Accenture Chicago Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

So we all line up, by wave. Fortunately, you knew your wave by the color swim cap. Funny thing happened. We were waiting to go and the wave, two ahead of us, with white caps, were all in the water getting ready to go, about 30 seconds till start for them. All of a sudden, this young lady comes weaving in and out of the bodies trying to throw her cap on and goggles. I hollered out "Better hurry darlin" and she kept going. Vinny announced over the PA after the horn sounded that that young lady is actually an Olympic long distance runner from Canada. Nice to see Pro's can have the same issues us rookies do. She literally made it into the water with 4 seconds to spare!!! That must have been one interesting warm up.

Anyway, we get in the water to do a floating start. GOOD LORD that water was cold! Of course, an entire wave made up of 34-39 men there were plenty of shouts of "I've got shrinkage". And before we knew it, the horn sounded and we were off. I seeded myself up front and I'm glad I did. I really didn't have that much bump and push. Which means I was able to get into a rhythm fairly quickly. And I did. Actually ran into a life boat once. Oops. Fortunately, wasn't going fast enough to do any damage and just kept plugging away while chuckling at myself and thinking about hangloose and his concussion at PP Oly last year.

I found out, on this swim, that I don't like straight shot swims. It is hard for me to gauge how much farther I have to go. Sure, I'm sighting fairly well after the life boat collision, but distance is difficult to determine. Then I realized that the others were either out and backs or at least a loop or something so I can gauge, in my mind, that I'm 1/2 one, or 2/3 done or something like that. I couldn't do that on this so I just kept swimming. I finally caught sight of the swim out platform and really started to pour it on. We had started 10 minutes after the wave before us, and I was passing the BOP's from that wave. Man, they must be incredibly slow. Got to the steps, had a small stumble getting out, then I was up the stairs and on my way to the transition. Looked at my watch and it had just over 15 minutes. Not the best swim, but oh well.

Now, this run to transition made SoR look like a cake walk. This was over concrete! NOT FUN. I got about half way to the swim in chute and started to feel both calves cramping up. Crap. Not good. I haven't even made it on the bike yet. Fortunately, my bike was at the top of a hill which actually helped stretch out my calves. Looked at my watch and the battery low signal was on. Oh well!

Probably nothing. I think the swim was quite good, just an incredibly long run to T1. Saw lots of folks with shoes for after the swim. Not worth it, in my opinion.

T2 was a heck of a lot faster than I thought. Best one this year. Once I got to the bike (stuck behind a slow poke getting there) the suit came off very quickly and on went the helmet first, then the glasses and pocketed the Gu. Slipped both shoes on (the right on liner slipped a bit, but didn't want to take the time to fix it). Pulled the bike off the rack, and started to head to the exit. Got out of the exit, past the line, kept running and did a running leap! I DID IT without practicing. Clicked the first shoe in and I was off. Clicked the watch, looked at it and DOUGH, double clicked it so it was already in T2. Dangit. This watch is not going to cooperate today, so I stopped the timer altogether thinking I would save it for the run so I could keep track of my pace!

I think the only thing I might do differently in the future is possibly get Tri bike shoes. Other than that, I'm thrilled with this T1.

I could not get my legs under me going out. Coming out of T1, I hit the hill well in a nice low gear and got to the top of it. My HR spiked a little so I kept the gear low and spun till I got to the down hill and upped it a bit to start getting my speed up. That worked for a little bit but my HR was still a bit high (not that I would know it from my watch since it was almost dead and I stopped the timer on it because of my goof up in T1, but I could just feel it, which is kind of cool that I now know my body without the watch telling me). Even though the hills were little, I was having a hard time on them, but I never got out of the saddle.

Finally, around mile 5-6 my HR started to drop, just in time for the turn around. So, I turned, had to pass someone on the inside because they took the turn so incredibly wide and took off. I knew I had it. Wish my Garmin was still going to get an idea of just how good my negative split was, but I know it was good because even on the hills I never got below 20 mph! Wouldn't find out till later just how good that negative split was and found out the whole bike average was 19.5!

Anway, hit the last hill, bridge going over the river, at a good clip. Passed tons of people on the course and was probably only passed by maybe less than 2 dozen folks. Made the turn down the ramp and started to stretch my calves by standing up and droping my heel's down. Felt good enough so I reached down and loosened the straps in preperation for the dismount. All went well and into the chute for the next transition.

