Given to Tri: Ironman 70.3 Washington Tri-Cities

Race Report: 2025 Ironman 70.3 Washington Tri-Cities

2025-09-25T10:00:00-06:00

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.

Arrival & Preparations

Rather than driving straight from Jackson Hole, as I did last year, I split up the drive this time, spending a night in Boise on the way. This gave me an opportunity to run again on the Boise River Greenbelt, one of my favorite places to run, before continuing to the Tri-Cities region. I arrived in Richland on Thursday before the race and stayed at the Courtyard Richland Columbia Point, just a five-minute walk from the Ironman Village and transition. This race uses a shuttle system for race day, but if you can swing staying at one of the several hotels along the river, I can’t recommend it enough; nothing beats the convenience of being a short walk away from transition and the finish line.

After checking into my room and unloading my gear, I went out on a shakeout run at race pace along the run course on the Riverfront Trail. I felt… like hot garbage. My legs felt heavy, and my heart rate and perceived exertion were through the roof. It was admittedly hot at 34°C, but I should still have been heat-adapted, and I expected the lower altitude to help me—I live and train at 1,950 m, but Richland is at a mere 107 m above sea level. I finished that run worried I didn’t have my run fitness as dialed in as I thought. I had planned on one last easy run on Friday, but decided to take an extra rest day, thinking the additional recovery would be more beneficial than another run.

I spent the next two days relaxing, doing mobility work, and checking and double-checking my gear. The race organizers offered a couple of practice swims in the river, but I didn’t bring a tow float to store my stuff and I knew what to expect from the swim, so I skipped them. Instead, I continued the tradition I started at Ironman Canada of hate-watching the most terrible movies on TV—this time I honed my mental endurance with a double feature of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League. Absolute dogshit.

My race gear, organized before the race.

I checked in my bike on Saturday afternoon, and after that I spent a few minutes scoping out the transition layout, which was changed slightly from last year—the positions of the Ironman Village and the transition area were swapped, which meant a slightly longer run from the swim exit into T1. This race does a single transition, so you don’t get gear bags, as is typical for 70.3 races. You do get a morning clothes bag, though, since the swim start is 1.9 km away, in Howard Amon Park. You can put anything you carry to the swim start there, such as your phone, a coat, and your shoes, and hand it to the volunteers before lining up for the swim. It gets returned to you shortly after crossing the finish line.

Shadowfax, racked and ready for race day.

With my bike racked and nothing left to do, I went back to my room, packed the rest of my gear into my transition bag, had some dinner, and turned in for the night.

Race Day

I had trouble sleeping almost the entire time I was traveling for this race, so I was relieved to get five full hours of sleep the night before, with my Whoop indicating a whopping 89% recovery. I woke up at 3:00 AM, had a bagel and coffee, and checked all my gear one last time while I waited for transition to open. At 4:00 AM, I walked over to transition to finish setting things up. As soon as I stepped out of the hotel, I was surprised by how windy it was—when I got to the transition area, the bikes were rocking in their racks. I had flashbacks of Ironman 70.3 Coeur d’Alene last year, where the high winds caused the swim to be shortened and made the bike, and particularly the descents, stressful. I doubted this swim would be shortened or canceled, but I certainly braced myself for another challenging bike leg.

It was, uh, very windy on race day on Sunday.

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— Guillermo Esteves (@giventotri.com) September 24, 2025 at 11:38 AM

The weather forecast showed a high of 24°C, so at least I didn’t expect the heat to be an issue; it also showed a 25% chance of rain, so I placed my shoes and socks in a plastic bag from the expo to keep them dry if it rained. After setting up my bike computer and pumping up my tires, I went back to my room to wait for the swim start and do some mobility work to stretch and warm up in the meantime. At 6:00 AM, I put on my wetsuit and joined the crowd of athletes on the twenty-minute walk to Howard Amon Park to start the race. The wind seemed to have calmed down, but the sky was overcast and I could see rain in the distance to the southeast. I hoped none of it would hit the bike course; it would have been bad enough to deal with the wind on the bike without adding wet roads to the mix.

