Well organized. Thought it would be confusing but it was like clock work. The wave on deck counted the laps for the wave in the pool. They guy in front of me started hyperventilating and pulled himself out of the pool after 200 meters. Worked with him to get calmed down and convinced him to get back in the pool to finish it out. To his credit he did. Nice work to the guy in the green Chicago Accenture Triathlon cap.

Put in longer distance tempos into my training. I have to work on getting my heart rate up prior to my swim so my system doesn't spike.

Gotta get faster. I turned into a bit of a weather wimp and took time to put on a jacket and head band. Should've toughed it out and saved the time.

Everything.

Really boring course mainly through an industrial park. Organizers did everyone a huge favor by putting a ramp over some old train tracks. Northeast wind provided about a 1/2 mile worth of tailwind on every lap. Otherwise it was all into the wind.

Break down and finally look into getting aero bars.

Faster but not fast enough. But I am at the will of tieing my shoes. I can't do the fast ties on the shoes. Had to stop twice though to re-tie.

Not much.

Front of shins really stiff. There are ways that I usually avoid that in my ride by relaxing certain foot and lower leg muscles. It ended up slowing me considerably.

Walking around looking for my chip. As it turns out, I kicked it off my leg in the last half mile. They had the manual back-up for my time and ended up finding the chip on the course to avoid having to pay for it. The timing guys were really good about it.


Good warm up race. Its the 21st year of the race and they have it down to a science. Well organized and the volenteers at all the transition points and turns were great. Lots of cheering going on. Will definitely use it to start the season next year.