pass Hotel Mont Tremblant on your right and you enter Le Petit Train du Nord. (See the first run although I think the elevation for laps 5-8 got screwed up). Going out you’re on a net downhill. After running it I broke it up into 3 subsections. The first km or so was so flat I didn’t notice any elevation change at all. Then in the middle there’s a more perceivable downhill and then the last section feels completely flat again. Certainly nothing to be scared about and you can even pace this section.
This section is perfectly paved and functions as a bike path on non-race days. You can only fit 2 runners side by side on each side so if you’re looking to set the race on fire you’re going to have to be careful of other traffic as you try to maneuver your way through the field.
The Return (Petit du Nord Part 2)
Eventually you’ll get to the end of the run and do the reverse as above. After comparing heart rates and pacing on the up and down I figure that it’s probably worth having slightly different pacing strategies going out than back. If you’re someone that enjoys flat pacing for long periods of time then you shouldn’t be scared to run the same pace up as back. The difference in heart rate for the same pace for me was about 4bpm higher going back than going out. It’s unlikely to blow up your race if you do that. However for me, I like small targets so my race strategy was to run 4:20-4:25 mins/km on the way out and mentally mix it up by running 4:35-4:40 on the way back for an even-effort strategy.
A shot of the path:
The Gravel Section (Petit du Nord Part 3)
Once you’re back towards Hotel Mont Tremblant you do another quick out and back, this time on a gravel section. From reading other race guides I had thought this section was very long and had about 20% of weekly mileage running on gravel or trails. This section is very short, flat and very tightly packed. It won’t impact your pacing at all. The total is probably less than a km on this section.
To see it click here and the turn the view so the lake is on the left. You’ll see a gated off section on the left. That’s where you’ll be running.
The view of the gravel (going out). It’s flat even though the picture may not look it.
Returning on the Rollers
Returning on the rollers is pretty much the same as going out. Again, your net elevation gain is 0 from Hotel Mont Tremblant back to the town. If you’re doing the full and have a conservative run pace for the first ~22 miles this will be your opportunity to crush those that are strugging. For that reason in my last training run I decided to run that section faster than target pace – to build up the mental imagery ahead of time. This might have been what tipped me over the edge in terms of stress fracture I guess?!
The rolling section of the course you can walk virtually using Google Street View. Click the image below to take you to the start of the rollers (Lac Tremblant is on your right and you walk it all the way to Hotel Mont Tremblant. There is no streetview for the bike path:
Coming Towards Transition
As you come into town you’ll see the transition area 100 metres or so to your right as you’re running with the lake on your left. You have to do an extra little loop but it’s very short, although has a little bumpy incline you have to get over. It’s not like the ‘big hill’ that you would have gone over 4 times before you reach it, but if you’re neck and neck with your competitor and trying to shake them off this will be your last ditch attempt if you don’t want a sprint line finish for the cameras 🙂
NOTE: This section isn’t in the practise runs as the Blues festival was on and I didn’t fancy running into crowds of people!
“Other”
Suncream. I’m pretty fair skinned (see the photo below). I was out 3-4 hours a day while there in the midday sun and didn’t get sunburnt at all (70-80s fahrenheit). You could probably chance it, but you’re unlikely to burn as much as hotter races (e.g. Eagleman).
Altitude. The official altitude of the resort (i.e. where transition will be) is 270 metres or 880 feet. You shouldn’t need to be worried about altitude acclimatization at all. We arrived at midnight and the next morning were training and didn’t feel a thing.
Training
Training in Mont Tremblant is very easy, so there isn’t much to say about it. If you want to train on the course you can stay in the centre of town and you’ll be a stone’s throw away from the start of the swim bike and run. Towards San Jovite there is a new training centre. Here’s a maps link to the address: https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Complexe+Aquatique+Mont-Tremblant/@46.1262658,-74.5848969,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x4ccf74f8ced14ecf:0x56b7a1fdefc7e845!8m2!3d46.1262658!4d-74.5827082?hl=en.
In June 2017 the cost of a swim there was $9CAD. There is also a gym there which is extremely geared towards triathlon. They have treadmills, two rows of spin bikes, 3 bike trainers (if you want to take your bike), TRX bands, a Vaso rower and a stable of stability tools and a few light weights. It is new as of a couple years ago and I was told that Ironman donated a large amount of money towards it. If you want to use the pool and do a bike trainer session (e.g. ride a specific course on your own bike) the cost was $19CAD. Very reasonable coming from NYC!
The swimming pool is a 25m competition pool with 8 lanes, starter blocks and a diving board. While I was there they had closed 4 of the lanes for a children’s party (they had a giant inflatable obstacle course). The busiest lane had 4 people and a large amount of the time I was only sharing with 1 other person. This is 3 days before Mont Tremblant 70.3 so I’m guessing it’s not crazy busy.
