Sunday August 3, 2025
It was a hot, hazy, yet fun day for the inaugural IRONMAN Canada-Ottawa triathlon in the nation’s capital. What a truly special and scenic race this was. Usually these full distance events are in “resort towns”, and not in the downtown core of a big city. This was right smack in the streets along iconic buildings such as Parliament Hill, House of Commons, National Art Gallery, Chateau Laurier, and many more. It now the only full distance race in Canada!
I went into this Ironman pretty fresh. I did not do any 70.3s this year, and only one Olympic distance race a few months prior. As I’ve done a handful of these fulls before, I was still hoping to sub-12 hour this one, but that did not happen. There is still a lot to learn and much to improve on. But I am just glad to get through the long day and am now a 5-time Ironman!
Video Recap:
Final time: 13:20:31
Sportstats: https://sportstats.one/event/ironman-canada-ottawa/leaderboard/143992
Swim 3.8km – 1:38:39 (2:33/100m)
I woke up at 3AM, ate my breakfast oats and headed out of my hotel, the Fairmount Chateau Laurier. This is a two transition course, so we had to get to Confederation Park and onto shuttles, which took us to the swim start at Britannia Beach.
The swim is a one-loop design (originally it was supposed be two-loops, but was changed about two months prior). The water was pretty warm, however for the first half, we were against a chop. I was actually calm and collected in my wetsuit and went at my usual sustainable effort pace. There was a surprise to everyone in the middle of the Ottawa River in the form of a random rocky sandbank. I saw athletes just standing up. Apparently the organizers didn’t realize this was there.
It was slightly eerie that when I sighted, I noticed that the sun was just a faded orange circle in the sky covered by haze. And to the race’s credit, we did get an air pollution alert the night prior.
My usual swim time for an ironman is about 1:30 hours, so this ended up being about 8 minutes longer with the upstream current and chop.
About a month ago I did the Welland Olympic distance triathlon, and that was my best race open water swim, there is no way I could lose 20 seconds per 100 meters in that short a time. So I will just continue to keep at my swim training.
Bike 180km – 6:24:05 (27.5kph)
This bike course took us out of Britannia Beach and onto a pretty thrilling three-laps loop of 60km each. We rode through the main key streets of Ottawa, and out to some forested and short highway sections. The roads were either in fantastic or terrible condition. Especially the sections in the downtown core where roads got narrow and there was some strategic no-passing zones. I heard that quite a few people lost their water bottles on the bad roads too.
My first lap was pretty great. I had strong power and energy. But as the day went on, it got hotter and hotter, and the gusts of wind of up to 30kph picked up quite a bit.
It was the first time ever I had to stop at least 3 times at an aid station to actually remove my helmet and pour water into it and onto my head. In the future, I need to use a more ventilated helmet for these hot races. I also need to fully revamp my nutrition plan, as I was very bloated by the end of the bike.
My third lap was the weakest due to the heat, slight dizziness, and wind. Maybe the air quality actually did take a toll on me as well.
While I am improving my time in aero position in training, I definitely need to develop more confidence when the adrenaline is high in a race and hold that for significantly longer. Maybe rollers will help in the off-season.
Run 42.2km – 5:02:23 (7:09min/km)
As usual, I am always looking forward to being on my feet for a run. However, this was probably the worst I’ve felt starting an IM run. I’ve had great open marathons, and 70.3 runs, but I have yet to crack the full Ironman marathon. Not even close. I really want to figure this out and reach my full potential, and I have not been able to express that yet.
With that said, the run course was very spectator friendly, and that definitely helped keep the energy and motivation alive. The first half I was running super slow or walking, even between aid stations. My nutrition would just not settle. After the first 10km I decided to just take salt tablets and coke from the aid stations. This actually seemed to help my stomach a lot, and was able to start kind of running better again.
In previous races, I used the Omius headband. This is a product that has space age material that helps keep your forehead cool. For this race, I anticipated the heat, and got the baseball cap version. This helped a lot as I could now put ice cubes in it and keep them on my head.
I saw quite a few triathletes passed out on the ground, which was very concerning. The air pollution from the Ontario wild forest fires must have done a lot of damage to athletes that day.
Also, while not hilly, this course was not flat advertised. Especially the final 2km where we had to run up hill along the canal and behind the Chateau Laurier. That was super tough!
One of the most amazing things about the day was when I came across Jessie. She is a blind PC/ID Open Division (Physically Challenged/Intellectual Disability Open Division athlete. It was one of the most incredible things l’ve witnessed! She had a guide on tandem with her through the swim, and the bike, but couldn’t complete the run. Two other participants helped her continue. It was so challenging to just run a marathon, but doing it blind not being able to mentally prepare for the road and terrain ahead is next level grit!
Overall, even though it wasn’t the race that I wanted to have, I still had a blast. I questioned my life decisions many many times, and wanted to quit on the run a few times, but getting the opportunity to race with so many good friends, meet new people from all over the world, is always worth it. It’s always nice to know that I participated in the 1st edition of these hope to be stable in the Ironman circuit.
On the bright side, I finally got to finish one of these Ironman races in daylight!
I am so very grateful that my parents got to come with me and got to see me cross that finish line at a big race again.
I also thank my wife Jenna for putting up with me in all this training!
Thank you so much to my coach Miranda Tomenson for helping me complete five Ironmans in the four years we’ve been working together.
And a BIG thanks to all the volunteers, police officers, spectators, race organizers, and city of Ottawa for making this inaugural Ironman a true spectacle!