Given to Tri

Escape from Alcatraz is one of the oldest triathlons in the country—it’s celebrating its forty-fifth anniversary this year—and one of the most iconic. It involves jumping from a ship near Alcatraz Island into the cold waters of San Francisco Bay for a 2.4 km swim, a 29 km hilly bike ride through the Presidio of San Francisco and Golden Gate Park, and a scenic 12.9 km run through national park land. It’s a bucket-list race—between 10,000 and 12,000 people entered the lottery for this year’s race, with 2,300 accepted.

After signing up for the lottery late last year on a whim, I was surprised to find out I was one of them.

Continue reading

Escape from Alcatraz changes starting procedures for this year’s race. The swim start for this race seems chaotic—athletes jump from the San Francisco Belle into San Francisco Bay en masse, and the entire ship is emptied in less than eight minutes. From what I’ve read, last year’s start was more rushed and disorganized than in previous years, which led to an athlete being paralyzed after someone landed directly on his head during the swim start. Needless to say, I’ve been fairly anxious about this since I signed up for this year’s race, so it’s encouraging to hear that the organizers are making changes to this year’s start procedure. According to this year’s athlete guide, there will be three start locations on the ship instead of the usual two, which should space people out more, and race staff will signal athletes to jump only when the landing area is clear. Hopefully these changes are enough to make the start safer for everyone.

T-2 weeks to Escape from Alcatraz. I’ve been reading a lot about this race to prepare for it, including this race report from Ray Maker, this course preview from two-time winner Eric Lagerstrom, and this race review by Kelly O’Mara, and suffice to say, I’m more than a little anxious about the swim. To ease my anxiety, I built a swim conditions dashboard for San Francisco Bay southwest of Alcatraz, using forecast data from NOAA’s San Francisco Bay Operational Forecast System. Not sure it’s helping with the anxiety part, but it looks cool and gives a good idea of what to expect in terms of currents and water temperature.

Ironman updates their competition rules for 2026. This year’s rules formalize the 20-meter bike draft rules for pros, which they announced last month, and clarify how they will work when age groupers interact with pros. They also lessen the penalty for having an unzipped trisuit from disqualification to a warning and a time penalty if not remedied, ban video recording during races (so leave those Meta Oakley glasses home), and rename the Physically Challenged and Intellectual Disability Open Division to Para Open Division, plus a handful of minor wording changes. They’ve also published a summary of the changes and an FAQ.

Nothing too earth-shaking, but I’m surprised that after last year’s confusing changes to the hydration rules, which were only communicated by World Triathlon through a “rule interpretation” document and which Ironman said would only be enforced for pros with “ample notice” given before they took effect for age groups, none of those rules made it into either the 2026 Ironman or World Triathlon rule books, except for the one that limits attachments to the top tube of the bike to a maximum height of 10 cm. I’m assuming this means the rest of the rules in the “rule interpretation” document are still not in effect for age groups, but it would be nice to get some clarification from Ironman one way or the other.

No more Mortal Hydration in Ironman aid stations in 2026. From Ironman, via email:

Ahead of your race next year, we wanted to introduce you to Precision Fuel & Hydration, our Official Hydration Partner for the 2026 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 Global Series, including the 2026 IRONMAN World Championship in Kona, Hawai’i and the 2026 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Nice, France.

Trusted by reigning IRONMAN World Champion Solveig Løvseth and 2x IRONMAN 70.3 Champion Jelle Geens, Precision Fuel & Hydration’s PH 1000 electrolyte drink will be available on-course globally next season.

I use PH 1500 tablets frequently during training in the summer and vastly prefer them to Mortal’s excessively-sweet, stevia-laden electrolyte drinks. This is great news, and exactly what I hoped would happen after Ironman announced Precision Fuel & Hydration as their hydration partner in Europe a couple of years ago.

