Justin Riele's First Professional IRONMAN
By The Feed.
HPT athlete Justin Riele breaks down his recent and first-ever full IRONMAN as a "capital P Pro". His race debrief exposes some lessons learned, an effort to be celebrated, and the privilege of getting to chase triathlon as a Pro.
Justin: Just wrapped up Ironman Lake Placid and wanted to share a quick recap. I fueled with Maurten 320 + solid bar + LMNT and nailed my overall nutrition plan with no issues which was great and such a big part of the full distance.
This was my first-ever full Ironman as a Pro in a very competitive field, and I finished 13th in 8:36. I was able to come away with a big PR in the distance but fell a bit short of my lofty goal to qualify for Kona at this race. Overall, I am flying home pretty proud of how I stayed mentally tough in the race and gave it my all, despite a few setbacks. Actually, I’m not flying home; I am flying straight to a week-long work onsite in San Francisco. I really wish I was flying home, but that’s what this “part-time pro” life looks like these days… blowing up in a full Ironman due to low volume training, wheeling the bike box into a corporate hotel, and then hobbling into the conference room bright and early for a week of all-day marketing strategy meetings. Good thing though, since I didn’t make a paycheck yesterday at the race.
I burned a few too many matches early in the swim and the first hour of the bike, basically making two risky bets that both failed.
I thought making the “main” front swim pack would be essential for staying in the race on the bike with Currie, Josh Amberger, Marquardt, and others. I burned a lot of matches swimming at threshold effort to swim a 48 and come out in that group, only to realize the swim was SO fast that nobody else even made the group, and we’d dropped Braden. So there was no real group to work with throughout the bike until mile 70, when Lionel, Trevor, and Jackson caught me.
Mistake 2 was that as soon as I got onto the bike, I tried to close a 30 second gap to Matthew Marquardt, who led onto the bike after blitzing T1. That’s definitely the last time I will be putting on aero socks… those precious seconds cost me. I then realized on the very first corner that my rear brake had completely failed, so I was in my head about whether to still race with only a front brake for a bit. I did 340w for 30 mins trying to bridge up to Matthew, but lost too much time without a rear brake in the wet conditions and technical section not wanting to crash. I’ll tell ya, going 52mph average for a full minute down a wet road is scary as hell with only a working front brake... I'm glad my wife wasn't awake for the broadcast yet to hear that until after the race.
It’s hard to say how the race would have played out if I had swam a little easier, gotten on the bike with Marquardt, or never made the surge, blah blah, excuses… But it still probably wouldn’t have been enough to get to Kona this year, so I’m excited to keep that goal in my pocket for 2025 (Nice) and 2026 (Kona). I plan to give it a proper go with a focused full Ironman block which I didn’t do for this race, and I need a bit more volume in the legs.
I am super proud of how I raced and battled. A lot of things could have caused me to be one of the many DNFs on the day, but I still ran hard and fought for every placing, reminded myself that suffering in these races is a privilege, that I CHOOSE to do this, and that I am so lucky. Sometimes deep gratitude can be a really positive thing to draw on during the dark moments in an Ironman.
The support out there from the crowd was pretty special this weekend. I definitely am feeling like a “real pro” now, with lots of people cheering my name on the course and coming up before the race to introduce themselves. That is a fun new thing for me as I love connecting with other racers and inspiring others. We heard lots of support from people closely following our YouTube channel, and it’s clear that Kyle (organicironman), my videographer who traveled with me all the way to Lake Placid is really helping me connect with fans and further support the marketing efforts of our sponsors. We put out a 4x daily VLOG on YouTube last week, as well as a longer recap coming soon.
What's next? I am not quite sure.
70.3 Michigan, 70.3 Augusta, and Ironman Chattanooga are all on my radar as possible USA September races, before a proper build to 70.3 Worlds to end the season.