2025 Recap

It’s that time of year! I’m already in full preparation for the 2026 season, but I wanted to give a quick-ish recap of 2025 to put a bow on my rookie pro season. 

Overall, I am quite satisfied with how things went and was about what I expected. Here are the highlights before diving into each race:

All 3 full IRONMAN races were brand new to me! Texas, Lake Placid and Arizona

3 70.3s with 1 new at Santa Cruz

I flew to 4 races this year. The most I’ve ever traveled by air is twice in a season.

Total Hours: 800

Swim Yards: 600,000

Bike Miles: 9,000+ (over 50% outdoors, which was a big goal of mine)

Run Miles: 1,250

Ironman Texas (34th pro - 8:49:03)

My first pro race was a big one. With it being a pro-series race and guys like Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden showing up… it was quite intimidating. Highlights were an embarrassing swim that I’ve since learned from, a PR bike split, and a 3:05 marathon in hot conditions after little run training. I put together the best race I possibly could, ran down 15 guys and came away with a shiny IRONMAN PR. I also got pictures with Taylor Knibb and the entire 2025 Men’s IRONMAN World Champs Podium in Nice (Casper, Gustav and Kristian).

Chattanooga 70.3 (29th pro - 3:34:50)

First 70.3 as a pro turned duathlon. We drew lots to determine the time trial starting order on the bike and I was somewhere in that first 3rd. I got to experience losing my bottle with 80% of the nutrition I needed at mile 1. And every year I seem to have some sort of adversity at this race, but I’m proud of how I pivot, manage and fight to the line regardless. I never wrote a race report for this since I was pretty disappointed in my result.

Quad Cities Triathlon (1st Overall)
The final edition of our local sprint triathlon. I have tried to win this race several times, but was outclassed each year. My main competition was absent, and I won by about 8 minutes. Not much else to say, just happy to take the hometown win in the final QC Triathlon. 

Ironman Lake Placid (27th pro - 9:11:10)

Lake Placid was circled on my calendar as a race I wanted to experience. I knew the bike course was especially hard, but I was looking forward to the challenge. The location was absolutely beautiful, and I can see why it’s a North American Favorite. My swim was one of the main highlights after what happened in Texas. I was able to stay in a small pack and even made some tactical moves by catching several breaks. By far my best non-wetsuit swim at 58:17. The bike however, was one of my worst and I was ready to drop out after loop 1. I remember wanting to see what my run would look like, so I powered through and slightly negative split the back half. When I got to the run, I had never felt so good. Despite the amount of elevation, 6:30s came easy to me. I just snuck under 2:55 to finally break the 3 hour barrier in an Ironman.

Louisville 70.3 (19th pro - 4:09:16)

Best performance of the year and cracked the top 20. I had a great swim, a solid bike and a phenomenal run, moving up 9 places. I mostly remember a hot swim and pure carnage on that run. I had incredible support from family and friends on course, and they were able to see me a record number of times.

Santa Cruz 70.3 (33rd pro - 4:15:31)
I almost didn’t include this one because of how poor I raced. Panic attack on the swim, lost nutrition on the bike, and almost got run down by Tamara Jewett (starting 5 minutes after me). My only take-away is PRing my gel intake at 8 gels in a half marathon (1 every 10 minutes).

Hennepin 50K (1st - 3:29:44)

My motivation for the 50K was twofold. I really wanted some sort of “win” for the year after getting dusted in the professional IRONMAN fields. I was also looking for a course record to put a notch in my belt for sponsorship outreach. With it being 85 degs at the start, my chances dwindled a little bit. I still gave it my best shot and at least came away with the win by over 16 minutes in my first ultra. 

Ironman Arizona (29th pro - 8:34:29)

Final race of the season, and the fastest course I’ve competed on. I felt I had a respectable swim despite some concerns of panic in my wetsuit after Santa Cruz, but I went out a little more conservative and it paid off (57:12). I felt great on the bike during loop 1 holding 250W, but the wheels quickly came off and I fell way short of my power targets. Still an ok split, but actually gave me encouragement that I can go faster when the power is there. Another example of me wanting to quit on the bike, but backing my run instead. I was so ready to settle for an overall PR, but kept wanting more. I ran my 2nd sub 3 marathon off the bike, and this is the expectation moving forward. 

Top 3 take-aways from 2025:

1. This sport takes time. I’ve been on a long and steady rise since 2017 (with a hiccup here and there), but the overall trend is up. Keep trusting the process and keep stacking those blocks, the results will come. 

2. I still think this is funny from 2 years ago, so I’m using it again. Not everything is a lesson: https://youtu.be/kyy5pirAaoI?feature=shared    

Sometimes there isn’t anything to “learn” from an experience, and that’s ok. For me, I learned that it’s important to stop searching for a reason and simply accept the result. 

3. Keep changing it up. Everything I do does not need to be a triathlon. The 50K, although barely more than a marathon, was a new and fun experience for me. Be on the lookout for something else like this in 2026. 

Once of my favorites: Hunting