by Don Peddy
Copper Creek Triathlon
750 m swim, 20 km bike, 5 km run
Pleasant Hill, Iowa
June 14, 2015
It wasn’t fun, until I was done
The Copper Creek Triathlon finished with a 5 kilometer run through Pleasant Hill and around the lake at Copper Creek. I had already completed a 750 meter swim and a 12.4 mile (20 kilometer) bike ride. The first mile or so of the run was a pretty good incline. It was during that climb, that it occurred to me, "This is not fun."
by Conner Bernstein
My name is Connor Bernstein and I was the youngest boy racer at Copper Creek Triathlon on June 22, 2014. I started out doing the triathlon as a team with my family. My parents and I have been a team for the last two years. My mom swims, my dad bikes, and I finish the race by running. There’s a joke in my family that my parents always “fire” the runner, looking for someone faster. Well after two years, I was the longest lasting runner on their relay team ever.
by Christian Baughman, Kyle’s Bikes 2014 Triathlon Team
Well, I didn’t take the finish line down this weekend. I did knock out my sprint distance PR by several seconds. And I found my new favorite sprint triathlon! There’s a reason why TJ Tollakson and Iowa Momentum magazine name it their top sprint: Copper Creek Triathlon is a real class act.
It is very well organized, including a monitored swim preview on Saturday, a very clearly communicated race schedule, and really decent swag! Not to mention there is a bar patio that overlooks the run course for the spectators. The course is very good and the transition and finish line areas are well laid out. I can’t believe I haven’t raced it before, but I’m sure I’ll be back.
by Andy Bernholtz, Kyle’s Bikes 2014 Triathlon Team
Phones are out. Radar is pulled up. Are we going to get to race the Copper Creek Triathlon this year? Storms are on their way!
I had transition set up! I was ready to race. I walked down to the swim start to do a quick warm-up. I was stopped. Start time had been moved up to avoid the coming storm. This race was going to start this year, regardless!
by Scott Carkhuff, Kyle’s Bikes 2014 Triathlon Team
The Copper Creek Triathlon was my first sprint tri of the year. That and just coming off of a foot injury that sidelined me for 3–4 weeks, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. The event started at 8:00 a.m., and I knew there was a chance of rain. I was just hoping it would hold off so we could start the race.
I showed up to the event at about 6:15, and got a decent spot in transition. The swim warm-up was from 7:00–7:30. Fellow teammate, Andy Bernholtz, and I headed over to jump in the water and get a little swim done. We arrived at the start and we noticed everyone getting out. Then we heard they were not allowing anymore swimmers in the water because they were going to start the event 15 minutes early. The guy monitoring the swim area said they were shortening the length of the swim also. That would actually be untrue.
by Shawn Blaesing-Thompson, Kyle’s Bikes 2014 Triathlon Team
I have been doing triathlons since 2007 but racing Copper Creek Triathlon was a day of firsts for me:
It was supposed to be my first time racing on the Kyle’s Bikes Specialized Alias Comp Tri. Saturday night I aired things up, pulled the bike bags off of my road bike, and loaded the Alias into the car. Sunday morning, I was up at 5:15 a.m. to a glorious sunrise and checked the weather. The radar was not looking promising. Storms were coming in so I made the call to switch to the back to the road bike. I am used to riding it and felt more comfortable on it should the rains arrive before I got done with the bike portion of the race. I did a quick check of my gear. I should have checked my list twice.
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