My Personal Triumph at the Chicago Triathlon

Pre-Race
I was SO nervous. I don't think I was this nervous ever before. I woke up before my alarm and headed out the door at 4:06 AM. In the car ride to the race, I managed to knock over my coffee onto my TMobile G1. My LIFELINE! Argh. It kept functioning for a while and then finally it gave up. I managed to get a text out to my husband and to my friend Nando before it died completely. Not a good start. So now I'm kind of a mess about my phone (I feel naked without it). Anyway, once Nando found me, I felt better and relaxed a little. We had to wait about 2 hours before we started, so we people watched. As time went on, I was less nervous but still never completely not nervous. It was SO cold outside - was easily in the low fifties (Fahrenheit).

The Swim
There was no swim warm-up for this race. I am a BIG believer in swim warm-ups. I can't race the first few hundred meters properly without one. My first few hundred meters during the actual race then become the warm-up.

I hopped off of the platform into the water at about 7:57:38. The water at 63 degrees was warmer than the air and felt like a blessing. My swim wave started at 8 AM sharp. A nice round time for me to estimate my finish time easily en route - yahoo!

I started the swim and got a rhythm, I looked up at about 200 meters and thought "I am never going to make it". I kept going. The first 400 meters were SO slow for me. Just before the 400 meter mark, my arms started to get tired. They always get this feeling just before they are ready to lay down a proper distance of swim, so this made me feel better. (Odd, I know.) I kept going and sure enough, BAM.

When I got out of the water, there was about a .25 mile trek to transition. I walked at first reflecting on how proud of myself for getting through the swim I was, and then started jogging.

The Bike
The whole bike course is on Lake Shore Drive which is beautiful but bumpy in some places. I did the first six miles not realizing I was in the middle ring of my crank, like a dork. Once I hit the big ring, I was pedaling much faster. It was a great ride and at the end I felt like I could do 24 more. Very pleased!

The Run
I must have still had adrenaline pumping because I was able to actually start the first half-mile out at about 10 min/mile. I slowed way down after that and had to run/walk until about mile 4. Overall, I pushed myself as much as I could, slowing down when I felt my heart rate speeding up.

Lessons Learned
I am awesome. :-) That's it!

Thoughts
Since this was my end of triathlon season, here are the things I am planning to work on in the off-season:

• Weight-loss (usual goal)
• Get bike fitted properly for aero bars
• Learn to ride with aero bars :-)
• Improve Run speed and endurance
  
• Improve Bike speed
  

Epilogue
I fixed my phone with letting it dry out and doing a soft system restart. It's not perfet, but it works!! YAY!

Final Results

Distance	International (Olympic)
Clock Time	03:34:38
Overall Place	3641 / 4243
Gender Place	970 / 1292
Division Place	223 / 286
Swim	00:38:37
Trans1	00:05:08
Bike	01:30:47
Trans2	00:04:53
Run	01:15:11
Swimrank	3049
Bikerank	3317
Mph	16.7
Runrank	3927
Pace	00:12:07