Accenture Chicago Triathlon-Sprint
I was going in to this one with a little dread; although it's my local race, I've never done it because of the sheer crush of humanity from 7,500 participants and thousands and thousands of spectators (and when I signed up 2 years ago, I got plantar fasciitis training). But it certainly exceeded my expectations!
Got to the transition area about 5:20; set up in advance of the 5:45 closing time. Got some tips and intelligence from folks in my wave; I talked to several guys who had done the Olympic in the past but switched to sprint because the waves are smaller and the launch times are earlier.
My wave left at 6:58. Temp about 68F, skies cloudy and a little misty, water temp 71-73F, so I decided against neoprene and just went with the tri suit. Right choice! Also, the infamous rocks at the beginning of the swim were not there (?? don't know where they went!). We didn't have to tread water for long before they started us. The water temperature was perfect for swimming. I ended up doing more breaststroke than I intended, mostly for sighting and congestion reasons, but my husband said that when I switched from breast to free I would shoot ahead in the water. Note to self: next race goal is to swim more free and less breast! Approx swim time: 17.5 minutes.
T1 is pretty dreadful -- the distance from swim out to transition is long enough that I thought it should be added to the run distance ;) . I stashed a pair of shoes near the swim finish and saved my feet for later by not running barefoot. I think it was about 5 minutes total, 3 minutes of which was the run from the swim.
Bike was, as always, the best part. My time was pretty consistent with my training time and with my time from Naperville 2006, about 44 minutes. Probably a couple of minutes faster than Naperville. The other participants were nice and we had some joking around on the course. I love biking on Lake Shore Drive because it's the most beautiful urban drive in the world (not that I'm biased or anything ...). I followed a new tip I'd gotten and stood up in the saddle about 4 times during the ride, to loosen the legs for the run. I think it helped.
T2 was fine. My calves and my piriformis (the muscle under your glutes) get tight on the run after biking, so I took the time to do a quick set of downward dog and pigeon yoga poses before taking off. I didn't have a single brick feeling, yay!
The run is my least favorite leg, but the course takes you out to Adler Planetarium (which sticks out into Lake Michigan) and around, and runs you back toward the skyline. Even though the day was cloudy, the city still looked gorgeous, but gorgeous in grey tones. Lots of *very* strong runners, lots of walkers, lots of people like me plodding along. Run time approx. 30 minutes.
Approx total time 1h 42mins.
Overall I think the event was well organized, particularly given the mass of humanity there. The volunteers were great. I will be interested to hear Brina's reaction to the Olympic swim, because it looked to me like at least part of it would be incredibly pinched in and congested. That might make me want to stick with sprint for this event. I would recommend this event to anyone, but I can see how you might want to have your first tri experience at a smaller event.
A very fun day!
