Montreal Pre-Race

This post is mostly a lot of pictures from the day before the race.

 

We drove up to Montreal on Thursday afternoon and after arriving had a quick dinner and went to bed.  On Friday, we walked around the city for a little bit and had lunch outside.

After playing tourist, it was time to get down to business - packet pick up and checking out the race course. 

 

Let’s take a look at the race course.  It’s basically an island in the St Lawrence river.  As you can see below, the long rectangular body of water is a 2km long artificial lake that was built to accommodate the rowing events during the Montreal Olympics.  The winding road is the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve which is used for Formula 1 and Nascar car racing.  When it’s not being used for events, its open to the public for running, biking, etc.  Similar to Central Park in NYC but without the crowds.

 

The swim was held in the rowing basin, the bike was laps on the track, and the run was on a bike path around the rowing basin.

Here is the same view, but during the Formula 1 race:

The main race area including transition is basically at the far end of the above photos.

 

After getting the bike together, rode through the huge transition area to the packet pickup.

After getting registered, time for a little pre race meeting.  It was in French so I left.

This interesting set up is used to have the swimmers cross over the runners who are lapping around the water.

I originally had planned on doing a practice swim but was running short of time and decided to just get in my usual easy pre-race ride instead.

While I changed into riding clothes, my photographer wandered up the swim course.  The finish line would be constructed where the arch is.  The race expo would be down where the tents are.

From there my photographer cut across to the bike course.  Here is a shot of me racing by.

The training direction is the same way the race cars travel, but the opposite of the race direction.

 

Here are a bunch of shots in the hairpin area.

Here is what that same area looks like on a race weekend.  These pictures were being taken near that white wall in the middle of the picture.  We didn’t have quite this many fans for the triathlon.

Opposite view:

After 4 laps, it was time to head in.  Here are some shots from the last lap:

After packing up, we decided to take a lap around the course in the car lane as we are huge Formula 1 fans – so the opportunity to drive on an actual track was fun.

After shooting back across the city, we drove up to the top of Mont Royal – which is basically a mini mountain right in the middle of the city.  We wanted to check it out to see the course that the pro cyclists would be riding on Sunday.  The hill was steep, but plenty of amateur riders were on the course.

Here is a view looking down towards the city.

 

Up next the race report.