Gavin Anderson's Triathlon Page: 8/29/10

Sunday, September 5, 2010

8/29/10 - Chicago Triathlon

The Chicago triathlon is one of the largest triathlons in the world drawing in usually 8,000 - 10,000 participants, being this large it is sometimes kind of a hassle to do the race. I found it quite easy this year and everything worked out as planned. It is a great race though as you swim in the harbor on Lake Michigan, bike on lake shore drive, and run along the lakefront path. My wife and kids made the drive up to Chicago on Friday evening and stayed with my dad in St. Charles. On Saturday we headed in to downtown Chicago which took quite a bit longer than expected due to traffic. The kids got a good nap in though, we met my friend Joel who had a parking spot waiting at half price across the street from the Hilton.

It just happened to be my wife's birthday Saturday as well, I was planning on getting her a road bike. Since a few leads fell through, I had my brother who works at an Triathlon store during the summer bring one in her size right to their booth at the huge Chicago Triathlon expo. We walked around the expo got all our goodies, packets, and picked up a new road bike, thanks Brian! She loves the new ride and can't believe how much faster it is then the 30lb mountain bike she has been riding.

Joel had arranged a nice room overlooking the lake Michigan for our stay, though he got more than he bargained for as I brought my wife and two kids with me. We had a nice group for dinner at an little Italian place for Shanon's birthday with Riley, Corrie, Christine, Brian, Joel, Henry, and Shanon.
Race morning arrived early, but there was no rush as we only had a few blocks to ride over to the transition area. We got there a little later than I usually do, the racks were full, but I found a guy with a big balloon in the elite rack to rack right next too. The transition in Chicago is quite large but a quick walk though and I had my bearings for the race. It was nice to be in the elite wave as we started right after all the sprint race waves at about 7:30AM, early at Chicago's race. My sister was in the 2nd elite wave right after myself as well. It was an in water start along the sea wall out and back past the start north towards transition. The start was fast as a few started out quick and fell off, after about 300 yards I found myself out front of the group with one or two others right behind.

The swim in Chicago is nice since the water is cool and seems clean because you can see more than a few feet in the water, not typical in my southern IL lakes. But the nice part is you swim along a seawall the whole time so you can't help but swim nice and straight. My dad and who I thought at the time was my brother were walking along me the entire length of the swim, which was pretty cool. I stayed in front the whole swim, and exited the water in 20:19. The run from the swim exit to transition is fairly long and on a rough surface which kind of sucks to run on. I found my bike without issue and headed out on lake shore drive. I knew I had to bike hard since my running is not where I want it to be at this time of the season due to some shin split issues. The bike on lake shore drive is a two loop circuit, it was a little windy as to be expected. I was able to put a little gap on the field during the bike portion while passing many of the sprint participants on the course. Since the left lane was the one closed for the race, passing was to be done on the right during this race. I was able to maintain a 26.1 avg and 322 watts on the bike which was great for me. But next was the run and I was knew it was going to hurt. I tried to back off on the bike the last 2 miles or so. But heading out on the run I knew it was going to be hard to keep pace. There were two guys chasing me in the beginning of the run. I had a race volunteer riding a bike in front of me for a while clearing the way which was really nice since the run was on a narrow bike path. Kaleb Vanort passed me at mile 2 or so in the run like I was standing still, he ended up running a 32 min 10k to my 37 min, outch! The run hurt but I saw many people I knew on course including my sister heading out in first place for the elite women.

Towards the end I did not know where 3rd place was so I gave it once last kick towards the finish line, I would hear my whole family cheering for me as well which is always great.

I finished in 2nd place at 1:57:40 which is pretty good considering Chicago's long transitions. Caleb ending up putting almost 3 minutes on me in the run, he sure can put down a great run. I found my family and waited for my sister to come across the line hopefully in first place.

She did not disappoint, but due to a 2 min penalty in the bike she officially took 2nd which we did not know until awards.

After the race we were treated to a few beers from the Well Fit team which was well represented at the race and a huge after race party/expo. After awards we were able to go back to the hotel shower up and get on the road for the 5 hr drive home with one more bike on the roof. Overall a great race and since last year I had a medical rollover into 2010, I dropped 11 minutes from my 2008 time...not too bad.