I’m Escaping from Alcatraz next June. I entered the random drawing for a race entry for next year’s Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon on a whim, and to my surprise, got a slot in the first drawing. It’s a bucket list race, which involves jumping from a ship near Alcatraz Island into the icy cold waters of San Francisco Bay for a 2.4 km swim, a 29 km bike ride through the Presidio of San Francisco, and ending with a 12.9 km run that includes climbing 400 steps up Baker Beach’s infamous Sand Ladder.

I’m not quite sure of what I have gotten myself into, but I’m equal parts excited and terrified.

Last year, after driving ten hours from Jackson Hole to Richland for the inaugural Ironman 70.3 Washington Tri-Cities, I was certain it would be a one-and-done race—it was just too far, the drive too exhausting. After finishing the race, though, I knew I needed to come back. It’s a phenomenal race in a great location, with a fast downriver swim, a beautiful bike course, and a fun, spectator-friendly run. So here I am again, a year later.

My goal for this race was simple: Leave with no regrets. This year has been extraordinarily hard for me on a personal and professional level, and with this being my last triathlon of the year and a long, long wait until I can race again, I knew the post-race blues would hit me hard, so I didn’t want to leave Richland feeling like I could have or should have done more. If I could come up with a plan, execute it, and leave nothing on the table, I would be satisfied (and if that translated into a faster time than last year, that’d be the cherry on top). This race is also a milestone for me: It’s my tenth Ironman 70.3 since I started racing triathlons three years ago, and I wanted to leave on a high note.

So, without further ado, here’s my last triathlon race report of this year.

Continue reading

Paula Findlay’s recap of Ironman 70.3 Boise. I don’t normally post about professional triathlon racing, but I enjoyed Paula Findlay’s race recap from Ironman 70.3 Boise on the That Triathlon Life podcast. It’s interesting, and sometimes validating, to hear about I race I did from a pro’s perspective: The swim was choppy, and long; the buoys were hard to sight—I’m glad it wasn’t just me.

A couple of years ago Kate and I spent a long weekend in Boise, Idaho. She came to get a new tattoo, and in the meantime I hung out and explored the city. Boise is a cool town and we had a great time, but I fell in love with the Boise River Greenbelt, a gorgeous tree-lined pathway running along the banks of the Boise River. I ended up running over 50 km that weekend alone. I’ve been itching to go back ever since.

Continue reading

Ironman announces new performance-based qualification for Ironman and Ironman 70.3 World Championships. This new system, which takes effect with the 2026 qualification cycle starting this month, basically does away with the old roll-down system, in which unclaimed slots would roll down indefinitely within an age group. Ironman has a good explanation in their FAQ, but the short version is:

• Each race is allocated a number of World Championship slots, as before.
• Winners of each age group automatically get a World Championship slot.
• If they decline it, the slot can only roll down to second or third place.
• Any unclaimed slots go to a global “Performance Pool” for that race.
• The finish times of the remaining athletes are normalized by multiplying them by some factor for each age group, so they can be ranked together.
• This factor is derived for each age group from the top World Championship finish times over the past five years, and will be updated every year.
• The remaining slots are offered to the top finishers in this age-graded normalized ranking, and roll down until they’re all claimed.
• For Kona, there’s a single age-graded ranking including men and women; for 70.3 Worlds there are separate rankings for men and women, since they’re separate races.

It sounds complicated, but the examples they have in the FAQ make it easier to understand:

Anne is 42, she finishes IRONMAN Kalmar in 9:19:51, giving her an age-graded finish time of 8:07:26, applying the Kona Standard of 0.8707 (9:19:51 × 0.8707 = 8:07:26). John is 43 and finishes IRONMAN Kalmar in 8:50:31, giving him an age-graded time of 8:33:42, applying the Kona Standard of 0.9683 (8:50:31 × 0.9683 = 8:33:42).

Anne would rank above John in the age-graded rankings due to her age-graded time of 8:07:26 being faster than John’s age-graded finish time of 8:33:42.

For me, this means any hopes I had of getting lucky with a deep roll down in my age group at a late-season race are probably dashed, but I like this change; it makes qualification fairer and more competitive. I’ll simply have to git gud, or outlive everyone and qualify in the 90–94 age group.

