First off, I'm super proud of Erica. This morning she did a full International distance Triathlon (sometimes also called Olympic-distance since it's the distance they do… in the Olympics). She trained hard, including doing two Sprint triathlons earlier in the year, and really rocked it today. I got to see her on all three legs and every time I saw her, she looked so amazing.

As for me, I'm sore and tired, but proud of myself as well. Yesterday I did the SuperSprint distance (1/4 of the full distance) and then today I did the Sprint distance (1/2 of the full) triathlon and then went back to the start and did the full International distance. Three triathlons in two days. That's the Chicago Triathlon Triple Challenge and only 88 people finished it (by the bib numbers, 117 people signed up for the challenge).

The weather at 6 am was wonderful. The water has been so warm that I didn't even wear a wet suit. The Triple competitors got to leave in the very first wave, along with Mayor Rahm Emanuel (he didn't do the Triple, it seems that if you're the mayor, you get to sneak into the first wave). I took the Sprint pretty easy and it felt great. I'm really undertrained on the bike this year, mainly because my work situation was so weird this summer and I wasn't biking to work, and yet the bike felt really comfortable and fast. The meta-transition was rougher than I thought it would be. Because of the constraints of holding a Triathlon in downtown Chicago, the whole thing is pretty spread out. It's a mile from the finish line to transition. I'd heard there was a trolly to carry Triple participants back to transition, but I didn't see it and so I hoofed it over to the swim start just in time to see Erica start her swim. Then I booked down to transition to drop off my running shoes, pick up my swim gear, and made it back to swim start just in time to join my wave. Shaun had a hotel room at the Hilton and had packed two of everything, so he just ran back to his room, took a hot shower, and then was rested and ready for the second triathlon.

The full distance was a little rough. For the swim, I did wear a wet suit, just for the buoyancy. On the bike, I was starting to feel a little tired on the bike after the first 15 miles (I've only been on the bike about 15 times this year, and rarely over 10 miles). And then it started to downpour. It slowed down to a drizzle for the first half of my run, but then came down hard for the last half. I don't mind running in the rain, but I was cramping a bit and walked off and on. But somewhere near mile 3 I did some math and realized that I was just on target for a four hour triathlon if I kept up my normal running pace. So I started chanting a little mantra to myself and pushed through to run the last couple of miles. It worked—I finished 45 seconds under four hours. Which, I realized when I looked it up, is only 8 minutes off my PR. So not too shabby for the third triathlon of a weekend.

We recorded another episode of our race review podcast. It's kind of a long one, but we're talking about three races here.

As an mp3: The Unnamed Race Reviews Podcast - Episode 06

My official results:

Triple Challenge
Total Time: 6:55:09
Overall Place: 78 / 87
Gender Place: 59 / 63

SuperSprint
Clock Time: 00:55:09
Overall Place: 281 / 569
Gender Place: 185 / 271
Division Place (M40-49): 46 / 69
Swim: 00:15:09
Bike: 00:23:53
Run: 00:16:06
Swimrank: 340
Bikerank: 308
Mph: 15.5
Runrank: 235
Pace: 00:10:23

Sprint
Clock Time: 02:00:46
Overall Place: 1755 / 2272
Gender Place: 1056 / 1248
Division Place: 156 / 181
Swim: 00:24:25
Trans1: 00:07:57
Bike: 00:51:50
Trans2: 00:06:20
Run: 00:30:13
Swimrank: 1611
Bikerank: 1722
Mph: 15.8
Runrank: 1182
Pace: 00:09:44

International
Clock Time: 03:59:14
Overall Place: 2783 / 2943
Gender Place: 1986 / 2071
Division Place: 290 / 299
Swim: 00:52:22
Trans1: 00:07:57
Bike: 01:41:15
Trans2: 00:07:49
Run: 01:09:49
Swimrank: 2819
Bikerank: 2779
Mph: 15.0
Runrank: 2330
Pace: 00:11:15