The Columbia River from Howard Amon Park, 6:29 AM.

Once I got to the park I handed over my morning clothes bag to a volunteer, ate a Maurten 100 gel, and lined myself up for the start. For a current-assisted swim, you’re supposed to line up in the group for your estimated time without the current, so even though I was expecting a finish time of around 26 minutes, I seeded myself in the 37–40 minute wave. One change I appreciated this year is that instead of lining up in the park, we were lined up on the beach along the river, so it was possible to get a quick dip in the water to get acclimated before entering the chutes. I didn’t really need it, though—the water temperature on race morning was a pleasant 21.2°C.

There weren’t any pros racing, so the race started with the Physically Challenged division at 6:27 AM, followed by the age groups at 6:30 AM. I didn’t have to wait long to get in the water, and I started my race at 7:04:13 AM.

The Swim

I ran out of the chutes and immediately dived in… by slipping on the rocks as soon as I set foot in the river and face-planting painfully in knee-deep water. Not my most graceful moment, but at least I wasn’t hurt, and recovered quickly. After pushing off into deeper water, I pointed myself towards the first buoy and let it rip.

The swim course is point-to-point, starting at Howard Amon Park and ending back at Columbia Point Marina Park. This year the swim start got moved a little farther upriver, and after making a right turn at the first red buoy, it was almost a straight shot to the marina. With the huge assist from the current, it wasn’t a challenging swim at all. The only minor difficulty I faced was that my goggles fogged up almost immediately and made sighting difficult, although the buoys had strobes on them, which helped enormously. Beyond that, the swim was completely uneventful—I focused on my form, did my best to stay on track, and simply enjoyed the pleasant water while I watched the buoys fly by. Things got a little busy at the end as everyone got funneled into the marina, but nowhere near as bad as the pummeling I got in Boise a couple of months ago.

You can see my swim split there quite clearly. Credit: FinisherPix

After one last push through the marina, I exited the water with a finish time of 26:08 and an official pace of 1:19/100 m. Easy peasy. Now, if I could just swim this fast without a current…

T1

After a quick stop at the wetsuit peelers to get my wetsuit pulled off, I jogged through Columbia Point Marina Park to the transition area, got my bike gear on, unracked my bike, and left in 9:13.

On the off chance someone from Ironman happens to read this, here’s a small suggestion for next year: It’d be nice to get some mats on the paved footpaths in the park—they’re very rough and painful to run on barefoot.

The Bike

The course was largely the same as last year: A single clockwise lap through Richland and the countryside outside of town, with 619 m of elevation gain and a handful of short climbs. It’s a lovely course with smooth pavement, beautiful scenery as you drive through farmlands and vineyards outside of Richland, and just enough of a challenge from the climbs to keep things interesting—I described it to someone before the start as “Coeur d’Alene Lite.” There are three railroad crossings along the way, so there’s a chance riders might be stopped by passing trains, but the athlete briefing explained that timing mats before and after the railroad tracks would record any delays, and that time would be deducted from the final time.

View this course in Garmin Connect or Strava.

There were some minor but positive changes this year, most notably the descent through Dallas Road, which I found sketchy last year, now has much better separation from traffic, so it felt a lot safer. I didn’t find car traffic to be an issue at all; most of the course had an entire lane of traffic dedicated to the race, and most of the roads had barely any traffic anyway, especially on the backroads outside of town. With Ironman 70.3 St. George now discontinued, I think this might actually take its place as my favorite 70.3 bike course.

I raced on my Speed Concept with the same nutrition setup I used in Boise: Two 24-ounce bottles between the aerobars with roughly 2.75 sachets of Maurten Drink Mix 320, for about 80 grams of carbs per hour. With the cooler temperatures this time around, I didn’t think I needed additional hydration, so I took out the aero bottle from the frame to save some weight for the climbs. I still haven’t tested if this setup is aerodynamically faster than having one bottle between the aerobars and the other behind the saddle, but I can’t argue with the convenience of having both bottles in front—it’s so easy to drink from either bottle without coming out of aero, and that’s gotta count for something.