There’s always something going on with the weather in Coeur d’Alene. Last year, high winds on race day forced the swim to be shortened and made for a nerve-wracking bike leg; the year before, I got hit by a gnarly surprise hailstorm on the bike; and although I wasn’t there, 2021 was the infamous “Coeur de Flame,” with a high of 38.3ºC and one of the highest DNF rates on record for a full Ironman. It’s enough of a recurring theme that at the end of my race report for last year’s race, I jokingly wondered what the weather would hold for this year.

The answer: Despite a threat of cold temperatures and rain in the days leading up to the race, it turned out to be an almost perfect day for racing.

Continue reading

Ironman will not enforce the new World Triathlon hydration rules for age groups just yet. Jimmy Riccitello, Ironman’s head referee, confirmed this to Slowtwitch on the Slowtwitch Podcast. The new rules World Triathlon announced in April (and clarified again in May) in their rule interpretation document are in effect, but Ironman will currently only enforce them for professional athletes, and will provide “ample notice” of at least thirty days before they take effect for age groupers.

Good news, but this is such a mess. Maybe I’ll write an explainer later about the new rules, since we’ll eventually have to abide by them, but for now, if you are an age grouper competing in an Ironman-branded race, the only hydration rules you need to worry about right now are the ones in section 5.02 (c​) of the Ironman 2025 competition rules, which are summarized here and explained in this FAQ.

TL;DR: As many bottles as you want in the front, up to two liters total; and up to two bottles in the back, of no more than one liter each.

What’s the water temperature at Lucky Peak Reservoir in July? Ever since the return of Ironman 70.3 Boise was announced, I’ve been wondering what the water temperature would be like on race day. I know in the previous iterations of this race, when it was in early June, it was a very cold swim: In 2011 the water temperature was 11ºC, and in 2012 it was so cold, people wore wetsuits on the bike, which was shortened to 24 km. So far I haven’t been able to find a reliable source of historical water temperatures at Lucky Peak Reservoir to look up what it might be like in late July, but today I got an email from Ironman that states (emphasis mine):

The IRONMAN 70.3 Boise 2025 swim course offers athletes a refreshing and scenic 1.2-mile swim in the pristine waters of Lucky Peak Reservoir. Starting and finishing in the easily accessible Barclay Bay area, this single-loop course provides a calm and clear environment, ideal for both seasoned swimmers and first-time triathletes. The reservoir’s typical water temperatures in late July range from 64°F to 70°F (18°C to 21°C), making it comfortably wetsuit-legal for most participants.

That’s not so bad, that’s downright pleasant! Anyway, just thought of dropping that here in case anybody else needs to Google it.

---

Update: The water temperature on race day in 2025 was 19.6ºC.

I wish I had known at the time how good I had it the first time I raced in St. George. I struggled with the ice-cold swim and knee pain on the run, but the weather was absolutely perfect that day and I cruised to a sub-6 finish, in spite of the challenging course. It quickly became my favorite race.

I got a taste of the real St. George last year. I went with an aggressive goal of improving on that sub-6 result; I was confident I could achieve that despite the sweltering heat on race day, with just some minor tweaks to my pacing plan. I was wrong, so wrong. The heat clobbered me on the bike and I completely fell apart on the run—it was my worst result in a 70.3 to date. Of course, I immediately signed up for this year’s edition, which as it turns out, will be the last one for now.

So, one last dance in St. George. I hoped for cool weather again, but as race day approached it became clear that wasn’t in the cards—the weather forecast for race week saw steadily rising temperatures, with a blistering high of 34.4ºC on race day, even worse than last year. With that, my race goals went from “personal best” to “just finish,” with a stretch goal of “no regrets.”

Read on for my last race report from the final edition of Ironman 70.3 St. George.

