Pictorial Evidence

Hey, free pics are posted from the Zürich Tri- athlon! Since I don't care enough to purchase the actual pics, the copies here are besmirched (how often can you use that word?) quite effectively by the photo company. In this first pic, it appears I'm beating two worthy but slightly less gifted competitors across the finish line. That's how I choose to remember it, when in fact the bike course was probably nowhere near completed. Perhaps they were lapping me, I don't recall.

Second picture looks like an individual time trial, pounding out a breakneck speed against my perpetual enemies: the clock and my own uncompromising sense of achievement. Actually I don't know where everyone else is in this photo. But look at that expression of pure concentration.

Last but not least, the picture cresting "Heartbreak Hill", although I'm not sure which of the three iterations during the race. Other similar pictures were posted where my grimacing, spitting and cursing appear more clearly, but the photo logo unfortunately lies even more directly over my face. Check out the scenic overlook behind. That was my private joke (also during training) every time I reached the top, unable to breathe but panting, "Nice...view...Nice...viewww!" But why are all the spectators facing the wrong way?

So I've got at least one more event in me this season, hopefully two (a long and a short). Lausanne, the city near which I work on the French side, hosts their Olympic triathlon in about five weeks and down in the crazy Swiss-Italian canton of Ticino (do you know the name Fabian Cancellara, early yellow-jersey wearer in this year's Tour de France? He's from there...) they host a half-IronMan and a sprint (yes, I'll be doing the sprint).

Speaking of the 2009 Tour de France, I have some additional pictures to post soon.

Swim, Bike, Fall Over, Pt. 2

Now that we're well-informed on my amateur triathlon career, how about Saturday's result? As expected, the Züri Tri possessed a different atmosphere than my previous conquests, specifically as we learned with our half-marathons last year, the Swiss only engage in athletic events they want to win. The Midwest laid-back, newbie-friendly, just-training-to-lose-a-few-pounds mentality simply ain't there. With all my travel this spring, I had trained perhaps 5 hours per week instead of the group average 15 hours. And as Olympic events always attract the serious crowd vs. sprints, I planned to mostly suck fumes the whole race. Yessiree, I was dead on.

The other new twist was a topographical one...hills! The cycling leg consists of 3 loops of about 8 miles each, mostly flat alongside Lake Zürich, but then each featuring a detour up the affectionately coined "Heartbreak Hill" (apparently no German translation) on the lake's west side. Let's review my experience from this perspecitve (you'll have to click on each graphic to examine in detail)...

Chicago Triathlon. Pancakes ache to be this flat:




Lake Geneva (WI). I used to think a brief 2% grade was a hill:




My "training course" from home in Zürich to the next lake over. I unfortunately only completed it once this year prior to the big event. Basically uphill or downhill for 2+ miles at a time, a fairly consistent 5% but up to 8% grade. If you're currently watching the Tour de France, this would barely earn an extra heartbeat per minute for those guys, but rookies may experience a fair level of discomfort:




Züri Tri. Heartbreak Hill is shorter but as steep as the worst parts above, from 5-7% for about 1/2 mile. The third ascent usually earns a few grunts and/or curses, especially after swimming a mile:




Regarding the run, no surprise that Chicago is flaaaat, Lake Geneva is actually murderously hilly and Zürich is mostly flat. So there's the background ad nauseum.

So Saturday. Checked my bike into transition at about 9:00am for a 10:40am start. The only amatuerish-looking people are already competing in the early sprint event. Everywhere else the eye beholds only relaxed, tanned, beautifully sculpted all-around athletic bodies and $8,000 tri bicycles more aerodynamic than an F-117 Nighthawk jet. Due to a cool cloudy workweek, the lake temperature measures slightly less than the regulation 21.9 C or 71 F, not really cold but enough to allow wetsuits, a major gift as wetsuits drastically improve buoyancy for sinkers like me.

With a group of slightly under 300 men sporting identical baby blue swimming caps, I run down the short beach and splash into Lake Zürich at 10:40am. My swim proceeds predictably poorly for the next 42 minutes over 1,500 meters, a tricky course with lots of turns; I'm not the absolute last competitor out of the water but not far ahead of him. My faithful cheering section of one is there at the transition fence to root me on, but I'm so discombobulated from the long swim I can barely locate her voice. The benefit of the wetsuit is typically partially negated in transition as it inevitably frustratingly refuses to release my legs. I don't own a tri "onesie" like the pros so I waste precious time actually donning a shirt. My transition lasts a lousy 3:50 min. So far no surprises.

