Echo Triathlon - Olympic - TriathlonOlympic

I made a conscious decision to not go out hard and kill myself the first few hundred yards...and it paid off. The traffic wasn't horrible, but I seeded myself too far back so I had to pass some people. It was a little more choppy than I expected, but not too bad. The sun hindered my sighting on the final turn, but was ok. I was very happy with my sighting and buoy turning. When I got out of the water, my watch read 31 minutes...WTF!?!?! I did the same swim last year in 26 m. It was long, and I asked many and they agreed. Oh, well....

Nothing...it went well.

I had trouble getting my wetsuit leg off my chip leg. This transition is in the dirt, and that caused me a bit of trouble getting the soles of the feet cleaned off of gravel/rocks for my bike shoes. Need to remember to do the towel to stand on next year.

Towel on the groud!

When I got on my bike, I realized I forgot to put my bike computer on!!! UGH!!! I'm a data junky, so that hurt. Plus I like to know how far I've gone and have left to go. No problem, I have my Garmin. I used my tongue to press the button to start it. Good to go.

This is a tricky bike course. It's an out and back. The Out is a false flat for much of the time. Getting the right gearing is tricky. Sometime after I passed the sprint turnaround and realized I haven't been hearing my Garmin's mile chime, look down...not on. UGH!!! I hit the wrong button. Garmin on for real this time....but I not sure how far I've gone.

Finally get to the turnaround, so I know I'm 1/2 way finished. :) The Back was very fast. I was able to hammer the way down. There was only a couple of uphill sections---one right before the finish!

Hit a small pothole trying to avoid a bigger one...scary for a second.

Had 2 GU's on the bike---one when I got on and one about 15 minutes before I got off.

Bike time was 1 minute slower than last year...but this year felt better.

Remember my bike computer!

Long run with the bike to get to my T spot. Everything went ok.

The run went better than I expected. It was overcast so the heat didn't affect me much like last year. Saw many of my tri club friends on the course, so that always helps.

What I didn't realize is that the Out is mostly uphill, so the Back was nice.

This year's time was 1 minute longer than last year, which shocked me. I thought this year's run was way better than last year.


Not much...went ok.

Cookies and Water. :)

Some ITB stretching. Chatted with my friends.


Echo is a very good race. TriUtah puts on very good events.

I can't really compare this year's time with last year's due to the "alleged" longer swim. ;-) Last year, I swam it in 25m vs. 31m--I'm NOT 6 minutes slower this year with a good swim. :)

Bottom line, I'm happy I finished and got to enjoy it with my friends.