Triathlon

As many of you know, I upped my triathlon game this year by signing up for the next longer distance offered, having done the shorter super sprint twice. This seemed very doable all winter and even early in the summer but I have to admit I was having serious doubts in the last two weeks! The weather was forecast to be very hot, humid and sunny, and that was a bit daunting. But in the end my support crew (thanks John and Sarah!), miles’s bike which weighs a fraction of my bike and made the bike portion super easy, and a lovely set of routes along the lakefront, got me through! I’ll post some official photos when they come in and done others that John and Sarah took but here I am before leaving the house and at the end of the race. And my results, which I am very pleased with! Oh, my MapMyRun buddies will be interested to hear I ran the 5k faster than I do my regular morning runs… supports my theory that I am still waking up at 6 am!

Sorry for the disjointed reading experience but we’re waiting for our flight to Portland and I have a few more minutes to add photos that show the route. First, this pic of just a small slice of the transition area shows how big this event is. You get very little personal space in transition (transition is the area you go back to between sections to change out shoes etc and get / put away your bike.) which makes the triathlon experience even more of a logistical challenge! It really is largely a mind game!

Athletes are assigned waves, and I realized that I will never leave this wave – it’s the 50 and up group. Kinda weird thought! The wave before me was the 50 and up men, and there was an 85 year old man competing. He got a shout out from the announcer, and poor Francisco’s achievement was a bit in the shadows!

The half mile (500 m) swim is in the lake along the path in the harbor kinda across from and south of Maggie Daley park. It’s really nice that supporters can walk along with their swimmer! It’s great to hear your name shouted out when it’s usually hard to hear much of anything while swimming. The swim was a bit crowded at times (back off you yellow caps!) but overall really nice. The cool water was quite a relief, it was 90F 33C degrees outside!

After the swim, quick stop at the glasses table and a run on the red carpet to transition.

As mentioned, miles’s bike is a dream. Readers may be thinking that it fits me very well and miles may be too big for it and he should give it to me or at least continue to share generously as he has done this summer! Thanks, miles!

The bike ride was really pleasant, 7.5 mikes straight north on lake shore drive and then a turnaround and back south. The city closed LSD southbound this year for the race, rather than the partial close of lanes in previous years, so it was really fun to ride on it! After returning to transition, the run was a 5k from the bike area south past the museum campus, then back up and over to a finish line a block west. I’ve had a hard time with the post-bike run in the past but again the new bike helped a ton with that! It was getting pretty hot during the run but since it wasn’t too long it was ok. And at the end they had water hoses to spray us down, I went back for several soakings! I was seriously tempted to get back in the lake at that point!