Oregon 70.3

Ironman Oregon 70.3, in Salem, was my big race for the year. I signed up August of last year, because the race always sells out fast, without realizing that I might not want to do a big race less than 2 months after my wedding - or without knowing that TriBike Transport would go out of business and disappear after I paid for shipping but before the race.

But even with everything that was going on, and a foot injury in late May that prevented running at all for a month, I had a pretty good day, considering: 6:52:20, about a minute-and-a-half slower than last year at Maine, but a very reasonable finish in my age group (39/52), considering I am at the oldest part of 65-69.

Very nice course. It's a downhill swim that other people did faster than me, but I went without a wetsuit based on my experience last year. I wound up 6 minutes slower in the Willamette than in the Kennebec, as the best current was off to my left. Transitions were fine. I had an excellent bike ride, with a negative split by 13 (!) minutes, but a very slow run, which was more like a race walk. Still, under 7 hours, which was my original goal. Additional photos here, full results here.

The numbers:
Swim 26:19 (no wetsuit)
T1 9:46
Bike 3:14:02 (with negative split, 1:39:31/1:26:11)
T2 7:50
Run 2:54:25
Overall 6:52:20
Division 39/52 (+2 beyond cutoff and +6 DNS), gender 1,148/1,334, overall 1,774/2,232, IM points 1475

Weirdly, as far as the race selling out, I walked to the swim start with a retired physician from Salem, whose wife worked as a volunteer at check-in, who told me that about 300 people registered for the event did not check in before it closed on Saturday - so there were potentially ~300 "standby" slots available that World Triathlon Corporation could have sold twice (and you know they would do it if they could).