Troika Half Iron Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The start had us going from the beach but the first buoy was lined up with the boat launch almost and way over to the right. I started to the right and had pretty much clean water all the way to the first buoy. I really like that because I was able to swim my pace and not get kicked around. Looking back though it might have been better to be over more towards the rest of the pack and caught more of a draft. I woke up feeling a little funky in the stomach and the swim was just making matters worse. I got to the turnaround and caught a mouthful of water wrong and threw up some of my breakfast. I was unfazed though and took a few gulps of lake water rinsed the mouth out and kept going. I caught on to someones feet just after the turnaround and stayed in the draft all the way to the beach. I felt pretty confident getting out of the water and felt like I had done a good swim, that is until I saw my watch. The extra .3 miles didn't feel like it was to much and I felt fine swimming that little extra but it definitely hurt my results

Start out more with the pack just to catch the draft more into the turn around. Just get stronger with my swimming I guess. Like I said in the comments results aside I thought I had a good swim

I came out of the water fast! My sister was there cheering me on and took some pictures of my exit. It looked pretty epic, water was spraying everywhere and I had a very intense look on my face. I ripped my cap and goggles off and got my arms out of my wetsuit fast. I usually let go of my goggles and cap as I pull one arm out of my wetsuit sleeve and it usually stays put nicely. Not today I got about halfway to my rack when I realized what happened and spectator yelled at me and told me where my goggles were. I grabbed them and sprinted back over to my bike. It was a clean transition zone so we had to put everything into a black plastic bag and tie it shut before we left on the bike. I struggled a little bit in getting my wetsuit off my feet, forgot to put any body glide on my legs.

Body glide for my legs, maybe just hold onto my cap and goggles and not leave them in the sleeve next time.

I pushed pretty hard from the start trying to make up a little ground from what I thought had been a really slow swim from what I saw on my watch. My first 12 miles after the out and back and coming back past T1 I was averaging 22 mph. I slowly settled back into a more comfortable pace and worked my way through the rollers and back into Spokane. I drove the course the day before and was preparing for doing most of my hard work up till mile 34 when it kind of went downhill most of the way into Spokane. I don't know if there was some wind or just some fatigue set in but I definitely was not as strong the last 15-20 miles of the bike. Looking back I think I might have backed it off on that downhill section and just never really picked it back up. Nutrition wise I thought I did a good job of keeping fueled and stayed pretty consistent with my eating schedule. One thing that didn't go right was my salt tabs. I carry them in a small pill dispenser that unfolds. I decided to take it with me on the swim in the back pocket of my jersey so I made sure not to forget it as I headed out on the bike. Well the salt tabs dissolved and left a mess in my back pocket and somewhat difficult to get any salt down. I managed to get a few pinches of the gooey mess out but it definitely wasn't enough.

Set my salt tabs out with my gel flask and just put them in my back pocket as I head out for the bike. I like the pace I put out the first 20 miles or so and I didn't feel like I was giving it to much, my HR was close to what it should have been so it wasn't like I was overworking. I definitely saw my performance drop though so maybe I will work on negative splitting some long rides in the future and finishing the bike as well as I started it.

They have volunteers who grab your bike and hand you your packet. Which you would think would be fast but it kind of frazzeled me. I got off the bike ready to run to my bag but the volunteer yelled at me to take off me helmet so I turned around and tried to get it off but my sunglasses got stuck in the helmet straps so I had to fiddle around with that. Finally got it off and grabbed my bag and found a spot on the bench to put my socks and shoes on. My socks had of course fallen out of my shoes and come unrolled so I didn't know which was left and which was right. I fumbled around with those for a bit and finally got them on and headed out. Seemed like a slow T2, and it was.

Be more prepared for the volunteers catching the bike. That whole process was a little new to me. Also having the bags handed to me and not having everything just laid out on the ground in front of me was a little odd. Sticking my socks farther in my shoes I think would help that process out a bit.

I took off at a pretty good pace for the first 3 miles through the shaded sections by the river but once we got out on upriver drive I started to melt. I was struggling! My goal as always during the run is to run the whole time, even the aid stations. As soon as I start walking its just a lot easier to keep going. I started walking the aid stations just after mile 3, which in hindsight for the situation was probably a really good thing. I got as much water, and ice if they had it, as I could and then kept going. Just before the turn around I started to get some cramping in my legs and had to slow to a walk and then stop completely to stretch out and regroup for a second or two. About a half mile from the turn around when I was going out I spotted two guys in my age group coming back and I knew one of them had absolutely been working on the bike as he passed me on an uphill standing up and just cranking. So I got it in my head that if I could just hold it together I could maybe catch him as he fell apart, hopefully. So after gathering myself for a bit at the turn around, I set out to track him down. It had to have been one of the most ugly chases of all time but about mile 8 or 9 I saw him in the distance, and within another mile or so I was on his back. He realized I was there and tried to pick up the pace a little, we stayed together for awhile. The only thing that kept me going was the hope that he was suffering more than I was, we both I am sure looked awful. We were within 5 feet of each other at the mile 11 aid station. I grabbed a water and kept running, every other aid station before we had both slowed to a walk and grabbed whatever we wanted but this time I just went. I got about a 20 foot gap and just kept pushing. The gap never got bigger all the way to just after mile 12 when we started to come into riverfront park. The road kind of winds around some corners and I decided to try and increase my gap by sprinting just after turning the corner and opening it up without him even realizing. It worked, two corners of hard sprinting and I had completely dropped him from my sight. I was still nervous that I would fall apart or he would make a late push and I kept looking behind me. On a straight away I even asked a spectator if she could see him behind me and she couldn't :) so I coasted the last few hundred yards into the finish line. Thankfully there was no sprint finish for 5th place!

I thought for how tough the conditions were and where I was at in the race that I did a pretty good run. I was especially pleased with my last 6 miles. I might have given a little bit of a drop in focus in effort between miles 3-6 when I saw my age group competitors going the other way and knew I couldn't catch them. I need to focus on my race and push the effort the whole time.

Drink ice water and sat down. I was pretty beat and ready to just get home and get a nice cold shower.


There were a few challenges I faced throughout the day but so did everyone else that was racing. That's why triathlon is tough, if it was easy everyone would do it. I think I suffered with the best of them though and am proud to have finished. Learned some good lessons and will hopefully come back again next year and have a big PR in comparison to my time this year.


I was kind of disappointed with a couple things, the course being mis calculated on two legs was my biggest downer though. The bike aid stations were pretty poor. The water bottles had the caps removed so water just sprayed everywhere and didn't make it any easier to drink. The event just seemed a little disorganized. There was no pre race meeting and we didn't receive really any information in our race packets. The finishers medals were about as basic as you could get. But for a local race and a decent price it wasn't to bad. Like I said earlier I would like to come back and drop my time next year, hopefully if they get distances right that will be a lot easier ;)