Swim, bike, run — and a piggyback ride

COEUR d’ALENE — Megan Leary finished ahead of husband Shaun at the Hayden Triathlon on Saturday.

But that’s not important.

What counted was that per tradition, when Shaun was running to the finish line at Honeysuckle Beach, Megan hopped on for a piggyback ride.

“She gets the piggyback ride every year,” Shaun Leary said. “It’s important to her.”

The Learys ran this race on their wedding day nine years ago, July 13, 2013. They’ve returned each year.

Asked if Megan had yet to give him a piggyback ride, Shaun shook his head.

“She can’t carry 200 pounds yet,” he said, smiling.

On a beautiful sunny morning, about 270 people participated in the Hayden Triathlon, which returned after a three-year hiatus.

Starting in waves about five minutes apart, they completed a half-mile swim in a calm Hayden Lake, a 12-mile bike ride and a 3.1-mile run.

Shannon Horn of Post Falls won the men’s division in 57 minutes, 8 seconds, while Hannah Levy of Pullman, Wash., led the women in 1:09:59.

Lowell Smith, Chris Stoddard and Jake Chapman teamed up to bring the race back this year. They received strong support, with 20 businesses on board, and as a nonprofit, proceeds will go to local organizations.

They met for three hours, once a week, for eight months, to put it together and were pleased with the response.

Smith, of Hayden, said they simply emailed previous participants and got more than the 250 they were hoping would register.

"It’s been amazing,” he said.

There was only one minor mishap, Smith said: They forgot safety pins.

“We had 270 people, 270 race bibs and no safety pins to give them,” he said, laughing. “We had to sprint over to Walmart to grab a little box of safety pins. But that’s not a bad hiccup.”

Spectators were enthusiastic, too.

Ryan Bones, owner of Beyond Bones Chiropractic in Coeur d’Alene, and wife Cassidy were rooting for Bri Lange, an associate doctor at Beyond Bones.

Cassidy held a sign that read, “She Came, She Tri’d, She Conquered.”

“We always want to show up for our employees, for our team,” Ryan Bones said. “We have a very family like culture in our office and so when she said she was going to do the triathlon, there's no way that we couldn’t be here to cheer her on.”

Lange finished in 1:25:50.

“She crushed it,” Ryan Bones said.

Truman Cowan, 21, of Missoula, Mont., was the first finisher but with the wave start system, actually came in second in 1:01:48 based on time.

Before the race, he thought he had a shot at winning.

“I knew if I could push a little bit harder that it would be possible,” Cowan said. “In the last mile, I gave it everything I had.”

Stephanie Todd of Coeur d’Alene had a solid day, too, and was greeted by her family at the finish.

“Felt really good,” said Todd, who also completed Ironman 70.3 Coeur d’Alene two weeks ago. “The swim was amazing, the water was smooth.”

Megan Leary, who won the 30-39 age group in 1:19:01, hadn’t competed in a triathlon in five years.

“I used to race more back in the day, before children. And then it just got away from me,” she said.

With kids ages 3 and 5 today, the Learys focus on family.

But Megan and Shaun said they managed to sneak in some biking, running and swimming over the past month.

What did they think?

“It went well for how much I trained,” Shaun Leary said.

“I don’t race anymore, so it was kind of weird,” Megan said.

Not too weird, though.

She won again and got that piggyback ride.