3,455……The number of athletes that crossed the finish line for the Chicago Triathlon!!  There were 51 swim waves, yes 5-1!  Transition was so big that I could not see from one end to the other.  This was an incredible experience in one of the greatest cities in the country and I commend the race management crew for pulling everything together.  Aside from an outstanding race, we were in the city of Chicago for the weekend-how cool is that!  I just wished that we could have stayed a little bit longer.  We arrived Saturday afternoon and went straight to the expo in the basement of the Hilton hotel.  The expo was so big and in so many different areas, I needed a compass to navigate!!  My good friend, Dan Brienza hooked me up with his friends at Toyota and I was fortunate enough to get a picture with Hunter Kemper!

We drove to our hotel and checked in then departed for some dinner.  We got an inside tip from someone on the street that Giordano’s was the best pizza in Chicago!  We were in Chicago and decided that we might as well have the food that makes the city famous.  We ordered and were told that it would be ready in 45 minutes!!!!  By the time the pizza came out we were famished.  The pizza was as a thick as a deck of cards-AWESOME!!!  We left Giordano’s happy and sleepy…..

The alarm went off at 4:30….Transition closed at 5:45 but my wave did not start until 8:50.  I threw on some clothes and packed my transition bag.  Once outside I jumped on my bike and rode in the early morning darkness to transition.  I quickly set my spot up and got out of there very quickly.  By 5:30, I was back in bed!!  I tossed and turned for about an hour before getting up to start my hydration.  We arrived at the swim start about 30 minutes early and discovered a VERY choppy Lake Michigan.  Not only was the water crazy but there were more people in the water at various points of the swim course that I knew it was going to be a rumble.  I threw on my wetsuit and entered my corral.  Before I knew it the gun fired and my race had begun.  The swim was choppy but I got into a good rythym pretty quickly.  The swim felt good until I exited the water and looked at my watch, 27 minutes….. I started to peel off my wetsuit as I ran.  I kept running and still no transition area….I kept running and finally afte 1/2 mile I saw the entrance.  I kid you not, this was the longest transition distance I had ever seen.

The bike course was absolutely jammed pack.  We were riding on Lakeshore Blvd and one entire lane was blocked off for the race.  I was passing very early in the bike and someone yelled “hey, pass on the right.”  I could not believe that as I am very used to passing on the left.  Anyway, I made the mental adjustment and kept on rolling.  The outward leg was straight into the wind and it was howling… At the turn around, the wind shifted and I was off like I stole something!  The bike was a 2 loop course and I finished with an average speed of 24.5 mph.  I was thrilled but a bit concerned going into the run after running out of gas last week at USAT Nationals.

I quickly threw my running shoes on and took off.  I felt good from the very beginning.  I managed to get a full bottle in during the bike and even took 2 salt tabs when I woke up that morning.  At mile 1, my pace was 6:20 and I still felt good.  I was passing people left and right and still felt good.  At the turn around, I was still running at a good pace but then felt the wind slap me in the face!  I adjusted my stride slightly and kept on going.  I crossed the finish line feeling great and even felt like I could have run a bit longer.  I was pumped if for no other reason that I felt so good.  Last weekend after crossing the finish line in Burlington, I felt like I needed a stretcher!  I looked down at my watch to see a time of 2:15.  Not great, but I was not upset either.

As I made my way through the chute, I found teammate Christine Anderson and we took a picture together.  Christine was in town from Boulder staying with her boyfriend, Henry.  We hung out for a bit and waited for the results to be posted.  When the results came back, I saw that I had won the 30-34 age group by 1:30.  That made me feel great as I wasn’t thrilled with my overall time.  I would later learn that the conditions today made for slower overall times.  The wind with the long transitions were working against us.  I left the Windy City with a solid race feeling much better about my abilities.  The win helped my confidence tremendously.  I am back to feeling good and loving racing!  Next weekend is the Hy-Vee Championships in Des Moines followed by 70.3 World Championships in Vegas.  I also learned that my race in Chicago qualified me for the World Cup in Dallas on Oct. 2nd.

