My wave was allowed in the water at 8:20. I placed myself pretty close to the front, maybe the second or third row and somewhere in the middle in terms of left to right. The horn sounded and I just took off. I drafted on and off. More so I just kept my own pace and then if I came by someone who was going the same pace I would try to draft while keeping my pace and eventually we just got separated.

The nice thing about this swim is that it's along the seawall. So it's easy to navigate/sight and also easy to see your spectators. My mom wore a hot pink shirt so I could easily see her when I was breathing in that direction.

I exit the swim and my watch says 31:29 and I am THRILLED. Last year I think I exited the swim in 43 minutes (yup).

So this race is really a quadathlon bc it is SRBR. You exit the swim and must run at least 400m to get to the timing mats for transition (this is included in your swim time). The race had carpet this year so it was a lot easier on the feet. I am hauling a$$. Garmin has me running a 7:20 mile, which I didn't know was possible to run that fast in a wetsuit! Now I know. I took off my googles and cap and pulled my wetsuit down to my waist. I make it to the timing mats in about 2 minutes.

Not too much - I did tape up my foot (PF) and about 3/4 of the way through the swim I stopped swimming so I could rip off that tape bc it was dragging behind me, so maybe I wouldn't tape my foot next time.

Of course I get lost in transition. Go down the wrong rack all the way to the end and realized I'm in the wrong spot. Stopped and took a few seconds to figure it out. I was one rack over and 2 racks down. Got out of the wetsuit, put on bike shoes, sunglasses and helmet and off I go.

Do a better job of walking through transition to memorize my spot! I did take off about 40 seconds from my time last year so I'm happy with the improvement.

Make it to the bike course and I'm doing some mental math - I had a time goal for this race and my swim and T1 were a little bit faster than what I had thought so I was getting excited about what my finishing time could be.

I'm heading north on LSD and everything is going well. I'm averaging about 20mph (fast for me!). It's crowded so I had to pay attention to when passing someone - in addition there are these deep cracks (thank you, Chicago!!) that separate the two lanes blocked off on LSD, so you have to be careful when passing someone so you don't wipe out.

Make it to the turnaround and then I took in a Gu about 20 minutes in. Heading south on LSD now and I want to pass around this girl, who was riding in the middle on the left lane. I call out "On your right" (yeah...we pass on the right here) to her twice, but she didn't move over. I decide to just go around her. I go around and get my wheel stuck in those cracks dividing the lanes. I fall on my right side and go skidding a couple of feet.

I land and unclip my shoes. I shake out my arms and legs and I know I didn't break anything. I jump up and pick my bike up. I see that I dropped the chain and I am thinking, "oh no big deal, this will only cost me 2 minutes, tops." I am not in a good spot - I'm on the far right side of the blocked lanes, so closest to traffic. I wait until there is a gap in the racers and I run to the other side so I am out of the way while I put my chain on.

I'm having a pretty tough time. I cannot get it back on! I'm becoming increasingly frustrated and panicking about how much time I am losing. So I tell myself to chill out and take a second to look at the big picture. Then I notice: cassette broken, derailleur in pieces, chain broken, right gear shifters and brake levers completely off my handlebars and there is blood all over my bike seat, all over my greasy chain and all over my handlebars.

So my race was over. I stood up and tried to think what I should do - I was at Diversey, so about halfway between the turnarounds at Foster and Chicago. I did not want to walk my bike back along the bike route. I decided to cross LSD and get to the harbor. THat was probably stupid (maybe I did hit my head?) bc I had to cross the two trafficked lanes.

I make it to the harbor and ask the first people I see if I can use their cell phones. I called my family, who picked me up and then I went to the medi tent to get cleaned up (just road rash on my arms and legs and some cuts on my hands)

1. I was obsessed with my time for this race! I wasn't thinking about what I was doing now and staying in the present and kept looking ahead. I should have been focused on biking safely - paying better attention to other racers and road conditions.
2. I should have called out to the girl again or waited for the road to have better conditions before I passed.

So yeah, I was just thinking GO GO GO FASTER FASTER FASTER! and while that is all good, I had blocked out everything else

Got cleaned up in the medi tent, which was right next to the finish line. I had to walk backward through the post race party to get there. It was hard to be in there bc I saw all of the racers finishing and it was difficult to see everyone so tired but so happy. I really love that feeling in a race when you get to the point where you just want to quit bc it sucks so bad, but you continue and make it to the finish all spent but so happy and proud of yourself. And I didn't get to have that this race, sob!

Of course, I do realize the big picture. I broke my bike, not my body. I didn't skid into traffic. I bike commute and I had no issues with getting back on (my other) bike to get to work. There will be more races. And while road rash stings pretty bad, it has been kinda fun to revert back to a 5 year old and pick at the scab, haha!