Echo Triathlon

The Bad: The main problem was the buoys in Echo Reservoir drifted significantly, resulting in a 3100m swim for me instead of 1500m. The slower you swam, the exponentially longer your swim time was, ouch. I confirmed this issue with multiple athletes who also tracked their swims at 2735m+. My spectating spouse thought something bad had happened when I was significantly overdue out of the water. This soured the rest of the race experience, leaving participants strewn farther apart and without nearby competition to push performance. The swag was mediocre (no shirt or hat), and the parking was a mess. They started cleaning up before the delayed participants could finish, felt bad for them since it wasn't their fault the swimming took much longer than planned. The Good: the volunteers, beautiful location, scenic cycling, nice swim cap, entertaining MC, chip timing went smooth, course information available online, organized transition area, and Creamies.

Mark N. has attended 1 times

Echo is a beautiful course, but this year the sprint swim was Olympic distance. Even before the start you could see the first buoy was way out of place. Disappointed there was no shirt. Bike and run courses were very scenic. Liked the MC, especially at the finish.

David E. has attended 3 times

Swim start was better than I expected. They did a mass start due to the water level being so high but since there were only 70 participants doing the long distance we didn’t feel crowded. Swim went great, though it was hard to see the buoys when the sun came up over the mountains. Bike course was marked well. There were a few spots where I wasn’t quite sure where to go but because I studied the course map beforehand generally knew where the turns were. Bike dismount and transition were awful. There were many spectators and a car in the middle of where I was supposed to turn when I was coming in. I was confused what path to take to get into transition (should have walked it through that morning). What really frustrates me was all of the people in transition that were NOT still racing. There were people(from the shorter distances) walking in groups, slowly gathering their things while I was trying to run through transition with my bike. Way too congested! Run course was a partially dirt path. 3 aid stations, hardly any shade. Volunteers took down the fence around the bikes 2 hours before the race finished! There was little security monitoring who went into transition to pick up their bikes and gear. And by the time I was finished my bike was completely exposed. My very expensive bike could have been taken by anyone! All in all I had a good time and really appreciated the volunteers on the bike and run course!