T.I.T.S = TIME IN THE SADDLE. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Well considering the enormity of the tranisition area, to get in and out in just over 2 minutes is not too bad. I had one fairly slow person in front of me coming into the T2 and I couldn't get around them. Made it to the rack and had just a little difficulty getting the bike back on but not too bad. Off came the shoes, on went the runners, helmet off, hat on, off I go. Down to the run out chute and finally got to start my watch again so I could at least keep track of my run pace.

Nothing. Good T2. Not the best of the year, but pretty darn good considering.

Well, it now appears, based on my ranking, that running has become my weakest. Who knew? Anyway, three things happened coming out of the chute. The first was an idiot runner (NOT IN THE RACE) was trying to run down the trail into transition. The guy on the PA (not Vinny) was saying to her "What part of you cannot go through here do you not understand!". Funny. Can't she tell there is a race going on?

The second thing that happened was I saw to people walking fairly slowly but with numbers on. Then I realized one was sight impaired. So as I passed him I hollered out "Keep it up big guy, good job". He hollered a thanks back. Man, that really does show that nothing is impossible!

The third thing coming out of the chute was trying to find the family and friends. They beat me to it, they found me. Cheering on the side. Got me to grin big and Steph got a great photo of me smiling. Can't wait to get that one and post it. Actually she got quite a few photo's (120+ to be exact) and I can't wait to see the finished product.

Anyway, off on the race. Nice course. Mostly on the paved trail but part of it was on some of the grass. Either way, well marked and very, very flat. Only two small hills and they were more like bumps. Got behind one guy that was running and based on his number I could have sworn he was in the Oly distance, but he ran the whole thing. Anyway, passed by one girl ringing a cow bell and I hollered out "You can't have too much cow bell, this song needs more cow bell", and then he started in. We actually carried on a conversation for about 400m when he was going to slow so I passed him and took off. Kept a good solid pace going, not too fast not too slow. Right around 8:45, which is what I wanted.

Made the turn around and there were four girls ringing cow bells. This started off a fire storm of Cow Bell requests and they went nuts. Absolutely hilarious. Got me to giggling in the run and had me picking up the pace just a little bit.

Fast forward to the last 400m. Under LSD and up a slight incline to get onto Columbus for the finish. I had already picked up the pace and when I got onto Columbus started to really pour it on. Passed this lanky African-American guy and next thing I know, he is on my heel saying "Let's go" so we then really kicked it up. I know I went anaerobic for the last 100m because when I crossed the finish line, it was all I could do to not hurl all over the ladies cutting off the timing chips!!!!!!

Looked down at my watch and sure as shooting, didn't do too bad, averaged 8:30. Really need to work on getting that average down this year.

I think I need to do some speed training, or something. I wouldn't do anything different on this run, in particular. I'm now consistantly averaging 8:30 or so. It's now down to training for next year.

After I got my finishers medal, I started looking around for the fam. Found them and got a cup or two of water to cool off. We chatted over the fence for a minute or two, they looked at the medal, blah, blah, blah. I told them I was going to get a nana and bagel, I did, and met them outside.

We walked around the area for a bit talking some more. Then we realized we had 2 1/2 hours before I could get into transition to get my stuff. So Beth gave me my clean clothes in the back pack and I went to change in a porto-john.

Came back and Mum and Dan said they were going to take off. Beth, Steph and Danny and I then went on a little adventure. We all agreed we were starving (they had only had coffee) and a Bloody Mary sounded great. Well, walk we did, for 30 minutes, trying to find a decent place for eats. We finally did, in a hotel, but of course liquor can't be sold before 11 am. I will never understand that. Anyway, I chowed down!!!!

By the time we finished, it was time to pick up the bike. The ladies went to the car, Danny and I went to the bike. He got to sneak in with me and was amazed at the size. Met the ladies back on Monroe, loaded up and took off for home to rest and get ready for what was a great Brad Paisley concert.


Two things limited my ability to perform faster.

1. Training in general. Sure I've improved this year, but that was one limiter.

2. The second is just the over all enormity of this event. Especially the distance from the swim out to the tranisition.


This was originally my A race. But after I got there, I just decided to have fun. I'm going to do it again next year, but I think next year, this will be my Oly bump race. That way, there is no pressure to improve from this year, I will just have fun, all over again.