Harmony & I headed to Penticton BC to watch Ironman Canada. I’ve always heard about the tradition, energy & amazing course of this race & it didn’t disappoint. We got into town Saturday afternoon under a clear blue sky, warm temperatures & a fair amount of wind. We briefly met up with Jessica & Brandon at “ground zero” then headed out to our camp ground. (Yes you read that correctly…camp ground) The place we stayed was nice & located right on the run/bike route. That evening we rode most of the marathon course, it runs along the lake & had a head wind on the way out but tail wind on the way back in.
Race morning we were up early & into town. Randomly we ran into Jessica dropping off her special needs bag, she looked really positive with a touch of stress. Spectating the swim start is tough but we saw what we could.
From town we headed out to about mile 10 on the bike. This was on a tight left hand turn, the pros were well spaced but when the age groupers came through it was in large packs. At this point in the day everyone was smiling, giving the thumbs up and shouting for more cow bell! Once the athletes spread out we hopped in the car & headed south.
Part of the drive was on the highway that the cyclists were also on. In Oliver (I think) we stopped and asked if there were any “shortcuts” to get us close to Yellow Lake. Just so happens we were right next to a road that did such a thing. (Maybe I should have said dirt road) It worked great, up and over the hills & dropped us off right where we wanted to be. When me met back up to race course it was in perfect time to see the pros zipping by.
The next place we spectated at was Yellow Lake, this is the last of the big (BIG) hills on the bike course. The community comes out & really supports this brutal part of the race. You name it, people in costumes, chalk on the road, signs, DJ’s & a ton of cow bell. Jessica said she should be to Yellow Lake at about 1:30…she ended up passing by us at more like 12:30 looking really strong. Spectating from here was a lot of fun, you could see about every emotion on the faces of the competitors.
Late in the afternoon we headed back into town, at about the same time the rain came. For the most part it poured the remained of the evening/night. When we got into town we could see bikes coming in, people just heading out on the run & people about to finish the race. We had some dinner & waited for Jessica to come strolling down the hill. Again she looked great & moving at an impressive pace. After checking out the finish festivities we headed out to our camp site to watch the runners go by, at this point they had a few miles left. Everyone was soaked, exhausted but surprisingly looking pretty good. Harmony spotted Peter Reid (3 time Ironman world champion) watching the event go by out front of our camp site. I avoided the dork status and didn’t ask for a picture or anything…
Ironman Canada is not the easiest race logistically to spectate but I wouldn’t let that keep anyone from heading up for the experience. Its beautiful country, exciting to watch well established.
Check he next blog post to see what we did on Monday morning…
