I would like to think that I have been generally prepared for most anything a race can throw at me. The one thing that really caused me to fall apart this year on two occasions however was the brutal heat. First back in May down at the Florida 70.3and now this past weekend in Chicago for an olympic distance. I mean really, where did this heat come from. The day tied the record for the hottest day of the summer. The weather people were a little off on this one. Well, it will make for an interesting story to tell nonetheless.
The day started off as a typical early morning wake-up call to get down to transition at the crack of dawn for the Chicago triathlon. This was my 5th time participating in this race, and I will say that the early morning arrival doesn't get any easier as the years go by. I'm glad I arrived at transition early too, there were some people that arrived pretty close to the end and they were struggling to find a place to put their stuff. The only more amusing part were the people that had taken up several places with their towels who were getting apparently rather frustrated when they had to condense space.
Anyway, I got all of my gear set up, and left transition for my 4 hour wait until my heat started.
I found a find a grassy place to watch the sun rise, and then kept waiting for my heat to start at 9:30. I got a little sleep just lying on the ground and was doing my best to stay relaxed and let the time pass.
The morning was quite pleasant to start, in fact there were a couple of times that I almost wished that I had some long pants to stay warm. That however, would all change. Around 8:30, 1 hour before my wave started, started to feel a little warm and was getting a little worried.
Finally the hours moved along and I got my wetsuit on, and stood in the corral waiting the start of the race.
So I have raced in two ironman and have been in the "washing machine" that is the start of that race, and let me tell you something, the ironman has nothing on the brutality that was the start of my heat. Not only was there the requisite kicking, inadvertent punching, and feet grabbing, there was no clean water to escape the onslaught of humanity. It probably took about 2/3 of the way to the first bouy before I finally found some water to swim in and escape the crowds.
I kept moving along and found a really good rhythm and had a really good swim.
I was out of the water in about 27:45 which I was really happy with and might be a new PR for the olympic distance swim. Overall swim time of 30:14 including the run to transition was good for 533/3859 finishers.
Next was the 1/4 mile run to transition and then running through transition to my bike and a quick change and off on the bike. I felt very comfortable on the bike, was holding upwards of 22 mph for a good portion of the ride and was passing lots and lots of people. It felt great to be one of the faster ones out there. Sure I got passed, but I felt as if I was moving along. The last mile I had to slow down a little for the uphill over the river and then sharp descent and turn into transition. Overall time 1:09:22 good for 21.9 MPH and 427/3859 finishers.
Back to transition, I changed into the running gear and moved on out to the run. I felt really good for the first mile. I kept looking down at my watch and was averaging around 7:30 minutes/mile for a pace. I didn't really feel as if I was working that hard either. But that was all about to quickly change.
I started to head around the aquarium and further south and the apparently 90+ degree heat with no shade really hit me hard. I don't remember seeing a race in Chicago with so many people walking and utterly debilitated by the heat - myself included. And so I watched as my great pace turned into a run/walk and then a death march looking for any hint of shade that I could find.
The worst was getting to an aid station and wanting some water but they had run out of cups...uh oh...not a good sign. So I drank from one of the gallon jugs and just kept on moving. One thing I have learned in all of these races is that the finish line doesn't get closer unless you make forward progress. I have no other words to describe this run other than completely brutal and painful.
In all of the olympic distances I have ever raced (including the first one where I could only train for a couple of weeks for the run) I think that this may be the absolute worse run I have ever had. At some point there needs to be a bad run, but I was just hoping that it wouldn't have been yesterday. I had everything set-up for a great race. I had a great swim, a great bike, felt great getting off of the bike and then was simply felled by the heat. There is not much I could have done to fix that problem so the fact that I finished and had a great bike and swim made the day at least a partial victory for me.
I finished the run with a fantastically slow time of 1:01:00 good for 1100/3859 finishers. More importantly I finished 62/474 men in my 30-34 age group. Even with a bad run, I am happy to take a top 13% finish.
So with that I likely end my season. While not as perfect as I would have hoped it leaves the door open for more improvement next year. Of course the biggest problem with starting to think about next year is that the wheels start turning and the possibilities of what to do and where to go seem endless. A couple more days of relaxing and recovery.
Thanks to Evan for coming out, taking some great pictures, and supporting me when the heat got really bad!
