My last Minute Brick Workout.

I was debating to sign up for the this last minute Brick workout all week long. It was close to the house and they gave out a tie-dyed race shirt. So I signed up for it, The Bangs Lake Olympic triathlon.

A new race in the Chicagoland area and why not give it a try. I have not done a Olympic Triathlon in about 3 years, so I just planned to use it to get some racing in before my 140.6 Triathlon Race.

I knew I still need to be focused on the later race, so I decided to goof off from work and rode 5 hours/82 miles on Friday. A open water swim on Saturday and Olympic race on Sunday.

So I was not sure how the race would really go for me.

I woke up for a short 45 minute drive to the race sight. I had some doubts about finding the area because of some kind of pissing contest, another Olympic race was starting in the same area. So confusing trying to find the correct race site.

Race:

I was in the second wave, 40 and up. Once we started we took a sharp turn swimming right into the sun. Total crap, I could not see to far ahead and just tried to find the rest of the bobbing heads out there. The turn buoy was about a half mile out, so not to much to guide off the entire swim. Not sure if I was swimming straight, most of the time just wondering if I was going the right way. Alot of people complained about the swim after the race, not enough buoys, yada, yada, yada, but my swim time was 38:15, so anything under 40 minutes is good enough for me.

T1 was 1:38, uneventful except I was still wet from the swim because I could not mount the bike and was not looking pretty sliding on my bike trying to clip in.

The bike was going to be interesting, I forgot my Garmin 305 at home, so I had no cadence, heart rate, or any type of GPS tech stuff to track my progress. What the hell, just pedal until it hurts and then back off and then repeat. The race website said it was a tough bike route, but how can it be? well I guess I found out, it was pretty much a two loop roller hill fest. Nothing steep by some standards, but by Chicago standards, we call it a hill. I actually felt pretty good on the bike, felt really weird jut riding a 40k, but I liked it. I finished in 1:14:43, a 20 mph avg, dang good for me, especially after riding 82 miles on Friday.

T2 was 1:27, not to bad, how do people go under 1:00, how can you do that?

The run, here comes the test to see if I'm fatigued or not. I started out well, no cramping at all, something I have problems at the half IM races. There was some rollers on the run course as well, but I was chugging along at a descent pace. Still with no gadget to track my progress, I had no idea how fast I was going, but I was passing people, so that was a good thing. Final run time, a shocker to me, 46:49, a 7:33 pace, definitely a PR, woohoo...

So total time was 2:42:50, not to bad, might be a PR, I think so? but the most important thing is that I had a good day. I think I'm liking these shorter races. Hmm, might have to add one or two Olympics Tri's in the 2009 schedule.

For a brand new event, there was some things they need to tweak, but overall, a good race. The site of the other Olympic going on the same time, with the racers on the other side of the street going the opposite direction on the bike was definitely a interesting experience. Dueling triathlons, they going to have to fix the squabble among who is going to have a race that day.

But I got some cool goodies from the race; a race hat, Tri gear bag, and of course a Tie-dyed race shirt, with tunes of Jerry Garcia playing in the background after the race. Gotta luv it.