Life Time Tri Chicago - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

I started off feeling really strong and was trailing a lead group of about 5 or 6 swimmers. I don't think I gave up ground within my wave to anyone else (there was another wave of 40-44's behind me), but I didn't stay as close to the lead group as I would have liked. Once we caught the wave in front of us, I didn't do a great job working my way through the slower swimmers, and I got out of rythym a bit. I was also not familiar with the swim exit and didn't realize until too late that I had to round a final bouy before making the exit, and, as a result, I wound up getting caught in congestion making the last turn. Very frustrating because the stairs were just off to the side, and I got stuck treading/breast-stroking (yeah, yeah . . . get your mind out of the gutter) just to get the heck out of the water.

Take the last bouy wide.

I had a good T1. There were only 5 people in my age group who were out of T1 faster than me, and that was with a slight glitch with my wetsuit stuck on my timing chip strap. I was within :15 of all but the fastest person. Except for the wetsuit on the timing strap, I was efficient at the rack, so the only thing I can do is to always push to run relatively hard out of the water.

Not much other than to make sure that my chip strap is entirely UNDER my wetsuit.

This was a good ride. I really like being able to put my head down and ride a straight shot up and down Lake Shore Drive. Frankly, it's kind of what Leon's advertises, but with a better road and more uninterrupted time in the same direction on a highway. I actually thought my pace would have been a little faster based on eyeballing my speed throughout the race, but it is what it is - the numbers don't lie. My power was about where it was at Tower, but I didn't feel quite as spent at the end.

Nothing really. Keep training and developing my bike fitness.

My T2 was OK, but I could have been faster. I was 12 out of T2 in my age group and was within :20 of most of the people who made it out faster than me. I made the mistake of using someone else's sign as a landmark to find my bike. The thing about landmark's is that they are supposed to immutable, always there for you. The sign fell over, I ran right past it, and spent about 5-10 seconds looking a little dubofunded. Once I had my bike racked, I was out of my helmet and into my shoes pretty quickly, but for some reason, I found myself standing over my space feeling like I was forgetting something. I wasn't. I just had to shake myself out of it and go.

Know what I need and don't stop to think. Shoes, belt, visor, go. Know where my space is. 12 seconds would have bumped me up 2 spots, which was a little coincidental (because it was about 2 minutes to #9), but every second counts.

Decent run. I would have like to have gone faster, but I pushed myself based on how I was feeling, and think that I had the right pace. I feel like I've learned from racing a lot this summer just how much I can push myself, and even though this was a short run, there is still the potential to blow up by going too fast, especially after the swim and bike. I was pushing hard enough to hurt, and eased off when I felt like I was going to plunge over the cliff. I also feel like this was a good way to wrap up the season. I started the season at Tower, where I blew up in the middle of the run. After a longer swim and similar effort on the bike at Chicago, I was able to hang on to a decent pace throughout and came in about :35/mile faster. Good closure.

Not much. Keep developing my run fitness.

Food, drink, massage. Tried to bank some good karma for next year by cheering people on for a while and helping the Team to End Aids' volunteers transport their racers' gear bags up to the post-race area from the lakefront.


Fitness . . . on to next season.


I had a great time. Fun race. Well organized. Even though it's a colossally large event, it was well-executed and a great experience.