Your IRONMAN Race Was Cancelled, Now What?
The bike is shipped — or maybe even racked — the nerves and excitement are high, and you’re ready to race.
Then your event is canceled at the last minute.
In 2021 it was IRONMAN California; in 2023, it’s IRONMAN 70.3 Mont-Tremblant and IRONMAN Canada. It was the right call by race organizers, but that doesn’t lessen the feelings of disappointment for the competing athletes.
Before we go any further, though, it’s important to acknowledge the reality of the situation and provide a bit of perspective. In the case of IRONMAN Canada, your race wasn’t canceled on a whim — it was canceled due to devastating conditions where people’s lives and livelihoods are threatened. While you have put an enormous amount of effort into preparing for this race, it’s important to remember: you do this for fun — it’s a privilege and a gift. As you look ahead to what’s next, put this race in context of what’s happening on a larger scale.
Now, the question becomes: what is next?
If you were one of the unlucky ones, I would like to provide some advice for anyone with a race canceled last minute. Let’s map out a path forward that navigates the frustration and allows you to charge ahead with your season.
Let’s get rolling:
Control the Controllables
Learning to ‘control the controllables’ is a critical skill for athletes. Whether it’s a flat tire, an unfair penalty, or a canceled race, you must adapt to the current situation while remaining focused on the larger mission.
You cannot control your race being canceled – but you can control your response. This doesn’t mean you can’t be frustrated. It means that you aren’t helpless. You can take action.
What is in your control?
Your mindset about the situation
Your training plan
Your ability to shift focus toward another event or goal
Mindset: Reset and Reframe
Let’s first put this in context compared to the overall arc of your life. I realize this might feel like just another bad thing dumped on top of an already challenging year or three, but this is a small challenge in the broader spectrum of life.
Allow the feelings of disappointment to swim around for a day or so. Then, lean into the two traits that are so important for an athlete to develop: resilience and adaptability. These things happen. It’s not so different than starting a race and encountering a massive mechanical or unexpected emergency that prevents you from being able to continue past the first few miles.
Yes, you’ve put tremendous time and effort toward this goal. But you will recover and have other opportunities.
Next Steps
Leverage Your Fitness: You’ve put months of effort into developing race fitness. How can you carry the momentum forward? What new goal can you set for yourself?
If schedule, finances, and logistics allow, I recommend sourcing a different challenge in the coming 6 to 8 weeks. This might be an ultra race, IRONMAN, or even a local half marathon. You may even do a self-supported event with friends or fellow athletes who ended up in the same position. You have the fitness and readiness, so leverage it if you can.
Draw the Lessons so you can come in even more race-ready for your next event: Whether you can sneak into an alternate race or not, don’t let the lessons of the journey and preparation bypass you. Take a few minutes to reflect on the preparation you had going into this event, and how you were feeling in the final days.
What went well in your lead-up? Where did you see fitness success or improvements so that you can replicate that process for your next event? If you arrived fit and fresh to your race, what did you do in your training schedule that helped you maintain your energy and motivation through race day?
What could you improve on for your next race? Maybe you have a specific skill or area of sport you felt you didn’t have the time to dial in. This could be an opportunity to lend a bit of extra focus to that element of your training. This is also an opportunity to ask yourself how well you executed important supporting habits like post-workout fueling, strength training, and sleep.
While you didn’t get race day, you did get to navigate preparation for it. You can reflect and learn for next time: fueling, hydration equipment, energy in race week, and training lessons. There is so much to review. Did you feel prepared? Tired? Lacking fitness? Write it down and seek to evolve next time. Every journey is full of lessons, and the race is just the final step of the journey. You can control how you take action for your next goal or event.
Getting Practical: Pivoting to Your Next Goal
Let’s get into the weeds a little. If you are doing an alternative race in the coming weeks, I would take the following approach:
Take a breather first. It was a stressful weekend and likely full of frustration. While the past week or two likely weren’t tough training weeks, I would still encourage you to take the week following the race very easy. I would then build back with a controlled and calm ramping week the second week post-race. (For Purple Patch athletes, this means sticking to the Baseline for two weeks.)
Build off the fitness you already have. Do not try to chase massive fitness gains in the bridge between the canceled race and the new goal on the horizon. Instead, be confident in the fitness developed for the canceled race, and the fact that you can maintain it. Commit to strong training without an obsession with too many huge over-distance or race-simulation sessions.
As an overall structure, I would mimic the final 3 to 7 weeks of your race preparation block but emphasize 2 to 3 key workouts each week and make the supporting sessions much easier. Take intensity out of supporting bikes, easier runs, or more supportive swims. Make these fun, free, and soul-filling, primarily executed at conversational effort.
With this, aim to nail the basics: maintain good mental focus, practice your fueling and hydration, and simulate strategy and equipment choices in the more demanding central workouts each week.
The program will feel different, even if similar in the overall structure to your original race preparation, because you are more aggressively reducing intensity in the supportive training. 75% of your volume is soul-filling, 25% is tough.
With this approach, you will retain fitness but improve sharpness.Go into your next event with no expectations. There is no value in looking back and reflecting on what might have been, and certainly none in comparing this bridge build to the original race prep.
Instead, smile and go in with heavy curiosity. Be thankful for another chance to race. Commit to having fun and giving it your best. When you get to race, you should do so without expectations and with a heavy dose of gratitude and joy at the opportunity.
The body will provide your answers with the race performance, so stick with the commitment to execute and get everything out of what the day offers. On the back side of the race, you will be gifted with even more lessons.
I hope this helps.
Where to Go For More Help
Situations like these highlight the importance of a flexible program and coaching support to help you navigate challenging periods in your training. Even simple elements – like having your weekly workouts pre-prioritized as KEY, supporting, or optional – are massively helpful in adapting training to the inevitable chaos of life. Our Purple Patch Tri Squad includes these critical elements and coaching, including interactive video-based bike sessions that help you master skills that translate directly to speed. If you’re feeling adrift or unsure about where to go after your canceled race, or aren’t happy with the way your lead-up went, we invite you to explore the Tri Squad for your next event:
Not ready to commit to training with Purple Patch, but still need guidance? You can book a one-on-one coaching consultation with a Purple Patch coach to get expert help mapping out your plan to pivot to a new goal or race:
Current Purple Patch athletes: remember you get a discount on Coaching Consultations — make sure to use your athlete-specific link to book yours!