Continue reading

Gates of Yellowstone Triathlon. I just found out about this new locally-organized race in Cody, Wyoming, just outside of Yellowstone National Park, basically in my backyard (okay, it’s a five-hour drive, but as Wyoming distances go, that still counts as “my backyard”). I immediately signed up for the Olympic-distance race; they also have a sprint-distance, and an Olympic relay. It’s on August 16th, which worries me a little because of the usual summer smoke, but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless.

World Triathlon updates hydration rules again. They’re further revising the rule changes they announced a couple months ago with a new set of updates, effective as of April 15th. The rule interpretation document includes a number of changes, but most notably, all front and rear hydration now must fit within a certain space on the bike. For front hydration:

When measured from the lowest edge of the arm support (if none exists, the lowest edge of the athlete’s elbow in the rider’s intended aero position), all attached objects on the handlebars (bottles, holders, containers, etc.) must be within an area with the following dimensions:

• a maximum of 250 mm in the direction of the saddle and
• a maximum of 200 mm in height and
• no further than the foremost point of the handlebars or clip-ons, and
• a maximum of 20 mm from the highest point of the front wheel.

And for rear hydration:

All attached holders, containers, bottle holders, etc. must fit completely into an imaginary frame no larger than 30x30cm. Bottles may protrude beyond this area.

The volume of liquid hasn’t changed: Up to two liters in the front and back, and up to two bottles in the back. There’s one big exception, though—the rules now include built-in hydration systems, so if you are using one, you can only carry up to two liters and you can’t carry bottles behind the saddle. It seems the intention is to put everyone on a level playing field by limiting hydration to a total of four liters.

I expect Ironman to adopt these new rules shortly, just like they did last time. In the meantime, I need to go check my hydration setup, because I honestly have no idea if it’s legal anymore.

Update (5/28/2025): Ironman won’t be enforcing these new rules for age groups just yet.

Ironman comes to New Mexico. Ironman just announced a “festival weekend of racing” next year in Ruidoso, New Mexico, which includes an Ironman 70.3, a 5150 race (Ironman’s branding for an Olympic-distance race), and a sprint-distance race.

A 70.3 in a scenic mountain town… at about 2,000 meters of elevation… on my birthday? Yes, please. The bike course is right up my alley too, an out-and-back where the last 45 km are uphill with about 730 meters of elevation gain. If it wasn’t a 17-hour drive from here, I’d sign up immediately, but I’m still tempted. Update: Oh, who am I kidding. I signed up.

Ironman adopts World Triathlon’s bike hydration rules. Well, that was fast. On Sunday I wondered if Ironman would adopt World Triathlon’s new rules limiting the amount of hydration that can be carried on the bike, and today I got my answer: Yep. In the 2025 Ironman competition rules, the section on bike equipment has been updated to be consistent with World Triathlon rules:

(i) Front Mounted Water Bottles and Hydration Systems mounted to components attached to the bike that rotate around the steering axis (e.g., cockpit extensions, top tube, headset, stem, head tube) must have a combined maximum volume capacity of no more than two (2) liters (this excludes water bottles and hydration systems located inside the frame triangle of a bicycle or inside the bicycle frame) (DSQ).

(ii) Rear Mounted Water Bottles and Hydration Systems are limited in size, capacity, dimension and location as set forth below:
(i) Cannot contain more than two (2) water bottles* (DSQ); and
(ii) Must not exceed one (1) liter capacity per bottle* (DSQ).
*Excludes water bottles and hydration systems located inside the frame triangle of a bike or inside the bike frame.

Here’s a full summary of the updated competition rules, which include a few other verbiage changes and updates for consistency with World Triathlon. Among other things, the penalties for blue card violations, such as drafting and littering, have been reduced to 3 minutes for full Ironmans and 2 minutes for 70.3s (down from 5 minutes for both). The rules also clarify that you can wear neoprene hats whenever wetsuits are allowed and that you can wear two swim caps (in both cases you still have to wear the race cap on top). Ironman also has a short FAQ that explains the changes very clearly.