Instead of pacing by feel, I set up a Power Guide on my Garmin with an intensity factor of 0.8, which would give me an estimated finish time of 2:41:13, according to Best Bike Split, and put me in the green zone of my pacing table—not so easy that I’d feel like I left anything on the table, but not so hard that I’d blow up on the run later on.

Bike pacing table for Ironman 70.3 races. Credit: TriStar Athletes

With that, I left T1 and got right to work. I stuck closely to my power cues and had little trouble passing people—the course felt less crowded than last year, which gave me more space to maneuver. I felt strong as I pushed hard up the first couple of climbs—it gave me a lot of confidence to see my training pay off, although the cool temperature and low altitude definitely played a role.

Shortly after leaving T1. Credit: FinisherPix

I had forgotten all about the wind from earlier in the morning until I got to the top of Badger Mountain, at around kilometer 23. By then the weather had deteriorated and the wind was blowing fiercely again; I felt anxious coming down the mountain in a gusty crosswind. After that descent, I rode all of the roughly 20 km long segment on Badger Road in a strong headwind, which slowed me down enormously. In the parts of the road that faced northwest the wind was more of a crosswind, which made it hard to stay in aero position; I felt unstable every time I got hit by a gust of wind, so I spent a lot of time on the base bars, which slowed me down even more. I was so worried about crashing, I didn’t even want to let go of the handlebars for a second to drink from my bottles. I don’t know exactly how fast the wind was blowing, but one of the farms I rode by had a fully extended windsock, so the wind must have been at least 15 knots (27.8 km/h). The sky was overcast and dark, and I was certain a storm would break out at any moment, but it never rained more than a slight drizzle, and it didn’t last long.

I found this whole section harder than any of the climbs, and I had one moment when I was tempted to step off the bike and quit the race, but I pressed on, and eventually the course turned eastward along I-82. With the wind now at my back, I was glad to get back in aero, dig deep, go fast, and make up some of the lost time. Once I got back into Richland the wind had calmed down again, and it was smooth sailing all the way into T2.

I’m not exactly sure where this was taken. Credit: FinisherPix

I was pleasantly surprised to finish the bike with a final time of 2:42:52, close to what Best Bike Split had estimated; I had expected a much slower time after duking it out with the wind on Badger Road. My final intensity was 0.797, the closest I’ve ever been to my target. Maybe I could have gone a little harder, and I certainly could have gone faster if my handling skills in the wind were better, but as far as executing a plan goes, this was as close to flawless as I could manage. I’m very happy with this result.

T2

I racked my bike, swapped my bike gear for my run gear, made a quick stop at the porta-potty, and left in 5:14. I don’t keep close track of my transition times, but I think this is my quickest one to date in a 70.3. My transitions are still slow, but this feels like progress.

The Run

After that awful shakeout run a couple of days before, I wasn’t quite sure how to pace this run, but I didn’t overthink it and stuck to my original plan: Aim for a pace of 4:55/km and reassess at the turnaround point. If I felt good, push the pace and get a negative split. If I didn’t, dial it back a little and finish as strong as I could manage. It was still windy and overcast as I left T2, so the temperature didn’t feel anywhere near the forecast high of 24°C, which would help me—at least I wouldn’t get demolished by the heat. It took me a few minutes to shake off the “jelly legs” feeling from the bike leg, but after that I had no trouble hitting my target pace—my heart rate and RPE were where I expected them to be, which was a relief and restored my confidence.

The run course was unchanged from last year, a single-lap out-and-back on the Riverfront Trail along the Columbia River, through parks and residential side streets, with a turnaround point on the north end, just past the Washington State University campus. It’s fairly flat, with only 60 m of elevation gain, and, save for the last few hundred meters before the turnaround point, it’s all on smooth, paved paths. It’s a really nice run course, with plenty of shade and lots of spectator support, especially through the residential parts and the hotels close to the finish line.

View this course in Garmin Connect or Strava.

