What to do When Your Triathlon Swim is Cancelled
The TriDot Triathlon Podcast
TriDot Triathlon Training
4.9 • 634 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2026
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when the swim, the first leg of your race, gets cancelled? Fresh off their experience at IRONMAN 70.3 Little Elm, coaches Julie McPhilomy and Tony Washington dive into the reality behind a scenario some athletes dream about…and others dread. From unexpected changes in pre-race fueling to the mental shift required on race morning, they unpack how a cancelled swim can throw off your rhythm, emotions, and overall race strategy. They also break down the practical side: how pacing on the bike needs to adjust, what logistical challenges arise, and how to stay adaptable when race day doesn’t go as planned. With a mix of expert insight and personal stories Julie and Tony explore what really happens when the race you trained for suddenly changes and how to handle it like a pro.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the TriDOTP podcast. Every so often, when a triathlon event comes around, the swim sometimes occasionally gets canceled. |
| 0:12.3 | And your triathlon that you've been dreaming about, training for becomes an aqua bike or a duathlon or something different depending on what's canceled and what's happening. |
| 0:22.4 | But today I've brought two tridout coaches on to talk to us about what to do as an athlete when the swim of your event gets canceled. |
| 0:31.9 | There's a couple variables here that we're going to learn from Coach Tony and Coach Julie. |
| 0:37.2 | They are the co-founders of no coasting coaching based in Chicago, Illinois. |
| 0:42.3 | Coach Tony and Julie have over 40 years combined in the sport. |
| 0:46.8 | And just a few days ago, they had the swim canceled in their very own race. |
| 0:53.0 | So Tony, Julie, welcome to the show and tell us what happened to the swim at 70.3, Little Elm. |
| 1:00.6 | Great to see, Andrew. |
| 1:02.7 | Yeah, so, you know, swims get canceled at all sorts of different times. |
| 1:07.5 | And this is the latest I've ever seen. |
| 1:10.9 | We were wetsuits on goggles in hand walking down to the swim start about 20 minutes |
| 1:19.5 | before we were getting ready to swim when the swim was canceled. |
| 1:22.9 | They announced, those had been rumors about it for the last probably 45 minutes. |
| 1:29.9 | And we're like, oh, you know, people are what should we do? |
| 1:34.2 | And I'm like, let's keep on getting ready. |
| 1:36.6 | And, you know, when they make an announcement, we'll hear the announcement kind of thing. |
| 1:41.0 | So we can kind of hear it that thankfully they were just reading |
| 1:44.4 | the message that was on the Iron Man tracker. And so yeah, so about 20 minutes before the start of |
| 1:51.3 | the swim, they canceled. Pretty interestingly announced that the pros were going to do a short, |
| 1:56.9 | short swim using a time trial start. And then we were going to be canceled and then expect to |
| 2:04.2 | start about eight in the morning. Yeah, they originally had a little bit of a rumor that we were |
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