In general and from what I understand, permits actually aren’t issued far in advance even for races that will obviously happen and are more or less a rubber stamp process.

So even races like the Boston Marathon likely don’t get final approval until just a couple/few weeks leading up to the race.

That’s my understanding of how things normally work given conversations I’ve had with some RDs.

There are lots of RDs here that can chime in with a better grasp than me.

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I thought this was -not- the issue.............rather it is if hospitals are that busy, then they cannot guarantee medical staff to be available on site at the race.

Right now, Texas hospitals are pulling in staffing in any way possible. Locally, we shut down the OR because those staff have been moved to general care. That they have then been pulled back to the OR for emergency surgeries hasn't helped the situation.

Too narrow. Last time I did it they had an aid station near a narrow part and second lap it was a nine field of bottles. Hopefully they fixed that.

I cannot tell if you are just trolling? Maybe not? I think the best term is "entire medical complex." Doctors, nurses, beds, meds, ppe, vents everything is in demand right now and some are in short supply. ICU in particular, but hardly the only issue.

I have a prediction: the race will take place. They will use the hardy tollroad. It will run from the tip down to the county line and itwill be 3loops instead of 2. Total bike distance will be around 105.

I have zero inside knowledge here. Just spitballing.

Texas here. People act like nothing is happening. I see pictures of kids, moms, parents attending school functions, activities and everything all over the social media. No one is wearing a mask except some of them in grocery stores. HHH (Hotter Than Hell Endurance bike ride) happened in Wichita Falls last weekend and all the bike rallies and races say they will happen. On the other hand, young people are suffering and dying(not vaccinated). Anyway, I think it's going to happen. Be careful out there.

Trolling?? OK....I think you mis-understood my post.
Yes I understand the hospital system..........or....'entire medical complex', is maxed out. My point was specifically in reference to what would technically prevent an IM race from taking place, and my answer was that they could not have a guarantee of having medical staff at the race site, which is required. And, yes, this would be due to the entire medical complex being maxed.
NOT because the race itself would be sending too many people to ICU - the bolded part of your above post...

You're either trolling or don't understand the geography. The tollroad is 100% in Harris County. The county line between Harris and Montgomery is essentially Spring Creek which is actually just north of where the tollroad begins.

Got it. My confusion.

I thought the county line was the beltway. In fairness It is all the boonies to me ; ). Is spring creek pronounced “crick”

That's interesting. If this is how it works then IM's hands are more tied than I realized.

Having the permits probably doesn’t matter if Harris county can cancel them anytime.

They need to bring back the old race course through montgomery county. It was a harder and nicer ride. One loop through the farm lands. Not many races have a single loop bike course. Also montgomery county politics are much simplier if they can get past the small stuff that led to the end of that relationship in the past. They pay quite a chunk of cash to use the tollroad. I dont know what money exchanged hands in the past running the course up north.

4+ weeks out. No word. But there can only be a few options at this point.

Permits approved/race on. (Even as Harris County remains in most severe threat level)

New course to avoid Harris County

Race off.

I don’t care at this point except to say that I just want a formal announcement. Anyone hear anything?

Doesn’t seem to be much positive new as far as cases of hospital utilization. Haven’t given up training yet though

Nearly every day for the past several months, I have been tracking Harris County COVID at this site:
https://covid-harriscounty.hub.arcgis.com/ Scroll down to the bottom to see the actual metrics.


While the county is still in the red this morning, all metrics have been trending toward the better every day. The major school district in Harris County is the Houston Independent School District. Kids went back August 23, the district does have a mask mandate. Though, it may still be too early to know the effects of school back in session, the metrics have still continued to trend better thus far.


University of Houston football played their opening home game last weekend and looks to be a lot of people in the stadium.


Other Ironman events are going forward even with high hospitalization rates in the area e.g., Ironman Wisconsin this coming weekend, St. George 70.3, Augusta, etc.


Ironman has in the past week posted the 2021 Traffic Impact guide for the race.


Who knows what all that means for the race. They cancelled the April 2021 race 5 weeks out and that time mark has now passed obviously.

The October 2020 race was cancelled 4 weeks out. We aren’t out of the wood(lands) yet!

