I’m back to blogging after a ~7 month hiatus for a medical procedure, physical recovery, then getting back up to speed on work and life. I’m also now a few months in to being back to training (I was able to squeeze in a sprint tri in July) and, I just signed up for Ironman Ottawa, Aug 2026. Queue 11 months of training!

Choosing the race

My first choice of races to do this distance was Michigan Titanium (MiTi), right next door in Grand Rapids, MI. It’s got the convenience of being close, having friends in town I could crash with to not have to get a hotel, being more affordable, etc. However, the main reason it was my first choice was the way the race is run. The group that puts it on, Tris4Health are the most athlete-focused, amazing race organization I’ve raced with. Athlete photos are provided for free, the race director is regularly in the Facebook Athlete’s forum answering questions, and they just excel and taking care of the athletes who race with them.

Unfortunately, it’s really hard to maintain an independent (not Ironman branded) 140.6 race these days. Even Ironman has closed several races due to declining participation numbers. This year I believe MiTi had 60-some 140.6 racers. That’s a pretty small number for the cost of permits to use roads, paying overtime fees for the police helping out keeping intersections safe, all the volunteer hours that go into it, etc. Plus, one of the biggest complaints the race gets is that it just doesn’t have the energy of an Ironman event, which is a sadly self-fulfilling cycle: not as much energy, so fewer people race it, so it has less energy, and so it goes on. Since registration for MiTi doesn’t open until October and, until it does, there’s no guarantee the 140.6 will be offered again next year, I decided I needed to go with my second choice race before it sells out (which is anticipated to happen around October).

Ironman Ottawa

Ironman Ottawa, while being MUCH more expensive (which is going to be true for any Ironman branded race), did tick all of the other boxes I was looking for in my first 140.6 race:

• Summer race date (easier for my schedule, and makes it possible for my parents to come support me)
• Close enough I can drive there in a single day (8.5 hour drive for me; this also means I don’t have to try to navigate flying with my bike or renting a bike)
• Same climate (the weather should be roughly what I’ve been training in, so no climate adjusting needed for the race)
• Race course that suits my strengths/weaknesses (in particular, no steep inclines on the bike, which is where I’m weakest)

Ironman Ottawa is the only Ironman 140.6 that ticks all of those boxes, but this year was it’s first year. So I scoured Facebook, Reddit, and the internet in the days after the race, reading race reports and reviews. Happily, everyone agreed: it was a wonderful race! The run was changed from being labeled as flat to rolling to more accurately reflect the course, but that doesn’t bother me.

Time to start training

I’m writing my own training plan, adapting and combining from a couple different sources. I’ve done the work to study how to put together effective training plans, proper periodization, and focus areas for different phases of training. Plus, when I write the plan, I know that hitting that 40 min run this week lets me build by 10% week over week to hit the distances I need to hit in 2 months, and I’m much more consistent when I know exactly why every detail of the training plan is the way it is.

Yes. I’m a control freak. Always have been. (Ask my family.)

So far, I’m a few weeks into the training plan, and I’m hitting my marks. I came back from surgery a bit too fast in swimming and had been neglecting strength training, so I ended up with a muscle imbalance injury, but I’ve been doing my PT, and (cleared by my physical therapist) this week I did my first week back to swim training, and my shoulder is feeling great.

Training goals