A few minutes into my run it started drizzling again, which felt refreshing, and I had to resist the temptation to push the pace. Since it wasn’t hot, I didn’t feel the need to follow my usual strategy of walking through every aid station to drink water, and instead drank to thirst without slowing down. I relied on Maurten bars for my nutrition, eating half a bar roughly every 20 minutes, for a total of one and a half bars, plus a Maurten caffeinated gel to get a final kick before the finish line.

Rain, I don’t mind. Credit: FinisherPix

By the time I got to the turnaround point the drizzle had turned into steady rain, and I was soaked to the bone. I’ve worried about the heat in previous races, but now I had the opposite problem—I was freezing. My hands were so numb I fumbled a few cups of water at the aid stations. My watch recorded a low of 18°C at this point, but I was soaking wet and the wind chill made it feel much colder than that.

I had been keeping a “comfortably uncomfortable” pace up to this point, and with no heat to worry about, I followed my plan and started increasing the pace after the turnaround. I pushed well into “uncomfortable” territory. I was cold, my joints hurt, my toes hurt, I started getting painful blisters on the bottom of my feet, and running in waterlogged shoes was unpleasant, but I felt strong despite the harder pace. I was excited when I looked up and I could finally see the finish line off in the distance; it was time to empty the tank and give everything I had left. (After I finished I went back to that same spot to cheer on people and encourage them to make that last push to the finish line.)

Those last couple of kilometers were an all-out effort, but I didn’t let up, and dug deep right up to the end, only slowing down in the last few meters to avoid ruining the finish line photo of the person in front of me.

I finished the run in 1:41:53, with a final pace of 4:50/km. That’s almost four minutes faster than last year, my new personal best for the run in a 70.3. My final time was 5:05:16, over two minutes faster than last year. I finished 24th out of 148 in the M40–44 age group and 214th out of 1,702 overall. My age-graded result was 04:42:45 (5:05:16 × 0.9262), which put me in 211th place for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship slot allocation. There were 60 slots available at this race (30 for men and 30 for women) and the last ones rolled down to 70th place for women and 96th for men. I still have a lot of work to do before I can qualify for Worlds, but I’m not giving up on that. I don’t care how long it takes, I will make it happen.

And with that, my tenth Ironman 70.3 is in the books. Credit: FinisherPix

Importantly, though, I did what I set out to do: I had a plan, executed it to the best of my ability, and I’m closing out my triathlon season on a high note.

Mission accomplished: No regrets.

Race Report: 2024 Ironman 70.3 Washington Tri-Cities

2024-09-25T18:00:00-06:00

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.

Pre-race preparations

I arrived in Richland late on Thursday before the race, staying at the Courtyard Richland Columbia Point, less than a five-minute walk from transition and the Ironman Village, and right next to the run course. By the time I checked into my room and unloaded my car the sun was coming down and I was beat from the long drive, so I just had dinner and settled in for the night.

The following day I checked into the race as soon as the Ironman Village opened, to try to score a low bib number, in the unlikely scenario that the swim somehow got canceled again and the race started with another bike time trial. After checking in, I stayed for the race briefing; I mostly wanted to hear about the conditions in the river, since I had never done a race with a river swim. The briefing mentioned that a group of people had done a practice swim that day and a person who normally swims in the “under 27 minutes” wave had finished in just 18 minutes “without working too hard.” It’s hard to extrapolate without knowing exactly what that person’s normal pace is, but assuming they normally swim the 1.9 km in 25 minutes, I could expect a roughly 27-minute swim, which sounded too good to be true. After Penticton, I haven’t been as consistent as I would have liked with my swimming, so I welcomed all the help I could get.

After the briefing, I walked around to scope out the swim exit and transition layout. This race does a single transition at Columbia Point Marina Park; it doesn’t have much shade, but it’s well laid out, brightly lit on race morning, and it’s all on grass, which makes the jog from the swim exit much easier. The swim itself is point-to-point in the Columbia River, with the start about a 30-minute walk away, in Howard Amon Park. As is common for 70.3 races with a single transition, they didn’t hand out gear bags, with the exception of a morning clothes bag to place whatever you’re carrying to the swim start, such as a coat, shoes, hotel key, etc. You hand it over to the volunteers at Howard Amon Park before getting in line for the swim and they give it back to you after crossing the finish line.

