Copper Creek Triathlon

Colin and my mom came to town over the weekend for the 2nd 1st annual (it got rained out last year) Copper Creek Triathlon. I had told Col about it a few months ago and wasn't sure if he'd be interested because the big HyVee Triathlon is in a couple weeks and he was already planning on do that one in Des Moines, but he decided to sign up for it. The total prize purse was pretty enticing...about $5000 divided among the top 3 men and women. So he had a goal: top 3. But we had no idea what the competition would be like. This was a sprint triathlon so it was a shorter distance than some (not an Olympic lenght or a half Ironman like he's done a few of recently): 750m swim, 20k bike, and 5k run.

The race started at 8am so we headed over to Pleasant Hill around 6:30am so he could get his bike set up and warm up a little. There ended up being a lot of fog that morning so they delayed the race by about 15-20 minutes. Colin was in the first heat of athletes to start so we watched them start the swim then walked over to near where they would exit the water so we could see what place he was out of the water (you can't tell who is who in the water anyhow because there are so many of them). He ended up being 8th out of the water and we ran over to the transition area to see him get on his bike. I guess he passed a couple people in transition but ended up being passed while biking so came back 8th to start the run. The funny thing was the first guy in on his bike was ahead of all the other athletes by a good 4 minutes. We were wondering where everyone else was? After Colin left transition to go run, we walked over to the lake where the finish line was and were looking for him across the lake. They had to run up a road into the neighborhood and then back down again and then go around the lake to finish. The guy who had the lead still had the lead and won with a time of 56:05. We kept watching for Colin (usually we can tell which one he is by his stride and his outfit but this time we couldn't). We finally saw him come up the home stretch in 6th place! He had passed 2 people on the run which was really good. We stayed around awhile after that for the awards ceremony at 11:00 and he ended up finishing first in his age group (20-24) although technically he was second since one of the guys who finished top 3 was 24 yo. But he got to stand on the podium stand so that was pretty cool! Colin's time ended up being 1:00:55 and we had found out later that the guy who won who was ahead of everyone else was also a professional triathlete so that made a little more sense. Maybe next year!

Colin before the race

Getting out of the water (8th)

Getting on the bike in transition

Rachel, Colin, and Mom

Getting his award for first place in his age group