Race reports · 2026 · by Michelle
IRONMAN 70.3 Northern California 2026: the inaugural race on the surface of the sun
I picked this one back in the spring, when the listing read a high of 115 degrees and it was the third race of the summer. It turned out to be one of our favorites, mostly because of the town.
Our goal this year was to complete three 70.3s, and by the spring we had them lined up: Honu at the end of May, Versailles in July (which was canceled over the heat), and a third one in August. That third one was an open question for a while, and then it caught my eye: Redding. I picked it in March or April, the original description read a high of 115 degrees, and who wouldn't want to race in those conditions, besides Jay? It was the inaugural running, the first year the town had the race at all.
This race was one of our favorites. The lake was beautiful, the scenic ride was a net negative in elevation, and the run was shaded and very much supported. What made it stand out, though, was that the town showed up. The cheering, the volunteers, the energy, I can't even describe what it felt like except to say that I was a rock star!
The card has the rest of it. We both swam about fifty minutes, so there was no river current doing the work for us the way it did at Augusta, Jay finished in 5:37:38 and I finished in 7:03:02, and we were ninth and tenth in our age groups. Versailles had been cancelled in July by then, so this ended up being our second 70.3 of the year instead of our third, and the one we found to replace it was Tri-Cities in September. Jay's 1:46:18 here was the fastest 70.3 run on this site when he ran it, and it stood for five weeks.