Highlighted by Kevin Nickel's overall Men's Elite division win and Jackie Pearce's runner up finish in the Female's Elite division, ECo athletes showed up frequently on the awards stand today.  

Kevin Nickel narrowly missed the TriZoo course record in a dominating victory.  Kevin was 4th after the 400m swim, but took over the lead shortly into the 14 mile bike.  His 32:31 (27.7 mph) bike split broke the bike course record.  This was an impressive accomplishment because the previous course record belonged to professional triathlete Andrew Starykowicz, who is regarded as one of the fastest triathlon bikers in the world.   Kevin extended his lead on the 3-mile run with the fastest run split of the day, 15:23 (5:08/mile).  His finishing time of 56:41 was 21 seconds off of Andrew's 2009 course record (where Andrew was pushed to the finish by Simon Lessing).  Very impressive performance from Kevin!  

Jackie Pearce showed up to TriZoo on the tail end of her final training block for Ironman Texas.  Jackie exited the water 25 seconds behind super-fast triathlete and eventual winner Sunny Gilbert of St. Louis, MO.  Jackie made up a few seconds on the bike with the fastest women's bike split (38:11, 23.6 mph) and left T2 26 seconds behind Sunny.  Jackie ran 18:15 (6:05/mile) for the 3-mile run and finished 38 seconds behind Sunny in 1:06:30.  This race showcased Jackie's versatility as a triathlete: she is training for an Ironman, but still is able to be competitive in short, fast triathlons.  Next up: Ironman Texas in 2 weeks!

Kevin and Jackie weren't the only ECo athletes who had excellent performances:

Women's 35-39 age group:  

Megan Weldon (pictured at left) swam 7:01, biked 44:01 (19.1 mph), and ran 21:14 (7:05/mile) to place 4th in 1:16:30.  Compared to last year, Megan improved in all 3 disciplines and was 4 minutes, 56 seconds faster than last year!  

Colleen Parsons (pictured at right) swam 7:51, biked 48:01 (17.5 mph), and ran 24:50 (8:17/mile) to place 11th in 1:25:30.  This was a solid performance considering Colleen recently took a week off of training for vacation and hasn't done proper speed work yet!  

Women's 40-44 age group:  

Jen Reisdorf (pictured at left with the CMC shirt) won her age group with an overall time of 1:16:11.  She had a 7:14 swim, a 42:35 (19.7 mph) bike, and a 21:23 (7:08/mile) run.  Not only is this Jen's first sprint triathlon in a LONG time, it came just one week after a 1/2 marathon PR.  Great job Jen!!  

Carrie Kimber (right) swam a age-group fastest 6:45, biked 48:28 (17.3 mph), and ran 28:02 (9:21/mile) to place 7th in 1:27:49.  Carrie is coming off of a hip injury which limited her running the past 2 months.  Now that she is healthy, watch out!

Men's 50-54 age group:

Greg Campbell placed 6th with a 7:55 swim, a 39:03 (21.5 mph) bike, and a 20:58 (7:00/mile) run and a 1:11:35 finishing time.  Excellent performance from Greg, who ran a PR 1/2 marathon last weekend AND still managed to go over 3 minutes faster than he ever has on this course!

Men's Clydesdale:

Brad Twigg swam 8:51, biked 42:33 (19.7 mph), and ran 20:11 (6:44/mile) for a finishing time of 1:16:04 to place 3rd.  Compared to last year's race, Brad was faster in all 3 disciplines and 7 minutes and 10 seconds faster!  Great job Brad!