“My grandfather died exactly a week ago,” Beals told Ironman emcee Mike Reilly. “He was a big fan of mine. He had a poster of me and liked to brag to his friends about it all of the time. He was on my mind all day. I just wanted to honor him with that performance.”

Despite all of that, Beals pulled through with a dominating performance to claim the 2022 Ironman Lake Placid on Sunday.

For Beals, the win was filled with a lot of emotion and a sense of relief. The Guelph, Ontario native told Reilly that he almost quit the sport a lot of times, but just kept showing up.

“It’s been three years since my last full-distance win,” Beals said to the Enterprise. “I’ve never raced here in Lake Placid, but I’ve heard it’s an epic event and it sure delivered. Man, it just feels good to be back in form again.”

Racing in the men’s professional division, Beals completed the 140.6-mile triathlon, which features a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run in 8 hours, 15 minutes, 11 seconds.

Beals didn’t have the fastest swim time or the fastest time on the bike. The 32-year-old had to find his groove during the running portion of the race.

“The bike course utterly humbled me,” Beals said to the Enterprise. “I thought I was pretty cool in the first lap. But man, I’ve never faded so hard. I had to rally on the run and it took a huge emotional effort.”

Around the 20-mile mark of the running portion, then-leader Justin Metzler started to cramp up. With around six miles left in the race, Beals was able to catch up to Metzler. Beals had the fastest time on the run, averaging 6:23 per mile.

“I found a gear I had no idea I had,” Beals said to the Enterprise.

Austria’s Michael Weiss, who had the fastest bike time and the second fastest run time, did everything he could to catch up to Beals but finished just a couple of minutes short.

Weiss finished in second place in a time of 8:23:25, while Pamphiel Pareyn, of Belarus, rounded out the podium in third place in 8:23:25. Metzler took fourth place in 8:27:28, while Matt Russell, the 2019 Ironman Lake Placid champion finished in fifth place in 8:28:54.

For Beals, the win secured him a spot in the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii from Oct. 6-8.