Nikki Butterfield finished second place in the Boulder Ironman 5150 at the weekend for her third consecutive podium since her return to triathlon.Butterfield, the wife of Bermuda triathlete Tyler, moves from sixth to first place on the 5150 Points Ranking System, qualifying her for the HyVee Triathlon in Des Moines Iowa on September 4. HyVee Triathlon has the largest prize purse in the sport $1 million, with $100,000 each to the men and women’s winners.Butterfield, who gave birth to the couple’s daughter Savana earlier this year, said: “I really surprised myself yesterday, I wasn’t planning on racing after being on the road for three months, but I felt better coming back to altitude than I thought and I figured I had nothing to lose.”“I swam way better than I expected. I was planning on being four minutes behind Annabel (the eventual winner) out of the water but I was only third, then on the bike I rode similarly to Darmstadt but was able to put it together with a decent run this time rather than suffering like I did in my first race back.”“Now it’s time to settle into a consistent routine with eight weeks until HyVee. Of course I would like to do well there.”The former Under-23 world champion added: “I certainly didn’t expect to be leading the points table, the situations really favoured me for my three races in this series. The first race was a time-trial start format and a wetsuit swim (Darmstadt), then Austria was a wetsuit swim as well and a hilly bike course, then Boulder was a hometown race with lots of support. Things couldn’t have favoured me any better”n Bermuda’s top female triathlete Flora Duffy placed 13th in the Edmonton ITU Triathlon World Cup on Sunday. Her overall time was two hours, two minutes and 40 seconds.