CANADAMAN 6.5/10 - Extremely cold swim - 3000m of elev. gain but never going above 400m of altitude - constant ups and downs = very taxing - Technical final climb to Mt Mégantic (1500m) - Limited nb of aid stations on the bike - Overall awesome event — No crazy high altitude, moderate elevation gain, and you get a poutine at the finish line.. what’s not to love! NORSEMAN 7/10 - I’ll piss some people off but Norseman is not the hardest in the world (not even top 5). - Cold swim, fast bike (low and easy gradient + no technical descent), very fast 1st half marathon - Horrendous and soul-sucking last 17Ks (Zombie Hill + Gaustatoppen) - Tricky weather (need to be ready for anything and everything) - Only a select few get to the summit for a black t-shirt SWISSMAN 8/10 - Easy swim but hard bike (4000m) and hard run (2000m) - 3 massive mountain passes in the Swiss Alps back to back to back - Technical descents but smooth swiss tarmac - Final 9Ks at 11% avg - Weather can go crazy in Kleine Scheidegg (finished in a hailstorm) ASCEND 9/10 - 3AM swim (pitch black) - First 2h on the bike is also in pitch black (headlamps) - Extremely hard bike course, steep and long climbs (4700m of elevation gain on 185K) - Mind-boggling run course (2800m of elevation gain on marathon — probably would have rated it a 10/10 if the course wasn’t shorten because of the weather) ICON 10/10 - Cold swim at altitude - Out of this world bike course (Climb twice the Stelvio — 5300m of climbing on 170K) - Very hard run with the last 5Ks at 15% avg (finish at 3000m altitude) - Altitude is the main challenge (entire race between 1800 and 3000m of altitude) - Weather can go crazy (snow on top of stelvio last year) - @sam.xtri