2024 Sail Challenge Esprit Montreal Race Report

Judy’s race report from the Demi-Esprit

First a bit of history

This was the 40^th anniversary edition of the Esprit Triathlon in Montreal. The race was first held in 1984 with a bike course which went though Montreal and around the Olympic Stadium. A quote from Danny McCann who founded the race:

 “The first few years we had people biking 40k through the city streets to the Olympic stadium,” McCann recalls. “I am still stunned nobody got hit by a car. We had a police helicopter overhead, 60 police officers on the ground stopping traffic, 1,200 barricades and 150 volunteers just on the bike course. These were the years my hair turned gray.” (Triathlon Magazine, 2011)

In 1991 a full “Iron distance” triathlon was added. One of the few independent full distance races in Canada. The full distance was discontinued in 2014. Two years after the first Ironman was held in Mont Tremblant.

Today

The Esprit Triathlon is now held entirely in Parc Jean-Drapeau. There is no Iron distance, but they have everything else from Sprint to Olympic to 70.3 which they call Demi- Esprit. The races are held over two days and this year they had 3600 registered athletes.

The Venue

Parc Jean-Drapeau is on Ile Notre-Dame in the middle of the St. Lawrence. By Car you can get there by exiting off the Pont Jacques Carter. Parking anywhere on Ile Notre-Dame or the connected Ile St. Helen is $25 for the day. There is no hourly parking. You can also ride your bike across the bridge or take the subway to Jean-Drapeau. Bikes are allowed on the subway on weekends.

Ile St. Helene is also home to La Ronde and there are often festivals on the island as well. There was a music festival of some type this weekend. When I was there for the FINA Masters World Swimming championships in 2014,  there was a heavy metal festival. We had to avoid breathing deeply as we passed in case there was drug testing!

The Swim

The swim is held in the Olympic rowing basin. If you are looking for a user-friendly swim you will not get anything better than this. It’s a 2.2 km long, 110m wide, and 2.5 m deep. All the swims are out to a buoy, across the basin and back. Sighting is easy as the whole basin is only 110m across. In some places you can actually follow the lines for the smaller lane buoys underwater. The smaller enclosed area means the water is not very choppy and it’s a rolling start so there is very little contact.

The Bike

The bike course is held on the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve. It’s a 4.361 km formula one race course. The plus’s: great pavement; very little elevation (my Garmin showed 271m over 92 km). The minus’s: many loops; a lot of turns; and a lot of other bikes. There was an aid station with water, electrolyte drinks, gels and bananas, but you had to stop. They would not pass aid to you while moving. There was also a bike tech station

Overall, this is a very fast bike course, but you need to be a confident rider, and you need to stay focused because between the turns and the other riders there is a lot going on.

The Run

The run is 4.8 km loops around the outside of the rowing basin. Totally flat, with four aid stations a loop, all with water, electrolytes and gels. There is a bridge across the basin to allow for a ½ lap to make the distances work.

My Race

I have not done a triathlon since the fall of 2022. I broke my vow to never do another full distance tri by signing up for Ironman Ottawa 2025. Doing this event for me was all about getting my head back in the game. Remembering how to do this, and hopefully having a result that helped me to believe a full was still something I could do.

As Montreal is close to home we booked one night accommodation in Montreal. I wanted to pick up my race kit the day before the race to avoid last minute issues with stickers on bikes and helmets and race tattoos. We had originally planned to park the car and take the subway, but we got there a little later than planned and it was pretty chilly, so we drove to the island. Harold stayed with the car to avoid paying $25 to park, and I walked to the race kit pick-up. I had a general idea where I was going, but there were no signs for pick-up until you were almost there. Pick-up was in the buildings beside the rowing basin and once I found it, it was fast and easy. I did have to show ID, and they were out of small shirts which is too bad because its quite a nice shirt. Not that I need another race shirt…

We then headed to our accommodation for the night, a studio apartment. It turned out to be much smaller than we expected. It was clean, but the whole studio was the size of our front hallway. A larger person would not have been able to fit in the bathroom with the door closed! We had to put the bike in front of the door, and we took turns getting things out of our bags. It was clean and it had a fridge and hot plate. We had planned to spend some time wandering around downtown Montreal, but as soon as we unpacked it started to pour down. The rain continued all evening. So we spent it in our hallway home watching a show on my iPad mini.

The temperatures all week had been in the mid 20’s but they were scheduled to plunge on race day. I had packed many warm layers because as I will tell anyone who will listen, if you don’t bring it you can’t use it, so bring it all! The forecast temperature for 7:00 am when the race was to start was 7C and it did not look like it was going to warm up much over the course of the day. That is pretty cold for riding a bike in a wet trisuit.

I packed my bags, put the stickers on my bike and set the alarm for 5:00am. The race kit included number tattoos which were compulsory. I did ask about them at race kit pick-up. It was going to be 7C and they were arm tattoos. It was  very unlikely my arms were going to be seen on race day. I was told they were required anyway. The recommendation is that you put them on the night before. I have been fooled that way before…come morning your race number is not only on your arm it’s on the bed sheets!

Sunday morning came. The rain had stopped, but it really was 6C outside. I put on the arm tattoos, one of which I applied upside down (it looked right in the mirror) so I was 205 on one arm and 502 on the other.