 I seem to remember it was back in 2016 when Permits and all the Flooding were an issue with IM TEXAS. They were all scrambling at the last minute (last couple of weeks actually), to get us a Bike course for this race. I think that is when we found out that the Old Course in Montgomery County was not an option. It seemed that they kept quiet on this big issue.

We used all Harris county roads for the most part, through subdivisions, along side busy Farm to market roads, etc. The bike course had been shortened to around 90 miles I believe. The course actually turned out to be kind of fun with all the turns and stop signs.Totally different than what we had been used to on the Montgomery County/National Forest Course.

But what turned a lot of us off at the time was that we were within about 10-14 days from Race Day before the Bike course was given the OK. It almost did not happen at all.

Hope it happens for you guys or at least a decision will be made sooner than later.

I was there for 2016 and the bike course that was approved just two weeks before the race with 90+ turns. That was my first Ironman. Now I'm back for my 2nd and here we are. I have predicted that The Woodlands will not happen, but Waco will. As everyday passes, I feel like I may be proven wrong. I'm still training. I'm in my peak weeks. I'm pretending to walk normal but fooling no one. But it's still there. There is a seed of doubt. Either way, I'm ready. I raced Galveston earlier this year, and the race director was very transparent. I received emails saying the race was on, but in the event it wasn't, there would be arrangements made. EVEN IF Ironman chose to communicate with us for IMTX, I don't think it would do much to ease our minds.

And to go back to 2016. The website only had a published run course and swim course and no published bike course until it was approved. That makes me think there is not an alternate course this year as some of you have suggested (hoped for). The Woodlands has been plagued with bike course issues and I don't see it being resolved because geographically... no one wants us there. Montgomery county was throwing tacks on the roads on race day and now Harris County won't open the Toll Road.

I'm too lazy to look up the data, but I'm guessing that Harris County numbers are currently worse than they were when IMTX was cancelled each of the previous three times. That does not mean it will be cancelled this time because we are dealing with COVID differently as a society than we were six months or a year ago. I'm sure pulling for all of you who are still training. It would be just terrible to have one cancelled this late. If IMTX gets cancelled for a 4th time, I think anyone who can prove s/he trained for all four races deserves automatic qualification for Kona.

For the sake of numbers, here they are. Certainly worse than before. At best, we are showing signs of a peak, but we are not on the downward slope. Last time, we were halfway down the slop but it wasn't good enough.

Hospital Usage:
- ICU Beds - End of March 2021 was about 5.8% and declining from a high of 11%. Today, we are at 13.82% and level.
- Hospital Beds - End of March 2021 was about 17% and declining from a high of 34.6%. Today we are at 40.77% and level

For the optimistic view, prior cancellations happened under dramatically different views of handling the pandemic. Many mitigation strategies were still in place. Today, most mitigation strategies are hardly being done and likely not at a level necessary to make much a difference. The U of H football game is an example of this. That's probably an example of an event with similar standby medical resources and was crowding a far larger group of people into a tighter space.

Our hopstial system in Houston is flatline with. No signs of improvement system wide. Can alos argue worse as new reporting methods required by government say you cant count a ten day old covid patient as a covid patient.
Tomorrow will be important. Biden is going to speak and set the nations tone for the posture to take on the current surge. Hildago will likely echo his sentiments.
Hedging that it will happen, i jumped in the pool for the first time in 3wks. Got to get some yards in,

I also think the April 21 cancelation was a lot about Hidalgo’s response to the governor not doing a mask mandate. That kind of dynamic no longer exists and I think with a 4th cancelation they have to know that many will say enough and move to another race. I know I’m eyeing Florida or Arizona (or Waco if it’s a choice)

This is were I'm at. Haven't done laps since June. Should probably get at least 2-3 hours of swimming in before race day...

If IMTX gets cancelled for a 4th time, I think anyone who can prove s/he trained for all four races deserves automatic qualification for Kona. //


Pretty funny, although not sure you meant it to be. Give people slots to Kona for a 4th cancellation of Texas, a race that itself has been cancelled 3 times, and now probably a 4th time too. So why not give away phantom slots, not like anyone is getting to race either of those races anyway!!!