Logistics
Driving from NYC. The drive from NYC to Mont Tremblant is listed as ~ 7 hours according to Google Maps. It is perhaps the simplest drive possible considering the distance. Get out of NYC outside of rush hour (we left midtown at ~3pm on a Wednesday) and were out onto the Taconic Parkway pretty quickly. From there it’s I-87 all the way to the border and then from there there is a highway from Montreal to Mont Tremblant. Look at Google Maps for directions. Other things to consider:
- You may get slowed down at Albany if you hit their rush hour
- There are quite a lot of state troopers around Albany (I was lucky enough to meet one as I got a speeding ticket)
- The state trooper said that they are mostly looking out for people going above 80mph. The speed limit is 65mph.
- Gas was cheap (<$3 gallon everwhere). I think the total gas cost was <$120 there and back!
- Border control is painless if outside of busy times (e.g. weekends). Each way we talked for about 1 minute with the border control.
- You have to pass through Montreal. If you don’t plan stopping then try and pass through late evening or during a quiet period. There aren’t any alternative routes so if you get stuck in traffic it’ll suck.
- There aren’t many good eating options on the road. We settled for Subway…
Eating in Mont Tremblant
Mont Tremblant is split up into the resort (next to transition) and the town (~10km from the resort). We stayed in the resort so these comments pertain to that. While we were there it was very busy due to the blues festival. Despite that we found a couple places where we could eat quite reliably:
La Diable: Microbrewery and restaurant. We went there most evenings because they have lots of tables and even if the tables are busy, the inside section was pretty quiet. Food was good and reasonably priced.
Brulerie St-Denis: This place is open early enough in the morning so we grabbed breakfast/coffee here alot. It is expensive but the food is okay.
Maison de la crepe. We tried to go here a couple times but they don’t have many seats so there was already a 20 minute wait every time we went and we’re impatient guys.
Further up the hill there are a bunch of restaurants but we were as impatient as we were lazy and rarely went up there. Please let me know if you have any good recommendations, especially for race week!
In the early morning, before 10am there really weren’t many places open for breakfast. I would imagine for Ironman week they will open earlier as there are plenty of restaurants, but try and figure this out early.
Groceries: There is a magazin (grocery shop) near la Diable. They have a good range of fresh food if you’re looking for stuff like eggs/mile/ice cream/etc. It’s understandably a little expensive so if you’re driving into Mont Tremblant you may want to stop off at a chain supermarket to supply yourself with the bulk of stuff you need.
Bike Stuff: If you need bike stuff and in the resort there is a place called Boutique Explore which is more of a general purpose store for activewear. At the back they have a section selling bike/tri kit and a few essentials (Rudy bike helmets, a narrow range of energy bars, etc). Don’t expect to get what you need from here. There is a shop called CyberCycle near Hotel Mont Tremblant (on the run course ~5km from the resort) which has a wider selection and is a bike specific shop. There is a cafe in the same place with seats too. I found Cybercycle stuff to be a bit costly (XLabs computer mount was $79CAD vs $49USD). That’s an N=1 experience, given they’re a fairly small business and the only game in town you might find yourself in there when you need something. One thing to say is to make sure you get all your mechanical stuff done ahead of time (2 weeks ahead of time!) as you don’t want to panic if this is the only place that can fix your stuff.
Accommodations Many of the places you can stay in the resort are all afilliated with the resort. So if you’re trying to get a place there go to the official website which has them covered. This includes the chains such as the Westin/Holiday Inn/etc. A local lady who worked on the tourist board told us this was the best place to go for deals. We stayed at the Chalameau and it was awesome. We had a 2 room apartment with everything we needed (TV, sofa, kitchen, outdoor table, etc). I’ve also stayed at the Marriott and in L’Equinoxe which were both great. L’Equinoxe is a bit of a hike up the hill though!
Outside of the resort there are plenty of options that are cost effective (e.g. Auburge Savingnon, Hotel Mont Tremblant, etc). Pretty much all of the places are well-aware of the cash cow that is Ironman so book as early as possible if you want to get good prices. Places will book up quickly!
5150/70.3. In June you’ll have the 5150 race the day before the 70.3. This doesn’t really impact the flow of things, but just be aware if you’re doing the 70.3 and are driving into the MT resort on the Saturday, you’ll probably have issues accessing the car park until 10am-ish as there will be riders on the Olympic bike course.
Conclusion
Awesome course. You’re going to love it. This was at the end of the training run when the Domestique and I were saying in our French accents ‘It is how you say, uh, no big deal’. I can’t wait to go back and race it!
Tired Legs Empty Mind 