We were at the race site by 6:00 am for a 7:00 am start, but it still felt rushed. There was no bike pre-check in so it took extra time to get the bike out of the car, get it into transition and racked. This was a triathlon Quebec sanctioned event so they checked the breaks on the bike to make sure they worked and you had to show your arm tattoos to get into the t-zone (lucky for me they only looked at one arm). The rack spaces were not numbered so you had to just find a spot. It was very windy, it looked like it was going to rain, and my bike is pretty small so rather than putting my helmet on the tri bars with my sunglasses in it as I usually do. I put all my bike gear in the helmet on one side of my front tire and my run gear on the other side and then covered it with a Bring on the Bay bag to keep the bike in place and my gear sort of dry.

Putting my wetsuit on took a while too. It was the first time I have worn it in 18 months. I meant to give it a dry run, but I never got around to it. It still fit but I was reminded after the swim that it rubs on my neck and body glide is required.

The Swim 33.29

The swim was a rolling start. Four swimmers at a time and it was pretty wide. I probably started too far back but I was not too concerned about it because there were only about 300 of us and it was obvious that there was going to be room to pass once you got in the water. The swim was great. It was the warmest part of the day! I did not get kicked, and between the underwater buoy lines and the basin being 110m across it was easy to swim straight. I had a nice comfortable swim. No need to push it when you have a few more hours of exercise to go! Swim split 33.29 1^st in my AG and 5^th woman.

T1

I did not have a good T1. I am pretty sure it was one of my slowest ever! Some of it was avoidable some was not. I knew it was not going to be great when I had trouble getting my wetsuit off (I have been spoilt by wetsuit strippers – Esprit was do it yourself), first it got stuck on the Garmin on my wrist and then I could not get it over my feet. I also managed to run right past my bike in transition. Usually, I take very careful note of where I left my bike before the start. It took forever to get arm warmers on because I was wet. I also added a vest, a jacket and full fingered gloves. I was using a Garmin Edge on the bike, and I had trouble getting it started with the gloves on. All in all, almost 7 ½ minutes…

The Bike 2:53:13

The bike course was 21 laps around the formula one track. They had a display board 300m before the exit for T2 which was supposed to show your name and how many laps you had left at 20, 15, 10, 5, 3,2,1 and then a green go to transition. They made it clear that you were responsible for counting your own laps if it did not work. Usually, I just use my watch but I knew it was going to be cold and my watch would be covered with layers so I put my old Edge on my bike to make sure I had a distance. I was not sure how far it actually was going to be. I knew it would be somewhere around 90k and hoped for the best. It was actually 92k.

After you ride a couple of laps and get a feel for where the turns are and how fast you can take them riding around the formula one track is kind of fun. The pavement is amazing! It was really cold. Even with a jacket, vest, arm warmers and full fingered gloves I was barely warm enough. It was very windy and it drizzled a few times. The only spot on the course that was warm and out of the wind was a small underpass. I looked forward to it every time I went around.

Getting enough nutrition on the bike was a bit of a challenge because the full fingered gloves made it hard to grab the dried mangos I had in my bento box and the many layers of clothes made it almost impossible to grab the fig bars from my trisuit pockets.

There were a lot of other bikes to deal with as well. The duathlons and the first wave of the sprint tri were both on bike course by the time I was finished. In general people were riding safely, but there were bikes passing bikes three wide in places and you always had to be paying attention. I did not see a lot of drafting although there were times when “technically drafting” during a pass was hard to avoid. There was quite a bit of blocking, but I suspect many of the riders doing it did not realize they were blocking. The penalty tent had lots of visitors. I was happy to see my name displayed on the board when I had 15, 10, 5, 3, 2, 1 laps left even if I could only just read it (they make these displays smaller every year!). After what was displayed as 1 lap to go I did not see “go to transition” on the next lap! I think the board had frozen. My Edge computer was over 90 km so I exited for transition anyway. I was a little concerned that I may have just gotten myself disqualified but I was 95% sure I was right. Turns out I was!

T2 4:51

Taking layers off was easier than putting them on. I ditched the jacket and the gloves but kept the arm warmers and the vest as it was still cold. I also made a bathroom stop

The Run 1:45:47

The wind was really strong by the time we started to run. We ran 2 km straight into the wind and then 2 km with a strong tailwind. There was a big temperature difference between running into and out of the wind so I was cold in one direction and hot in the other. I did not really look at my watch I just ran. I passed a few women, and one passed me, but with the loops it was hard to tell who actually ahead. I saw Harold on the second lap. He told me I was 1^st in my age group. Looking at the splits after the race my fourth lap looked significantly slower than the others and I did not recall slowing down that much. We noticed everyone else had a slow fourth lap too…turns out someone at Sportstats is bad at math. The mat was at the start of a 4.8 km loop. Lap 3 was 14.4 km. They had lap 4 as 18.2 a km shorter than the actual 19.2 but we all had a very fast last half lap.

Final Result 5:24:49 1^st w 60-64 and 5^th woman overall. I am very happy with that and I feel a little better about doing next year’s Ironman Ottawa.

Overall

This is a great event. Well organized and the swim is a great first timer swim. The bike is a great spectator course and it’s fun to ride as long as you are confident and have decent handling skills. The run is flat, well supported and also spectator friendly. It would have been more fun in better weather, but you can’t have it all! The post race food was good and it was inside. There was also entertainment outside which would have been great if it was warmer.

Challenge also allows you to have a couple of friends or family members run across the finish line with you which is a really nice touch.

Thanks as always to Harold for all his help and for putting up with me!