Race day has come and
gone and I managed to survive my first triathlon. Leading up to race day Mark strained his
hamstring, so I was going solo on this one (minus others from the Tri Club
participating, but from a household standpoint I was alone). I must say that it was a lot harder than I
was anticipating. I forget sometimes
that until February I was not active (really at all) – so even though I have
this syndrome where I think I am awesome at sports, I am not so much. But time can change that.
The sprint distance for
this one was 750 meter swim, 20k bike, and 5k run. Let’s start with the beginning.
Friday night we went to
packet pickup to get our packets and then Saturday it was mandatory to rack
your bike. The course was based in Grant
Park, which is not exactly easy to get to when one does not have a car, and
then the transition area was on the south side of Grant Park – almost to the
Field Museum – so it was a trip just to get setup.
I went to rack my bike
Saturday afternoon after practice in the morning (where I took my wetsuit for a
dip in the pool to try her out and it was great, it didn’t feel too restrictive
and I felt like I could swim forever with the lift it provided). When I was down there the elite women’s race
was just getting to the run portion so I stopped to watch that for a bit. I was standing by some coaches, which were
fun to listen to. Here’s a pic of their
final lap – the one in front held on for the win (which happened to be the only one who made it in my pic...my phone camera is broken, so all my pictures are a bit off).
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One thing I did not
like about this race was the start time.
For the sprinters the swim waves didn’t even start until 11:45, with
mine (the 29 and under women’s wave) not starting until 12:30. It was nice because I didn’t have to get up
in the middle of the night to go set up my transition, but I always feel like I
perform better in the AM, and not to mention it’s much cooler in the
morning. The past couple of weeks have
felt more like Fall here in Chicago than Summer, but Sunday was easily one of
the hotter days we have had, topping out at 88 degrees with heat indexes much higher. Nothing like racing in the hottest part of
the day.
So back to race day…
I was down there to set
up my transition by about 10am on Sunday morning and then head to gear
check. For reference, here’s a picture
of about one-half of the transition area.
There were thousands of bikes (and people – 4,000 participants, I
believe).
Here’s what mine looked
like all set up and ready to go.
I finished up with my
transition and headed over to gear check.
Navigating this course was a nightmare, especially since the course was
all lap-based, so you were constantly having to cut across the course (through
bikers and runners) to get around. The
worst volunteer jobs easily had to be the people trying to throttle spectators
and athletes alike across Columbus which was where the bike course was. But despite sometimes having to wait awhile
to cross, everyone seemed to make it alright.
I checked my bags and
headed over to the swim start to watch some of the waves that were ahead of me
and made some friends in the process.
Everyone is so chatty when you’re all in the same competition and
already know you have something in common.
At this point, they had also changed the event flags from green to
yellow, signaling an increase in risky race conditions.
I think the most
surprising thing about watching the swim start was how many people were rescued
by lifeguards as soon as they got started.
I was sitting about 100 meters out and in the 30 or so minutes I was
watching saw at least seven people get plucked out of the water in front of
me.
Soon enough it was time
to start, and Mark arrived just in time to zip my wetsuit up for me before I
jumped in the water. They gave you about
ten minutes before you started to jump in and warm up/get acclimated to the
water. At this point it felt like it was
at least 90 degrees out and I’m walking around in a neck to ankle rubber suit,
so the 66 degree water I jumped into was more than welcome. It seems like it would have been really cold,
but it actually was not bad at all.
I tread water for a
bit, try out some strokes, and get acclimated to the water and think it’s going
to be a pretty good swim – tough for sure, especially when you look out over
the distance (because training in a pool really gives you no reference point),
but manageable. We get the go ahead to
start and I probably get about 100 or so meters (if even that) before I start
to get anxious about being in the water and have to flip over on my back.
And then every time I
try to flip back over and start swimming a normal freestyle stroke I just
couldn’t. So I swim most of the 750
meters backstroke which just killed my legs for the rest of the event. But I didn’t stop or give up so I am happy
with myself for that. Looking back it
seems like it should have been easy to just tell myself to roll over and swim
like a normal person – to get in some sort of a rhythm and just do it, but that
is easier thought of than done (at least at the time). I’m not sure what caused me not to be able to
swim normally – lack of open water swimming prior to the race, eight foot deep
water, swimming against the wind and the current, and any other thing could
have caused it.
Anywho, I make it out
of the water and into the transition (which are much longer than I expected)
and on to my bike. Which other than
having trouble pedaling into the wind gusts that came at times, it wasn’t too
bad. A lot of the bike course was on
Lower Wacker (so a street under the city), which was nice because you were out
of the sun, but it was very smelly down there.
Also, at some point when I was on the bike the event flags changed to
red.
Then on to the
run. The second transition was much
easier and I think I was only in there half the time. I was finally getting energy back and was
ready to finish strong with the run. I
hydrated and grabbed some Gatorade chews for the road and kicked rocks. Overall the run wasn’t too bad, other than
the heat. My legs were tight at first
but after the first half mile or so they loosened up, I think the chews really
helped with that. I was tired, but knew
if I stopped to walk I’d never start again, so I made myself keep going, which
wasn’t all that hard. The finish line
never seemed sweeter and it was nice to have earned a medal by crossing it. Although it was too hot for me to actually
want to put it around my neck, so I just carried it at this point. I must say I was a little disappointed with
my run time, but given the heat I’m not surprised it was a little slower than
what I’d consider as normal for myself.
So there it was, my
first triathlon was over, and it was a good learning experience for the one in
August. I don’t know what times I expected,
but I’m happy with my results.
I’m also happy I still
have two months to train, because like I said it was harder than I expected and
August is double this one (but at least it starts at 6:00 in the morning, so
I’ll at least have cooler temps on my side).
I’ll definitely be swimming, biking, and running more often and for
longer distances in preparation. And
I’ll be headed to Ohio Street Beach hopefully at least once a week to work on
open water swimming so I don’t have a repeat performance of what happened in
this one. Oh, and I’ll find a way to
wear more sunscreen, because I have mad raccoon eyes from my sunglasses right
now, and my race number is burned into my arm like a tan-tattoo (and I even
applied sunscreen before and during the race!).
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