Danskin Women's Triathlon - Chicagoland (Pleasant Prairie, WI) - TriathlonSprint

Ah, the swim. The site of my first ever panic-hyperventilation attack in the water. Memories...

I thought this was a better swim than it turned out to be. Sighted pretty damn well for me, thought I kept up a decent pace. Still - can't seem to get under 17 minutes on this swim. I suppose I'm swimming the pace that I do in training (that's what my recent 1000m TT pace was), but I always figure that races should bring out a little more in me.

That said, I don't think I could have pushed any harder. I did spend some time completely stopped to sight -- my goggles had fogged up ... the sun in this race is brutal -- right in the eyes and impossible to see.

So, I suppose I'm pleased with everything but the time it took me to finish this segment. :)

Faster.

Pretty decent T1. Had about a 5-second "duh..." moment as my brain went completely blank at one point. But - not too much time to shave off this transition.

Nada.

HOLY CRAP was it WINDY! Going out (and back in) over the two overpasses, the crosswinds were horrendous. The first part of the loop was with the wind and I just tried to keep pushing as much as possible, knowing that it would be bad very soon. Actually hit 32mph on one of the downhills! And then....

You turned a corner and the wind hit like a brick wall. And you were about 50 ft. from a decent-sized hill. Figures. :) Probably only the Joliet ride this year had winds that were worse. Really struggled, but pushed through it pretty hard. Was pleased with my performance given the conditions.

Was passed by only one girl on the bike... and I passed her back... and then she passed me... and at the very end I caught her again. HA! It was fun having someone to chase.

Never really caught my breath AT ALL on the bike. I left everything out on the course, which came back to haunt me on the run...

Make a deal with Mother Nature to calm the winds down before I got on the course. :)

Great transition for me. Got my feet out of the clips and rode with my feet on top the shoes and managed to jump off my bike without hurting me or anyone else around me.

Nada.

Not my best run. First mile was sub-8 which was perfect, but then I fell apart a little in the second mile. Walked a bit and had a hard time keeping up my pace. By the third mile, the girl that I played chase with on the bike had caught up to me... I heard someone breathing hard right behind me, and I couldn't believe it was her! She passed me... but that wasn't going to happen! So, I caught up with her, ran behind her for about 20 seconds, then kicked it in, passed her and left her in my dust. :)

Very hot run -- they had hoses set up all around the 1.5-2 mile mark, but not much outside of that. Could use a water stop a little earlier in the course.

Not sure. If I didn't go so hard on the bike, I would have had more left for the run, but I'm not sure that it would have been worth it. While I was about a minute off my goal time, I'm not completely displeased with this run, given the conditions (hot and did I mention the WIND???).

Got to see all my friends come in! I really think that's the part of the race that I enjoy the most.


Heat and wind.


I say this every year... I love the race itself -- it's well-done, organized and very inspiring -- but am 100% aggravated by everything else about it.

The expo: sucked. Few vendors, sub-par goody bag. As far as I found, they didn't even have a booth where I could buy gel.
Parking: don't even get me started on this. Every year they have more and more women competing, but they can't seem to handle all the cars.
Post-race: one bagel and piece of fruit per athlete. I understand that they need to have something for everyone, but with as big as Danskin is, don't you think they could get more stuff there? More variety?

Now that I'm done venting... the race is totally inspiring. We stayed and cheered a lot of women into the finish chute, and I literally tear up seeing some of the women and their courage and drive and motivation and pure JOY at accomplishing something like this. Sometimes I take for granted that I have the ability to do these things, and but witnessing the determination it takes for some of the cancer survivors to finish make me realize that the opportunity to compete is a gift, and we need to treat it as such.