That afternoon, I went on a run to scope out part of the run course on the Riverfront Trail, followed by a brief shakedown ride to verify that my bike was in working order. Everything, including my ankle and my bike, seemed to be working properly, so I went back to my room for some dinner and a good night of sleep.

All my gear, organized before the race. Not pictured: trisuit and wetsuit.

I didn’t do much the day before the race. I thought about going out for a recon drive on the bike course, but I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to give up the sweet parking spot I had right next to my hotel room. Instead, I walked over to Howard Amon Park to time how long it’d take me to walk there on race day, scope out the swim start, and talk to a few of the folks there in case they had any good intel to share. I spent the rest of the day watching TV while preparing my gear, before checking in my bike at transition in the afternoon.

All checked in at transition the day before.

The race was scheduled to start the next morning at 6:30 AM, and transition would be open from 4:00 AM to 6:15 AM, with athletes starting the walk to the swim start at 5:45 AM. Since my hotel was on the way to the swim, it made more sense to walk from there rather than hang around in the chilly 9°C morning. I woke up shortly before 3:00 AM, took a COVID test, had a bagel with jam and coffee, and headed over to transition as soon as it opened to finish setting up my bike and lay out my gear next to it; the person next to me turned out to be a no-show, and I was grateful to have additional space for my stuff. With that taken care of, I went back to my room and warmed up while I waited for the start of the race.

The Columbia River at sunrise on race morning, on the way to the swim start.

At 6:00 AM, I put on my wetsuit and joined the long procession of athletes and supporters walking to Howard Amon Park. After the national anthem was sung and the traditional cannon was fired, indicating the start of the race, I handed over my morning clothes bag to a volunteer, seeded myself in the 44–46 minute group, and ate a Maurten 100 gel while I waited for the start. It took almost an hour to get in the water, but I enjoyed chatting and trading stories with the people around me, including some familiar faces from previous races, and before I knew it, I was in the starting chutes. I started my race at 7:23 AM.

The swim

This swim was a blast, there’s no other way to put it. I walked into the river, and although it was chilly that morning, the 19.2°C water felt great, so I just dived in and got to work—no cold shock response to deal with this time. The first buoy was a red turn buoy, and after that right turn, the rest of the swim was a straight shot towards transition, with a huge assist from the current. That first turn buoy was aligned with the rising sun, but after that I had no problem whatsoever sighting. The water was clean and pleasant, albeit murky, so I couldn’t see much underwater, which suits me just fine—I’d rather not see anything down there.

The volunteers in kayaks and paddleboards tried to keep the swimmers close to the buoys, but despite that, there wasn’t much of a washing machine effect; I made contact with a couple people, but I didn’t get kicked in the face even once. I felt great the entire time, and although someone in the swim staging area said the current wasn’t very strong that day, those buoys just kept flying past me. I have my watch set to buzz every 100 meters during the swim, and it seemed like it was buzzing every minute. I could swear I was swimming with great form, but perhaps it was just an illusion from the current’s speed. The only part where I had to work hard was after the last turn, entering the marina towards the swim exit. That had a slight current going out, but it only took me a couple minutes to swim that last stretch and exit the water.

My swim split was 26:34, with a pace of 1:23/100 m, pretty much bang-on what I had guesstimated, and needless to say, it was way faster than my previous times in a lake or reservoir. It was fun to pretend I’m actually good at swimming for once, even though I probably could have just floated down the river and still made the time cut.

T1

It was a fairly long run from the swim exit to the mount line, so after getting my wetsuit ripped off by the wetsuit peelers, getting all my bike gear on, spraying on a coat of sunscreen, and using the porta-potty, I spent 10:40 in T1.

The bike

For this race I set an aggressive target intensity of 86%; I wanted to go hard, even at the risk of overcooking the bike and blowing up on the run. At that intensity, Best Bike Split gave me an estimated finish time of 2:28:47, which put me in the yellow in my pacing table, but I hoped the altitude would give me an edge—I live and train at 1,950 m, while Richland is at just 117 m above sea level.

