I had a great swim and partly because I was able to find someone to draft. After rounding the first buoy there was a fast lady in my wave and noticed she was swimming pretty straight so I stuck with her until we exited the water. I'm sure part of the swim time includes the nice long run from getting out of the water all the way to transition so gunned it!

Nothing at all, this was one of my best swims so far and I couldn't be happier.

Such a big transition area it's hard to get in and out of there quickly. However, I'm sure I can make some improvement here. My wetsuit was hard to take off and I almost forgot to take off my swim cap and realized it when I tried putting on my bike helmet.

I was really running to get to my spot that it was the only thing I was thinking of. Must pay more attention to detail.

Extremely happy with the bike, I really surprised myself on this one! This was the first time going by HR for an OLY and it made a big difference in my decision making. I wanted to keep my HR in mid-zone4 since I knew I can keep that up for quite a while. After getting out of transition, though, my HR was just above zone5 and the first thing there was after getting on the bike was a nice sized hill, for Chicago anyway! I didn't worry about it too much and decided to get up the hill and let my HR drop on the decent. There was some decent tail wind going north but not too much to launch me to 26mph+.

Lake Shore Drive rolls a little on it's overpasses so it's definitely not a flat course, at least not to me! I let my HR go up into high zone4 and sometimes hit zone5 on those rollers but pretty much kept it steady during the ride.

One thing that may have costed me a few seconds was that I took my feet out my my shoes way too early. I was on my second lap and passing up the turnaround I though transition would be just around the corner but I didn't remember from last year that it was a little further. No worries though, this was my best bike split and can't be happier!

I should make it a habit of knowing the course a little better which would have helped this time in where I decide to get my feet out of my shoes.

Horrible! 42sec slower than last year. I had this great spot in transition last year and it was easy to get to in both T1 and T2. This year there wasn't room in my wave's racks so I had to rack my bike in another wave (sorry, no choice!!). After setting up in the morning I did a test run to it to remember where it was, but only from swim in, I didn't test it out from bike in.

I ended up getting lost for a little bit going to some further racks so that cost some time. Then when I got there I took my shoes out of a plastic bag (it was suppose to rain) and realized I never tied them! DOH! So I just sat down, put my socks on, then my shoes and tied them. Boo!! I can possibly be faster about 1:30-2:00min if my transitions were perfect.

Again, just pay more attention to detail, I feel I have a good amount of time to gain by having better transitions.

Just as on the bike I focused on keeping my HR in mid-zone4, which was hard to do at the pace I was running and knew I can hold. Ended up staying around high zone4 with some bouts in zone5. The whole last mile was in zone5 actually. I was really hurting after the 3rd mile but I kept pushing and keeping the pace. At mile 4 I quoted Lance Armstrong in my head, "Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take it's place. However, if I quit it lasts forever."

I really like that quote because it's true. I only needed to go through a few more minutes of pain and then it's over and I can rest. I said it again to myself on mile 5 and picked up the pace a little. Hit mile 6 and opened the throttle as much as I can (it wasn't much though) and barreled toward the finish line.

I'm a runner, so it's my favorite part of a triathlon. I was glad to have not gotten passed during the run...not once. I guess I was lucky that the fast runners were ahead of me or in much later waves that they couldn't catch up haha.

Not a thing, I gave the run everything I had and was glad to hit that finish line so that pain can be replaced by the joy of knowing I just hit a big PR!

Walked around, drink lots of fluids and after my stomach settled I had some yogurt.


Transitions!


Not sure why there are some that don't like the Chicago Triathlon, it's a great race. Some also complain that it's too crowded but for two years in a row now I've gotten my best OLY times here. It's possible that I may do it again next year because I like it so much.