New World Triathlon bike hydration rules—will Ironman follow? Last month, World Triathlon announced updates to the competition rules, and there’s been some conversation online about some of these changes, including relaxing the water quality standards for the swim and banning watches during the swim. The former is interesting after the water quality in the Seine caused the men’s triathlon to be postponed at the Olympics last year; the latter only applies to elite races in the standard (i.e. Olympic) distance or shorter, so I don’t expect Ironman to implement it. However, lost in the chatter was another update to the rules that wasn’t even mentioned in World Triathlon’s announcement, and limits how much hydration can be carried on the bike:

m.) Hydration Volume Limitation: Hydration volume (e.g. bottles or hydration systems) mounted to components that rotate around the steering axis (e.g. cockpit extensions, base bar) must have a combined maximum capacity of 2 litres;

n.) Rear Mounted hydration systems, (excluding those mounted to the inside the frame triangle bike are limited in size, capacity, dimension and location as set forth below:
(i) cannot contain more than two water bottles;
(ii) must not exceed 1L capacity per bottle.

In short, you can only carry a maximum of two liters between the aerobars, and up to two bottles, of no more than one liter each, behind the saddle. Ironman hasn’t released any updates to their rules this year, but it’s interesting that this rule would render 2024 Ironman World Championship second-place finisher Magnus Ditlev’s sick three-bottle BTS setup illegal, so I’m curious to see what they do.

RaceRanger used by age groupers for the first time at Challenge Wanaka. I’ve been hoping for RaceRanger to make its way down to us age groupers now that it’s proven successful at pro races, so TRI247’s account of how it was used at Challenge Wanaka this past weekend is very encouraging; sounds like it went as smoothly as it could possibly have. I’m looking forward to it, not just for draft enforcement, but also for the possibilities it opens for improved safety, like better live tracking and crash detection. Maybe even crash prevention—imagine if you could pair one of these things to your bike computer and have it work like a Garmin Varia, notifying you when someone is passing you (that’s very pie in the sky, but hey, I can dream).

There’s still a ways to go before it’s ready for widespread usage, but this is solid progress nonetheless.

Next year’s edition of Ironman 70.3 St. George will be the final one. St. George is by far my favorite race I’ve done since I started triathlons, so I’m sad to hear that the 2025 edition will be the last one for the foreseeable future. I’m signed up for it, but I was hoping to race there for many years to come.

Last fall, Ironman announced a new race in the Pacific Northwest: Ironman 70.3 Washington Tri-Cities, in Richland, Washington. I signed up almost immediately—the venue looked great and I was thrilled to have one more race within a reasonable driving distance.

A chill end-of-summer race seemed like a great way to end my season, especially since this one has had a few ups and downs: I had my worst result to date at Ironman 70.3 St. George; I ran my fastest half marathon ever in June, but was forced to pull out of Ironman 70.3 Boulder a week later thanks to COVID; I had a great run at Ironman 70.3 Coeur d’Alene, but the swim was shortened; I stupidly almost derailed my season at a trail running race; and I finished my first full-distance race at Ironman Canada, but with a huge asterisk because the swim was canceled. Given that this was my last triathlon of the year, my only goal was to end the season on a high note—just give it everything I got and try to get the best result possible, hopefully at a complete race.

Long story short, it was a success. Read on for my last triathlon race report of this year.

Continue reading

Ironman 70.3 is coming back to Boise. Ironman just announced the return of Ironman 70.3 Boise, which ran from 2008 through 2015. This would be the closest race to me, and Boise is such a nice town, I’m very tempted to sign up for next year’s race—running along the Greenbelt is so pleasant.

I’ve been reading some race reports from back then, such as this one from DC Rainmaker in 2011, and it sounded like a tough race, starting with a swim in 11ºC water. It might be tough in a different way next year, though: the high in Boise in late July is usually above 38ºC and by then smoke season is in full swing. I’m still tempted.

After training for it for the better part of a year, it’s finally time for Ironman Canada, my A race of this year and my second attempt at a full Ironman, following my DNF at Ironman Coeur d’Alene last summer, where despite a good swim and a strong bike leg, things went sideways during the run and I barely made it 16 km before bonking.

