Wauconda Triathlon - Sprint Course : Official Thread (Page 2)

I got sixth overall in the olympic and first in my AG!  It was ran pretty well I thought but there is deff some areas for improvement.

Yes the swim felt long as well.  I know that the 100-150 yards run to T1 had something to do with our times but, not enough.  It said I swam like close to 1:36 per 100 yards or whatever.  I swim faster than that when I am just cruising along half way easy in the pool.  I'm guessing it was close to 2000 yards give or take 100.  I should have wore my garmin and I could tell you all what it was.

I didn't like the bottle neck at the spot where we got out of the water.  I was stuck behind two slow people "walking" up the ramp.  I said excuse me and squeezed inbetween both of them.  Sorry if it was one of you but, hey i'm here to race!

They really need to get overall results out MUCH quicker next year though.  It was sad seeing all the medals that didn't get picked up because of people figuring they didn't place and just left.  That made me pretty upset with the timing company/ whoever was in charge of that.

Good job everyone!

Well I didn't podium like all you guys, but thoroughly enjoyed the race.

Swim was obviously long, but I honestly didn't notice until I got out and, jogging to transition the guy next to me asked "did that feel long?"  Being completely honest I answered, "no, it felt short!"  He had a watch so I asked what it said and he said...37minutes...doh!  I then said it must have indeed been long.  But felt ok to me, sighting was a bit of a challenge, I don't know how they expect you to see that little shed on the way in.  Strobe light my rear end.  They need to put a big balloon there or something.

This was the best I've ever felt during an oly until the friggin hills in the middle of the run.  Damn, I had no idea the course was going to do that...I've done the sprint before and there are no crazy hills on that.  But the entire out and back on the olympic course was basically steep ups and downs for the whole 3 miles.  It killed my run time, gave me crazy side stitches under my rib cage and I just wasn't able to power through it.  Slowed to a crawl for probably a mile and a half on that roller coaster.

But, had a good time for me personally and had a lot of fun.

I've done Chicago oly 3 times, and Wauconda sprint 2x and now the Olympic this year, so I might be the perfect guy to answer your questions...

Starting with the swim....you will likely have less elbow room in Chicago.  There are a lot of people out there, your wave will be 75-100 people and that doesn't even really matter because you'll be all mixed in with the waves in front and behind you at the end anyway.  You may somehow find room and swim totally comfortably, I think it's just a luck of the draw type thing whether or not you get space.  Try swimming outside by the rowboats if you want space.

However - what you give up in space in Chicago, you make up for in sighting.  It's super easy to sight and follow the course in Chicago...you're basically swimming down a hallway with the seawall and dry land to one side, and the rowboats and harbor on the other side.  So no matter which way you turn to breathe, you see something solid and close to you - you never get the feeling that you're out in the middle of nowhere that you can get in the middle of these lakes sometimes.  Also, you can usually see the bottom, which is another sort of steadying influence that can help some people.  And the course won't be long, they've got it figured out.

The bike will be less hilly than Wauconda, but will feature quite a bit more traffic - there are a lot of bikes in Chicago.  They may have done some road work since I last did Chicago 2 years ago, but at that time I'd say Lake Shore Drive was in bad to terrible shape for most of the course.  Worse overall than Wauconda for sure.  Usually there's a headwind going north and tailwind coming back south.  It can be a lot of fun riding on lake shore drive, but after doing it three times, I had enough...always seems dangerous out on the bike course with so many different skill levels on the course at once.

The run is flat as can be...usually going to be HOT, as the olympic distance doesn't get out there till later in the day, and often pretty windy as well, being next to the lake and all.

Overall...it's totally different than Wauconda, simply because of the scope of things.  Transition is huge, there's thousands of people competing, etc.  More energy though...music, PA guys cracking wise, people everywhere, etc.  As long as you can just find a liiiiiitle bit of room on the swim, I'm confident you'll have tons of fun.

Here is my Race Report for Sunday's race.  Still crossing my fingers they send me my medal!

http://140point6toglory.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/2nd-overall-wauconda-olympic-triathlon-rr/