{"id":838,"date":"2019-09-01T23:53:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T23:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/?p=838"},"modified":"2019-09-01T23:53:20","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T23:53:20","slug":"du-chicago-chicago-triathlon-8-25-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/2019\/09\/01\/du-chicago-chicago-triathlon-8-25-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Du Chicago (Chicago Triathlon) – 8\/25\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the summer, I went into the city for Dare2Tri\u2019s bike \/ swim\nsessions and Chicago Tri Club\u2019s swim \/ run sessions.  After the issues in June, the focus behind\nthem was getting ready for Chicago.  Even\nduring the \u2018washing machine\u2019 swims, things went well for the most part.  All of this was great practice for what was\nto be my Tri season finale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowing that traffic \/ road closures could cause delays Sunday morning, I\ndecided to do packet pickup myself.  IMO,\nthe Expo is set up like a Vegas casino \u2013 in that even when you see an exit, it\nisn\u2019t always an exit.  At least pick up\nwent smoothly once I finally found the right place to start at.  Having gotten all of the race materials, and\njust as important, the alcohol bracelet, I was set to do the Tri.  And then the water decided not to play nicely\u2026
\n
\nThe first e-mail dropped the swim to 750 for everyone and offered people the\noption of a Du.  When that happened, I\ntold Eric that I still wanted to do the full Tri.  Unfortunately, early Sunday morning it became\na mandatory Du.
\n
\nUpon making it into the city, we ran into lots of closed streets and delays.  The closest we were able to get at 6:30 was\nNavy Pier.  So it was a mile walk to\ntransition.  Eric met me at the entrance,\nand we still had plenty of time to set everything up.  As a Du, the set up was much more simple\n(just helmet, sunglasses and bottles on\/next to bike).
\n
\nAfter making sure that everything was properly set and we had the layout for \u2018swim\nout\u2019, bike in\/out and run out properly mapped, we made our way to the\nstart.  It\u2019s a 3\/4 mile walk that is best\ndone in shoes.  Even if it hadn\u2019t been a\nDu, I still would have been in shoes pre-swim. \nBut with it being Run\/Bike\/Run, I just walked there in my run shoes.
\n
\nGiven the duplicate run leg, I had planned to do the first one more slowly than\nnormal.  I figured that this would save\nmy legs for the second run.  After we\nstarted in a time-trial type one, the pace was a little bit faster than I had\nplanned.  We ended up passing a few of my\nDare2Tri teammates, making it to T1 in about 8:15.
\n
\nAfter a quick T1, we headed out on a challenging 15.8mi bike.  Because one side of Lake Shore Drive was\nclosed, the bike was reversed.  You could\ntell who didn\u2019t pay attention during the briefings \u2013 those were the ones riding\nright.  They were also the ones serving\npenalties at mile 1 of the run. 
\n
\nAs with the past several bike legs, we passed a tremendous amount of people\nduring it. We had a tailwind on the way out, which helped us to almost catch Alberto\nand Justin.  But we paid for that wind \u2018help\u2019\non the way back \u2013 doing hills into a headwind aren\u2019t fun.  Even still, Eric told me that we topped out\nat 39.8 and had an average of 21.
\n
\nWe had a solid T2 and left it just seconds behind Alberto and Justin.  The first 1.25 miles went well, and then the\nhills came into play.  I remembered the\nfirst one at about 1.5 from 2017. \nHowever, because of course changes, we had a \u2018new\u2019 second one at about\n1.8.  With the heat and climbs, I ended\nup having to walk part of these hills. \nAs we were at about 2.2, Val and Andrew came past us headed the other\nway.  While I was starting to struggle,\nmy main thought was \u2018I need to finish strong and not let the bike go to waste\u2019. 
\n
\nGoing into the race, I knew that I was giving 5-7 minutes up on the run to\nAlberto and Val.  With that solid bike, I\nhad probably 12 minutes on Val going into the run.  I would have been distraught for giving up 13\nminutes on the run.  Even though the last\nmile was a moderately painful run\/walk, I turned it on when we made the final\nturn and finished strong.
\n
\nA huge THANK YOU to Eric and to Dare2Tri for all of their support.  Not just during the race, but also leading up\nto it.  Eric was my pilot during many of\nthose bike sessions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout the summer, I went into the city for Dare2Tri\u2019s bike \/ swim sessions and Chicago Tri Club\u2019s swim \/ run sessions.  After the issues in June, the focus behind them was getting ready for Chicago.  Even during the \u2018washing machine\u2019 swims, things went well for the most part.  All of this was great practice … Continue reading Du Chicago (Chicago Triathlon) – 8\/25\/19<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[350,216,30],"class_list":["post-838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-james","tag-dare2tri-3","tag-chicago-triathlon","tag-dare2tri"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":840,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions\/840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}