Bike pacing table for Ironman 70.3 races. Credit: TriStar Athletes

With my pacing plan set up in my Garmin, I headed out on the bike course, which consists of a single lap through Richland’s neighborhoods and the countryside just outside of town, with 625 m of elevation gain from a handful of punchy climbs to spice things up. It’s a gorgeous course with beautiful views, especially after leaving town and riding alongside farms and vineyards in the Washington countryside, and had some of the nicest, smoothest pavement I’ve ever ridden on. I was a little concerned when they said at the briefing that the course was on open roads and that we should ride defensively because it’s a first-time race and local drivers may not be used to sharing the road with a race or even know that there was a race in progress, but for almost the entirety of the course we had an entire lane of traffic closed off for the race, and the roads had little car traffic anyway, so it felt safe. The only sketchy segment was the last descent along Dallas Road; it’s a fast descent with only the shoulder and half a lane to maneuver. Cars had knocked over some of the cones into our half of the lane, so a few people in front of me had to swerve into the car lane to avoid them. If I had my way, that entire lane would be closed for the race, or alternatively that descent would be designated as a no-passing, no-aerobars zone for safety (even though in my experience people tend to ignore those).

View this course in Garmin Connect or Strava.

Overall, though, it’s a very enjoyable bike course, although it was extremely crowded. I don’t know if there was a particularly high number of participants for this race or I simply started way at the back after my swim, but I’ve never seen a bike course with so much bunching, drafting and blocking. It was just back to back cyclists almost the entire way, sometimes riding two or even three abreast. I don’t think I saw a referee the entire time, but if drafting and blocking penalties had been enforced, they would have needed a much bigger penalty tent. I tried to stick to my power targets while following drafting and position rules to the best of my ability, but there were many, many times where I was completely boxed in with nowhere to go. It was frustrating at times, but I tried not to be an asshole about it and simply announced myself, passed as safely as I could, and thanked people when they let me through. My final intensity was 75%, far short of my target, but I did my best under the circumstances. The silver lining was that I had plenty left in the tank for the run.

There were only a few climbs, but I loved them. Credit: FinisherPix

For nutrition, I stuck to my usual plan for 70.3s: Two 24-ounce bottles of Maurten 320 Drink Mix for about 80 g/h of carbs, with two Maurten 160 gels in my bento box as a backup if I ejected a bottle; I didn’t use any of the aid stations. My stomach felt great the entire time and I didn’t have a repeat of the digestive issues I had at St. George this year and Coeur d’Alene last year. I don’t think I’ll ever know for sure the cause of those issues, but at least I think I can rule out my nutrition itself as a cause (I did make one change to my fueling plan for the past few races, though: I’ve completely cut caffeine out of my race nutrition, but I don’t know how much of a difference that made).

I only had one mishap on this race: I switched my setup to have a single Gorilla XT cage at the back of my Profile Design behind-the-saddle mount and I just could not for the life of me pry the bottle out of its kung fu grip when I needed it. I used a similar setup last month at Ironman Canada with two of the same bottle cages on the same mount and didn’t have any problem getting the bottles out, so I didn’t think to test this out before the race. In other words, I fell victim to one of the classic blunders: “Nothing new on race day.” After struggling for what felt like an eternity without getting the bottle to budge, I finally had to stop to get it out and move it to the cage between my aerobars. I don’t know what the aerodynamic penalty is for having a bottle cage in my downtube, but next time I’ll just do that instead.

Speaking of aerodynamics, I wore these Zoot Elite aero calf sleeves for the first time after reading about the aero benefits. I can’t speak for any aero gains I may or may not have gotten, but they did have an unexpected benefit: They made putting on my wetsuit so much easier; it just slides right over the calf sleeves. It worked better than TriSlide spray, to be honest, so that’s good to know for next time. The rest of my gear was the same I’ve used in my past two races, including my Trek Speed Concept SLR 7, Giro Aerohead helmet, Roka Gen II Elite trisuit, and Shimano S-Phyre SH-TR903 shoes. I’m very happy with this setup; I think I’ve managed to resolve a lot of the comfort issues I’ve had in the past. My next step is to get a professional bike fit and see if I can improve my aerodynamic position without sacrificing too much comfort.