Continue reading

This year’s Ironman Canada will be the last in Penticton. Not entirely surprising; I thought the writing was on the wall when they unveiled another Ironman Canada in Ottawa, but they just made it official today. This is a huge bummer for me personally; I don’t think there are any other full-distance races that are within a reasonable driving distance, and I don’t want the hassle of flying with my bike and gear. This puts a lot more pressure on me to finish this year’s race—I might not have another shot at a full Ironman anytime soon. It’s do or die.

After my disappointing result in St. George last month, I realized that the goals I had set for that race were a little too ambitious. That race is too early in the season for me to treat it as an A race, and I lost sight of my actual goal for this year, which is finishing Ironman Canada in August. That made me reassess what I wanted to get out of my next two races, in Boulder and Coeur d’Alene. Instead of treating them as races with specific results or ambitious times in mind, I decided to treat them as dress rehearsals to test my gear, pacing, nutrition and overall racing strategy before going to Penticton.

Continue reading

Howdy, and welcome to my third season of racing triathlons. This year, I’m starting my season again with Ironman 70.3 St. George, a race I did for the first time last year and enjoyed enormously, despite some issues during the swim and the run. I wanted to come back and try to improve on that effort.

Last year, I managed to pull off a sub-six finish, with a total time of 5:55:12, so my goal was simply to be faster than that, with a stretch goal of finishing in 5:30. That seemed attainable if I shaved ten minutes of the bike and run, plus a few more from the swim and transitions, but I also knew it was very aggressive; I got lucky last year with the great weather and cool temperature, and it seemed unlikely that would happen again. Sure enough, the forecast this year indicated a high of 31ºC on race day, but I was confident I could still beat last year’s time at least.

Spoiler alert: That, uh, did not happen.

Continue reading

Well, this is it. After training for it since November, I finally raced Ironman Coeur d’Alene, my A race of the year and my first attempt at a full Ironman. I didn’t have any specific time goals for this race, just finishing, so the goals I had set for myself were simply:

1. Don’t drown
2. Don’t crash
3. Don’t bonk

Unfortunately, things did not go according to plan, and despite my best efforts, I was not able to finish the race. Read on for what may be my last triathlon race report of this year.

Continue reading

After a long and brutal Jackson Hole winter, it’s finally race season again, and I just finished my first race of the year, Ironman 70.3 St. George. I chose this as a B event for a few reasons: it’s within driving distance of where I live, it looked like a tough challenge, and I thought it’d serve as good race prep before my first full Ironman next month in Coeur d’Alene.

I originally planned to come to this race prepared to put in a decent effort and improve on my 6:14 finish in Boulder, but after facing some challenges with my swim training over the winter, and a potential knee injury in the past couple of weeks, I ended up downgrading my race goal from “sub-6 finish” to “just finish.”

Despite that, the race went both better and worse than I expected—read on for my first race report of the year.

Continue reading

After a year of waiting, and six months of training, including two triathlons and two half marathons, I finally raced my A race for this year, Ironman 70.3 Arizona. I came expecting a difficult triathlon in the scorching Arizona heat and ended up experiencing a much different race, but I’m very satisfied with the results nonetheless; I raced about as good a race as I could have hoped for given the circumstances. Read on for my final race report of the year.

Continue reading

One thing I never expected after racing my first triathlon in Bozeman back in June was that it would leave me so hungry for more. I couldn’t wait for my next race, Ironman 70.3 Arizona in October, so I made a last minute decision to sign up for Ironman 70.3 Boulder this past weekend. I’m just halfway through my training plan for Arizona, and signed up for Boulder too late to do a proper taper, so I considered it a B race, with the goal of gaining more experience and testing my pacing, gear, and nutrition.

Continue reading

I just finished the Bozeman Triathlon, Olympic distance, my first triathlon ever and my B race prior to Ironman 70.3 Arizona in October. It went better than I expected, and I finished 4th in my age group (male 40-44) and 23rd overall.

Without further ado, here’s a brief race report.

Continue reading