This was the first year for an Ironman race in Ottawa, and the city was great. People showed up to watch and cheer, and stayed out for hours. There were glitches and it was a confusing layout with 2 separate transitions, with the swim about 8 miles from the bike and run start points, but the volunteers and spectators were enthusiastic, plentiful, and great.
I finally made it to (the grass next to) the podium, by outwalking 2 slower guys to finish 5th in my age group, which made me eligible for an award, a piece of plastic in the shape of Ontario. Which I will treasure, as I think this will be my last full IM race. It just takes too much time to train and eliminates too much else of life.
I had a great swim and a pretty good bike. The swim map is amazing, basically straight lines with some adjustments to get around other swimmers. The bike was hard because of a stiff wind from the west, so half the time we were with the wind and half the time against, but you never make up what you lose going into the wind when it's at your back. But with the help of the volunteers at the aid stations, I kept replenishing my hydration and nutrition and did all 180 km (112 mi) without ever once getting off my bike, I just kept moving. I was in third place in my division through the bike, but just couldn't run. I have no idea how, but I hurt my hip during taper the Wednesday before the race, and it was too painful to run, but I could walk OK. I wound up walking with 3 others and we collectively pulled ourselves to finishes well within the 17 hour cutoff.
Swim 1:28:10
T1 14:07
Bike 7:15:26
T2 13:35
Run 6:57:38
Overall16:08:57
Division 5/7 (but we had 2 DNFs and 1 DNS, so give me credit for 5/10?), gender 1272/1331, overall 1782/1895 (I think the total participants by gender and overall are correct, but they weren't on the results page and derived from looking at the last finishers). I was 19 minutes slower than IM Arizona in 2021 but got 3028 points by being in the 70-74 age group (or finishing in the top 5) compared with 1812 points in 2021. Results are here (you need to search for 2025, the only year so far, with my name or my bib number, which was 113) and pictures are here.
Here's the finisher line video (if it doesn't start at 8:10:10, move the cursor to start there). If you look closely, you can see me think about running down the red carpet. I take one step, it hurts, and I immediately stop and start high-fiving people down the finish chute. Much better, and much more fun.
Here's the finisher line video (if it doesn't start at 8:10:10, move the cursor to start there). If you look closely, you can see me think about running down the red carpet. I take one step, it hurts, and I immediately stop and start high-fiving people down the finish chute. Much better, and much more fun.
Plus two additional videos, one from Full Cycle Ottawa that give a pretty good sense of the course:
And the "post-race banquet" video from Ironman, shown at the awards ceremony: