Lifetime Chicago Triathlon Race Review

Well, here we are. The day after another big race. Let's see what we can recall from this past weekend's festivities.

Saturday was packet pick up. Like any true money-making venture, packet-pickup was filled with hundreds of vendors all selling discounted triathlon clothing and gear. And where, of course, was the actual pick up? At the end of the expo after you have walked through all of the vendors. This is much like any other big race in any big city. It was unlike my Ironman experience though because Ironman wants to protect their brand- so they are the only vendors at packet pickup. Overall it was a good Satruday. Had Ben Meils accompany on my trip which made the experience much more enjoyable.

Alright.

 Sunday morning- I woke up at 2:50 am- 10 minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off. Crap. Ohh well. Time to get up and go put the spandex on.

Since I had everything loaded in the car Saturday night I was ready to go. So I went. I decided to park at Moody to save money on parking. Bad decision. More about that later. I rode my bike the 2 miles to Transition and began setting everything up. 6 am came it was time for the race to start. Just not my race. My race didn't start until 8:50 am.

Fast forward. Adrienne, Ashley and my parents arrived about 8 am. Okay. Time to race. That morning they said the water temperature was 75.3 degrees- 7+ degrees warmer than my race in Racine. I thought about not wearing the wetsuit to help save time in Transition. I decided to go ahead and wear it. I paid for it, might as well wear it if I'm able to right? Good decision. Jumped into the water and it was cold! HOOONk and we were off. The nice thing about this swim course is that we swam right along the harbor wall so my family was able to walk next to me and watch the entire time I was swimming. This was much different than Racine. After feeling like I was in the water forever I heard what I thought a spectator say "Your almost there! Only 800 more yards!" WHAT! That is like 1/2 mile! That is more than half of the race distance. Adrienne later told me the man said "100 yards". Whew. I got out of the water and started to head into Transition. The crazy part about the Chicago course is that the Swim Finish is about 450 yards from Transition. That means a 1/4 mile run in a westuit just to get to Transition. This was one of the things I did not like about the race.

Well, had a good transition and onto the bike. I took it easy at first to allow my muscles to warm up and get ready to roll. I also took this time to eat a Cliff Bar, something I was unable to do in Racine. Although it was very difficult to do, I got it down and it was time to put the pedal to the metal. Coming into this race I decided it was short enough to really go "balls out" (a steam engine term by the way, not what you're thinking) on this course. I was going to push myself as hard as I could without burning out. And thats what I did. Riding on Lake Shore Drive was nice- except for all the potholes and expansion cracks. It was a two loop course. All along the course I saw people with blown tires being helped by course officials. The bike was pretty uneventful except for seeing one guy down on the ground with bloody head. I wasn't sure what that was all about but this was a time-trial and I had 12 miles left to ride. I let the race officials help him.

I got off the bike in a very good time. I averaged 19.6 mph- about 77 minutes. This was more than 3mph faster than my speed in Racine. Now, it was time to run. This is where the wheels could fall off if I pushed myself to hard on the bike. They didn't fall off but they were fairly deflated. I had an aggressive overall goal for the race meaning I would have to run 10 min miles for the run course. I couldn't do it. I did a solid walk-run pace and averaged 12'12' per mile on the run. Not bad, and again, significantly faster than Racine. Once I got to the half way point of the run I realized I was not going to make my goal of 3hrs or less so I decided to get under 3:20. It was now a race within the race. I pushed myself much harder the second half of the run. When I made the turn to the finishing shoot I saw a number that was equivalent to about 3:21 for me. I missed it. I finished with a net time of 3:21:07.




Overall experience- very good. There were so many people! Transition was huge!

Throughout the day, whenever I felt like slowing down, I thought of my friend Matthew. Matthew started his day 2 hours before I did and was still going 10 hrs after mine finished as he raced for the second time in Ironman Louisville. Every time I wanted to walk or slow down I thought "I've got nothing compared to what he's doing today." I would then say a prayer for him and myself and keep on trucking. Many people ask me why I like to do endurance events like marathons or triathlons. One of the many reasons is the connection and inspiration between people. What those guys do amazes me and inspires me. I, inturn, hope to inspire those around me- like my friends and family- most importantly: my children. I want them to understand the importance of physical fitness and a healthy lifestyle. It's even been cool to see my wife and sister register for their first half marathon, only 2 weeks away, and my cousin running his first marathon!



The Olympic Distance triathlon was a lot of fun. It was the right distance to really push myself to the utter limits of speed. It was not like a half Ironman where you need to conserve your energy.

So, whats next? We have the AshleyCan Half-Marathon in Bourbonnais in two weeks followed by the Chicago Marathon in October and that is it for this year. 2013? Adrienne and I are on a relay team for a run from Madison, WI to Chicago, Il in June. That is all that is on the race schedule... for now.

Will there be an Ironman for me in 2013? You'll just have to wait and see...



See you at the Finish Line!