Not quite through yet!!!!

Last week was recovery week.
Going into the week, I made a list, prioritized it, and continued to add to it and expect to accomplish more of it as I fantisized about all the time I’d have since I wasn’t training as much. I’m a few weeks into IM training, and I like to load the first 8 weeks, with a 3 on / 1 off pattern.

What I love: Stuff that got done:
- Volunteer at Austin Pets Alive! with Autumn (ok, don’t refer to my post about no more volunteering)
- Laundry (ok, Michael did that)
- Timex event with team I AM / I CAN
- Work stuff – lots of work stuff (e.g., new clients, new hires, administrivia)
- Carpets cleaned
- Landscaping hand-watered (we have some serious water bans given the current weather, and I can’t let the trees die)
- Stock up on training nutrition and freeze water bottles
- Reservations for my 20th reunion (undergrad)

It was Autumn’s final full week prior to Middle School, so we spent quality time together (and if you believe that….) – actually, she worked at the horse stable with her trainer, Lacy, which was right on target with what she loves. Ok, we did spend some time together. She encouraged me to buy a new pair of shoes (shoes that one doesn’t wear running or biking) — to replace the ones I love from 1999. We volunteered. We stayed up late, falling asleep by the TV watching Harry Potter movies.

What I hate: The potential for anxiety from that which did not get done:
Now it is Monday, and recovery week is over. I still have items on my list; perhaps I’ll get to them in a few weeks.
Time to pack the cooler and the bike for the morning.

So I made the flight home from Copenhagen with no Dramas. A slight headache from the beers from the after party but that disappeared by about the time I arrived in Hong Kong. I found some nice seats in Hong Kong airport which don’t have any intermediate hand rails and had a real good sleep.

I had the first week off any real exercise, one bike, one swim and a cycle to catch up with some athletes to check
on their form etc. The second week was about the same until Saturday when I decided I would go out for a Ironman brick session with Erin and Candice, two of the girls I coach. So we had 3+ hrs on the bike with some 50min efforts to keep things interesting. Then we where lucky enough to have the inaugural Cambridge Half Marathon starting at 12pm so we finished the ride, and got straight into the run. I just about missed the start by time I had packed the bikes in to the car etc. The legs on the bike didn’t feel to bad, but the heart rate felt like it was through the roof. Onto the run and I have to say Candice’s and
Erin’s form is a lot better than mine after 2 weeks off!, the first 10k where not to bad, but after that it was all downhill :) my left leg started cramping
badly so it was a slow jog in to the finish. Quite a good session to kick start the body, even though it was not very enjoyable last 40min at all. I don’t think
I am going to try a IM a week apart or two weeks for that matter unless I trained through the first one and got rolling very quickly after the first
one.

So I am back into the training this week, time to build a bigger engine for next season

Sprint Nationals was an interesting race for me, I switched from the Age Group Olympic distance race about 10 days out. It was a noon start which was also interesting for me as well and the first time for this. I anticipated a really great race, as you can tell by the video below, but it didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. This photo here was taken by Paul Phillips owner of Competitive Image. Great shot!

On Wednesday afternoon, Trista and I drove up to Ft. Collins to meet our teammate Wendy at the local Runner’s Roost. We had another GPS demo scheduled for their weekly run group!

Pre-run we had a lot of great questions about the product and how it compared to the Garmin.

We also gave the runners a chance to personally enter their user info on the computer and set up their customized screens before heading out!

During the run, one of Wendy’s previous athletes came by to check out the watch. She’s an engineer so was very intrigued with the technology and sophistication of the product. We also introduced her to the new Health Tracker which she was extremely excited about. I think we might made 2 sales for the Runner’s Roost in FOCO :)

As usual, we also downloaded the runner’s data into the Device Agent and Training Peaks and gave them a quick tutorial of each of the programs! Other fun and successful Team Timex demo night!