Despite the setbacks, the bike leg was fast and fun. I think it was mostly the altitude, but I felt so strong putting down power in aero and in the climbs, and even though I missed my target intensity and had to make that unscheduled stop to deal with my bottle, I rolled into T2 in just 2:37:33, my fastest bike split to date in a 70.3. Not bad at all.

T2

I racked my bike, took off my helmet and bike shoes, put on my running shoes, threw on my hat, sunglasses and race belt, put on some more sunscreen, used the porta-potty, and ran out in 7:40.

The run

After my run at Ironman 70.3 Coeur d’Alene, I had a pretty good idea of what pace I could sustain, so my goal was to beat my time there. I aimed to hold a pace of 4:50/km, slowing down only at the aid stations, and if I still felt good at the halfway point, I’d try to push the pace and aim for a negative split.

The run course was a single-lap out-and-back on the Riverfront Trail along the Columbia River and a few residential side streets. It’s pretty flat, with only 77 m of elevation gain, a decent amount of shade, and great vibes from the neighbors along the way, especially as you get closer to the finish line (those who bring out their garden hoses to the course are the real MVPs, by the way). The entire course is paved and even, except for the last 500 m or so before and after the turnaround, which were on rough, chunky gravel.

View this course in Garmin Connect or Strava.

The weather forecast said the high for the day would be 28°C, which worried me since I tend to get clobbered by the heat, but it actually didn’t feel that hot during the run. I’m not sure if it was because I was still carrying heat adaptations from the summer, but it just felt very pleasant and breezy, even though I was pushing a hard pace. I felt good despite the hard effort, with no pain anywhere. My ankle didn’t bother me at all, although I was very cautious on the gravel portion before the turnaround; I could picture myself rolling my ankle again there and having to limp all the way back to the finish line.

For nutrition, I tried something different. I liked the Maurten bars so much last month at Ironman Canada that I wanted to try using them exclusively for fueling this time around. I had three bars in total, one every thirty minutes. It worked well—they’re easy to eat, tastier than gels, didn’t cause any stomach distress, and I appreciated eating solid food after drinking two bottles of liquid carbs, so I might do this from now on. Besides the bars, I had water at every aid station and although I didn’t think I needed any sodium, I had a couple cups of Mortal Hydration along the way, just in case.

I was still feeling strong at the turnaround point, so I tried to push the pace on the way back. I didn’t manage the negative split I hoped for, but I gave it everything I got and crossed the finish line in 1:45:25, with a final pace of 4:55/km. For those keeping track at home, that is 57 seconds faster than my time at Coeur d’Alene, so mission accomplished, I did beat my time there, thank you very much. My total time was 5:07:45, my personal best for a 70.3, with the obvious caveat of the current-assisted swim (although both the bike and the run were my fastest to date). I placed 43rd out of 187 in the M40–44 age group, and 304th out of 2,069 overall. I don’t think I truly emptied the tank, but I’m more than satisfied with this result.

About to cross the finish line. Success! Credit: FinisherPix

It’s funny—I started my season with my worst result to date in a 70.3, and ended it with a personal best. I can’t think of a better way to wrap things up for the year.

I was so tired after the long drive to Richland that I thought this would be a one-and-done for me, but I had such a great time here, I think I’m adding this race to my schedule next year, along with St. George and Coeur d’Alene. It’s a top notch race with a great course in a beautiful venue, and I can’t say enough good things about the volunteers and locals, some of whom I spoke to before the race and who, despite the inconvenience a race like this represents in terms of road closures and traffic, seemed legitimately excited to be hosting it. Hopefully this one will be around for a while, because I’d love to come back.

I thought the wine glass charms on the medal were a nice touch.

And with that, that’s it for my triathlon season this year. If you’ve read this far, thank you, but stick around—it won’t be my last.