It was fun to do a deep water start (my second ever and second this season). I kept trying to get further to the middle of the river (which is a HUGE river--The MIGHTY COLUMBIA)....and basically just kept following people ahead of me. I couldn't tell after a while if I was the last person or not, everyone really spread out. There were only 8 women so the men in the swim pretty much left me behind. As long as I could see people ahead of me I felt fine--and the whole time, I could. It was nice to just swim down the shore, no buoys to navigate! At 400 meters to go, there was a big yellow buoy indicating to swimmers that they need to start heading closer to shore in order to not miss the swim exit. It seemed a very long way from that buoy to the orange buoy, but before long I was being helped up the shore by (awesome) volunteers. Got to transition and was happy to see that there were still a lot of bikes there, meaning I was not the last swimmer! Yay!

Just get faster, get better at drafting. I think I did well, overall, beating my swim from my last HIM by 5 or 6 minutes.

I was a little slow taking off the wetsuit, as always, I was out of breath after running up the hill to the transition area. I took an extra few seconds to make sure my feet were clean and dry, as rocks in the socks would not be fun on the rest of the bike/run! I wore socks so that I could just go right into my running shoes at T2. We had to put all of our gear into the transition bag or get a time penalty, so that took an extra few seconds.

Faster transitions...always a good goal.

It was hillier overall than I thought it would be, but since I've ridden hills all year long, nothing felt hard. The time went by very quickly. I was passed by a few guys on the long hill, but I also passed a few during the second half of the race! There was a water station at the top of the hill where I grabbed and drank water as I went by one way, and then about 20 miles later you come back by, so I did the same thing. On my bike I had four bottles--2 gelbots, each with 2 shots of Hammer Gel and Clif Electrolyte drink, and 2 other bottles of Clif which I had frozen overnight. I tried to finish one bottle every 15 miles, alternating gelbot and yummy ice cold electrolyte, and ate LUNA Moons every time I thought about it. I feel I had plenty of food and water on the bike, and also had an ibuprofen about 90 minutes into it and then about 60 min before the end, each with one or two endurolytes. I had brought a pbj with me but I was not at all interested in eating it, so I didn't even try.

The long downhill was really, really fun, and over way too soon!! There were two out and backs which made it possible to see where everyone was in the race, I got to holler at Janet and see that I was pretty far behind the lead female by this point, but still doing good overall.

Push even harder...I was trying to keep my legs as fresh as I could for the run while still working hard on the bike. It's a fine line, one that I think I can work on for future races.

This was an interesting transition--I took the Garmin off my bike as I stopped, and then a volunteer took the bike and another handed me my transition bag. I sat on a chair to change shoes, grabbed my visor and race belt, a glass of water, and was suddenly running! The volunteers picked up and bagged all my bike gear (nice!).

Nothing, it was good!

I felt GREAT for the run. My "race plan" was to run the first 5k at a 9:45 average but I went faster than that even when I tried to slow it down. I was going to run the 2nd 5k at a 9:30, the 3rd 5k at a 9:15 and the 4th 5k at a 9:00. Well, it wasn't quite that way, but the overall time ended up being almost exactly at my goal, even a bit ahead! The sun got hot between mile 5 and 11--but there were aid stations every 1.5 miles and at each one I poured a water on my head and drank a water. I ate one caffeinated gel about 3-5 miles and ate a few orange slices and grapes along the way to keep it interesting. The thought of taking the HEED made me gag so I just stuck to water. The best thing was coming to midspan across the Columbia River and being able to see into the parking lot down below where the finish line was and hear people cheering while I went down the switchback into the parking lot. I had accidentally left a 20 minute swim workout on my triathlon watch where I was keeping time, and I thought my overall elapsed time was going to be 6:20 (which I was very happy about). Once I saw the finish line and finish clock reading 5:58, I picked up the pace, not quite realizing that I had managed to get a sub-6 HIM!!! I thought their clock was wrong--it took me a few minutes to actually make sense of the difference in times and then I was ecstatic!! My best-case scenario goal time was 6 hours, and I had managed it, just barely, but I did it!

Pick up the pace a little bit more in the final 5k! It was a slight uphill and pretty empty of people, so it was harder to get motivated at that point.

Drank water, stretched, drank a Pepsi and had a banana, stretched some more. Rubbed on some Arnica cream on my legs. I waited another 45 minutes for Janet to finish, and then both of us went and sat in the cold Columbia River for a while. Then more Arnica, a coke, some pizza and a cookie. It was nice to not drink electrolytes or eat gel!!! Food was pretty good, although the pizza was not really that satisfying, but I needed something.

Later in the evening, Janet and I attended "Sausage Fest" and ate sausage, beer and did the chicken dance. Yes, it's true.


I think I had the race of my life. There's always the 'what ifs' about training...if only I had run more intervals or gone to Masters swimming or biked a zillion miles (wait, I did!) or lost that stupid 20 pounds....always something.....but really, I exceeded my expectations and am not disappointed at my performance at all!


This was the first year of the Plutonium Man. The race director's description of the course on the website probably discouraged people from signing up for it, as well as a conflict with the Grand Columbian on the same day. Therefore it was a small field, but I have to say, an extremely fast one! I would guess that 90% of the people were on tri bikes and looked very fast!

The volunteers were outstanding. So many cowbells and horns and cheering! Tons of aid stations on the run, great road markings (although the runner from one relay got so lost she took a cab back after running 14 miles out)....but it was great. Everyone on the course (much on out-and-backs) smiled and waved and yelled out encouragement. There was huge applause for everyone at the awards ceremony, and great swag.

We lucked out with the weather. Friday night I was awakened by thunder and lighting and rain, but it had stopped by 6 AM and didn't start raining again until the awards ceremony. Sunday it was a deluge. Thankfully the race was Saturday, and the weather was mild with only some wind, but nothing serious.

Last year when I did my first half ironman, I was mentally and physically exhausted before the end of each of the bike and the run--wondering if I could actually finish....this time around I felt very strong the whole time and was surprised at how fast the time went by. I think past experience helped me a lot, as well as a new, sweet bike and nearly double the amount of time/distance riding this year.

I don't know what the future holds, but for now I am going to cherish having an A-race that went so well at the end of the season, as planned, trained for, and hoped for. The day after, I am sore but not too bad--not hobbling around at least.

I was 3rd place in the Women's Division, 1st in my Age Group. I know there weren't many in either of those categories, but I feel proud that I managed to podium anyway! I had seen my competition before the race and told Janet, well, at least I'll get 3rd AG (since there were 3 of us) and was most pleasantly surprised to once again prove you can't judge a book by its cover!

As always, I will be posting photos on here, so stay tuned! Thanks for reading, please comment!