Welp, that’s almost a relief. Ironman National Harbor 70.3 was cancelled effective today. It looks like I’ll be receiving a full refund and $50 off certain half-ironman events this summer.

Check it out.  http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/National_Harbor_70.3_called_off_2734.html

The race directors didn’t give a solid reason of why the race was cancelled. It seemed like there were plenty of people signed up, so I’m not sure it has anything to do with lack of participation. Maybe it had to do with the course? Or maybe the venue and their uncertainty of what happened with the hot chocolate run last year? Perhaps they just wanted to follow the trend of cancelled triathlons in the region?

So to the race director, regardless of why you cancelled it, my knees thank you.

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5/11/2012: Update
I received the following email in my inbox yesterday. Turns out it was due to lack of participating, which I did not expect. Here’s the email.

Dear Athlete,

The Ironman 70.3National Harbor Triathlon was cancelled because not enough athletes were registered for the event.

Initially we kept quiet because Ironman asked us to stay silent, not post anything on social media and not send out any press releases so that the damage to Ironman’s brand would be minimized. We were fools to agree and that was a big mistake on our part.

We should have communicated immediately and told you the reason from the start. We have nothing to hide from the truth and were just initially intimidated by Ironman’s request.

We apologize.