The Triple Challenge – three triathlons in two days

Apparently there’s a lot of crazy people out there. I’ve discovered I’m not the only one. There’s enough of us that three individual triathlons have been combined into a single event, catering to the crazy few that see a single triathlon as not large enough of a challenge. This event is the Chicago Triathlon Triple Challenge.

You get to do one SuperSprint, Sprint and Olympic triathlon in the span of about 30 hours, “for a total of 59 miles that includes 1.63 miles in the water, 46.3 miles on the bike and 10.85 miles on the run.” Looking at those numbers, I realized that it was about a half Ironman and I thought this would be a perfect Ironman test.

If I could do this without trouble, I’d work towards completing a full Ironman in 2015.

In 2014, the order was a SupersSprint on Saturday morning. Then you get to have a nice sleep before starting off for the second, Olympic or International distance race (directly after the pros), and then three and a half hour later you take on a Sprint triathlon as the last wave of the day/event. You’d better be fast, as the time between the two races is not rest time. If you take up all three and a half hours racing the olympic, you end up doing back-to-back races.

Having never done a SuperSprint, I was mentally unprepared. They’re not joking with the name. This thing was fast. I held back when I should not have, letting my body warm up when I should have been full throttle the whole time. It took me 40:13, which is not bad, but I think I could have shaved a few minutes from my run had I known just how short it felt. Almost podium’d!

SuperSprint Results

The International was a great race, I felt good and only made one mistake, which I got away with, taking a corner too fast and going into oncoming traffic, or would have, had there been any.

I was not nearly as fast as my last Olympic/International race, but it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of either. After all, I had another race in an hour. Again, my run was pathetic, while my swim was great in comparison.

Olympic/International Results

Name	Swim	Bike	Run	Finish Time
Benjamin	00:30:05	01:11:56	00:55:01	02:40:21
DIV place	SEX place	SWIM RANK	BIKE RANK	RUN RANK
55	299	327	461	768

My 2:40 Olympic time gave me about an hour’s rest before my next race. I spent that time eating and resting on the steps, watching other people begin their race weekend. A few bananas and (apparently not enough) water was going to fuel me for one more 1.5 hour push.

It was genuinely cool getting in the water for the third time that weekend. The announcer made us feel like badasses and made sure the crowd knew just that. I even made their Facebook page:

Shamefully, one of the best feelings during the Sprint was getting to pass all the casual triathletes as I raced through the course. I’d fly by people in their upright 50lb+ cruisers with me in full aero position on a carbon bike with deep dish wheels. Not fair, but it gave me energy just when I needed it.

I kept a good pace on the swim, almost taking half the time to go half the distance. My times slipped a bit more on the bike leg, and actually held on through the run.

International, Olympic, Race, Sprint, SuperSprint, Triathlon, Triple Challenge