Race – OneTriGuy

September 15, 2015

2015 IRONMAN Wisconsin Pre-Race & Swim

Ready it or not, the day finally came. I officially became an IRONMAN this past weekend when I completed IRONMAN Wisconsin. Not surprisingly, I was quite anxious in the weeks leading up to the race. It didn’t help that it was in the 90s with high humidity a week out and it was forecast to rain on race day. Thankfully, mother nature gave us all a break and gave us 70° waters, and highs in the 70s. No rain was in sight and the wind was in the single digits. It could not have been a more perfect day for a race. I took my time on race morning, arriving about 15 minutes before transition opened. This is exactly how I like to operate, with plenty of time to take care of problems and no reason to stress out mentally before I stress out physically. The water was opened at 6:30…

September 2, 2015

2015 Chicago Triathlon Triple Challenge

This past weekend I competed in my second Chicago Triathlon Triple Challenge. This “challenge” involves racing in three triathlons in one weekend. Saturday morning we did a SuperSprint (click hear to read about just that race) (375m swim | 10.5K bike | 2.5K run), followed by an International (1.5K swim | 40K bike | 10K run) and Sprint (750m swim | 24.5K bike | 5K run) four hours after the International race started. All told, I was going at race pace for just over 4.5 hours. Needless to say, I was a bit tired Sunday evening. International Distance Race The first race of the morning on Sunday was thankfully the International Distance. Us crazy triples were the first to go off, hopping in the (comparatively) balmy 65° water a couple minutes before 6:00 am. Once we all had our chance to “self-heat” our wetsuits (yes, I wore mine this time, in addition…

September 2, 2015

2015 Chicago Triathlon SuperSprint

This past weekend I competed in my second Chicago Triathlon Triple Challenge. This “challenge” involves racing in three triathlons in one weekend. The first of the three was held on Saturday, at it was the SuperSprint. SuperSprint Distance This year I was more mentally prepared for this extremely short race. There’s no time to “ramp up” to speed with distances this short. You have to start fast and finish faster if you’re looking for a quick time. I was not, however, mentally prepared for the weather. The rain never stopped the entire time I was out there, the only changes were how hard it was coming down. Due to the rain, everything was slowed before the race, requiring me to wait about 20 minutes to get my race packet and another 20 minutes to enter transition. Unfortunately, all these delays had me literally running through transition setup. When I did find an…

August 2, 2015

2015 Naperville Sprint Triathlon Race Report

I finally was able to get in my first triathlon of the year. Shoulders, you have not won! Who needs sleep? As seems to be the case, I slept like crap the night before. I felt like I only got a few hours of actual sleep, though my Fitbit disagrees, clocking nearly 6.5 hours of sleep with only 12 periods of restlessness. I can accept that, if you consider that I was still for 3+ hours of that time, looking at the ceiling. It’s not that I’m nervous. I’m not exactly sure how to put it. I guess I’m just excited and can’t wait to get my tri on. Will I remember how to swim? Prior to this morning, I have swum exactly four times in 2015, including two lap swims and two open water swims. The latest swim, done in early July, got me a stern talking to by my shoulder…

May 20, 2015

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…

May 16, 2015

ITU Chicago Triathlon

It’s time for my first olympic triathlon, and my first “big time tri,” ITU Chicago. For those of you not in the know, this is close to the same race that the professional triathletes do as part of the ITU tour. The day started off wet. As in, my car nearly hydroplaned into a concrete highway divider on 294 due to the torrential downpours. Not the best way to start the day. Given than transition setup was the day before the race, some athletes had the foresight to cover parts of their bike to protect from the rain. This was a massive transition area, but thankfully my spot was near the end of a row and right by a sign. I felt bad for those in the center somewhere without an easily recognized landmark. Annoyingly, transition was a good half mile or more from the swim start. Preferring to not throw away…

May 16, 2015

My first marathon

My brother’s been into running for much longer than I. Back in 2013 he suggested I do the half marathon while he did the full Twin Cities Marathon. Not to be outdone, I figured I’d shoot for the full distance and signed on up. Given that my longest (and only) race to this point had been a 5k, I had a lot of work ahead of me. Looking back, I don’t think I prepared nearly enough, with only a few long runs and a max run of 20 miles and a max week of 60 miles run. Based on the training I was doing a few weeks ago, before I went full idiot and broke my shoulder, the two months running up to the marathon look relaxing. Click the calendars if you’d like to see my totals. Nevertheless, the race went well. I held a relatively constant pace, only dropping about one…

June 8, 2014

The 2014 Batavia Triathlon

It’s nice to finally know what to expect at a triathlon. You know transition, the course is familiar (giving you a good way to judge the gas pedal), you recognize faces, if not names … it’s no longer the first day at a new school. This year’s tri was a chilly one, but I had a new secret weapon – a wetsuit! Instead of being too cold to warm up in the water (my body takes a long time to open up and reach full potential), I was able to wade on in and get a few laps down before lining up for the staggered start. Plus, I just look good (or not, according to my wife). It’s a Orca Equip Full Sleeve Triathlon Wetsuit, in case you were wondering. It’s a nice mix of thicker (5mm) neoprene for buoyancy and thin stuff in the arms (2mm) for flexibility. Even though the swim…

August 4, 2013

The Naperville Triathlon

Finally, a triathlon that doesn’t require a long drive. I get to sleep in a whole 30 extra minutes! This time I get to transition right when it opens. I prefer to give myself time to relax and chase down any issues that could pop up. Rushing is no good. Here’s the obligatory, “I’m here before anyone else, including the sun” shot. And the, “now EVERYONE is here” shot. Some of you may be interested in how I set up transition. You’ll see that I place my helmet on my aero bars, with the straps out and front of the helmet towards the front of the bike. Then I place my sunglasses inside the helmet. This way I can out on glasses, put on the helmet and be strapped in as quickly as possible. As for my footwear, I put my bike shoes in front, on my towel to dry/clean…

July 27, 2013

Concerts and tris don’t mix

It’s hard to turn down Phish tickets, so when your brother shows up in town with an extra lawn “seat” you tend to take it. Even if you have a sprint tri the next morning. It’s equally hard not to have a beer or three and impossible to not breathe in all the smoke around you. I was at least able to respectfully decline a hit from the most prepared concert goers I have ever come across in my life. But that’s another story. I even got to see Fishman do his vacuum solo! Well, in hindsight, that all was a bad idea. First, I set my alarm for PM instead of AM. Amazingly, I woke up in time to throw on my tri suit and run out the door to my (thankfully) already packed car. I raced to Oswego and beat the packet pickup cutoff by minutes. I believe…

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