On the bike I measure my pace trying to assess how much juice the ol' legs contain today. I settle into a 18-20 mph pace over the slight undulations on the somewhat windy flats and watch all the expensive bikes sail past with their aero tires humming like small engines. First time up The Hill goes surprisingly OK, I can almost hold my own on the ascent due to my slight "climber's" frame. Second time up is a little tougher but also OK. I bomb the descent hitting 41 mph, thereby almost missing a tight turn on slick blacktop, hopping a curb and nearly pitching over a fence, but recover in time. I see my cheering section, now two people, twice during the ride. Third time is up is decidedly painful and slower but successful, with energy ebbing from the legs during the final 5 miles of the 25 mile course; total cycling time 1 hour 26 minutes. Second transition lasts a mere 1:33 min., my best performace so far.

As a longtime runner I usually perform a bit better, but it never matters because the advantage in triathlon is won in cycling (and for me, lost in swimming). Nonetheless I manage to pass about a half-dozen people and keep both quadriceps from cramping over the final 6.2 miles and 52:44 min. My cheering section has grown to six people but unfortunately I don't see them until the bleachers at the very, very end. Inspiring nonetheless. Total time 3 hours 7 minutes, actually a pretty good result for me considering the conditions, but not so competitive. For an early summer result, I'm happy.

Sound miserable? Actually the opposite is true, I love these events. I think I've got one more late summer Olympic in me this year and maybe a sprint for good measure. But I really have to work on that swim. Oh yeah, and the bike too. Oh yeah, and the onesie...

Swim, Bike, Fall Over, Pt. 1

Yesterday was a big day, the thirteenth annual--and my first--Züri Triathlon! For those unfamiliar, triathlon consists of swimming, cycling and running (in that order) over more or less standard distances from short to long, culminating in the well-publicized IronMan events lasting 8-12 hours or longer. Triathlon ranks as my sport of preference the past seven years or so since I found training for my one and only (thus far) marathon in 2002 too monotonous, and since my introduction and illustrious beginning at the infamous if not famous Magee 3 Triathlon in Plymouth, Indiana, annually organized and hosted by our good friends.

For this first generously informal event of around 40 competitors, mostly friends, I "swam" the short 400 yard swim the first year with a flotation aid (a noodle, I think, not water wings) and the second year just as slowly without one. While some consider me lucky due to my absence of body fat, a short thin build is not a swimmer's gift; my body (especially my legs) sinks and drags through the water, making efficient progress a real struggle. With two years of study and practice, I improved my form and balance enough to qualify as a below-average competitive long-distance swimmer. Steph and I also "competed" that first Magee 3 on mountain bikes with fat tires and heavy frames akin to dragging a piano vs. a road bike; I subsequently invested in a decent entry-level competitive road bike a year or two later.

The shortest "Sprint" distance triathlons consist of around a 400-800 yard (meter) swim, 13-15 mile (22-25 km) bike and 3 mile (5km) run, requiring for me around 1:15-1:30 hours to complete. I primarily stuck with the Magee 3 and Chicago Sprint triathlons each year until pushing the endurance a bit farther to "Olympic" distances, i.e., the same distance competed in the Olympics, a 1 mile swim (1600 m), 25 mile bike (40km) and 6.2 mile run (10km), about double the sprint distance and lasting twice as long, for me 3 hours (the winners finish in 2 hours and Olympics are one-quarter of an IronMan).

From 2005-2007 I successfully completed two Olympic autumn triathlons in Lake Geneva, WI (ironic name, eh?) in under 3 hours, and limped and cheated through one disastrous early summer 2006 Olympic event in Elkhart Lake, WI; undertrained in the spring (perhaps due to crummy Chicago spring weather?), I couldn't complete the full mile swim (guiltily ducking under a buoy 3/4 distance out to join others already swimming back) or the oftentimes brutally steep hilly bike course (I had never experienced a single real biking hill in flat Chicago). We were headed to the World Cup in Germany the following weekend, and I still remember panting and swearing, a complete wreck on the bike, "I don't need this crap, I'm going on vacation in a week!" Not so mentally tough that day, eh? Steph jumped in bandit to help me--completely physically and psychologically exhausted--finish out the 6.2 mile run after I tried to sneak onto the 3.1 mile run course but took a wrong turn. I still love that story (and learned a lot that day!).

I completed my last U.S. triathlon in early Septmber 2007, an Olympic distance in Lake Geneva (fair and square, might I add) about six weeks before moving to Europe. Last year despite not working and training fairly consistently, my lack of Swiss pre-planning and one day of terrible weather negated all my planned races. Zürich's and another nearby sprint were fully booked by the time I applied (the completely German web sites slowed me down as well), and after I signed up (on a French website) and paid a nominal fee for an early September Olympic event in the French-side town of Aubonne near the actual Lake Geneva, an all day thunderstorm washout (we get some nasty ones in Switzerland) combined with some common sense kept me from traveling 3 hours across the country to a completely unfamiliar French-speaking village to attend. I instead finished the season and placed well in a perfectly enjoyable half-marathon in Basel in late October.

So the Züri Olympic Tri made my first triathlon in approaching two years, my first in Europe, and only my fourth longer-distance event ever. And several work and vacation trips to the Caribbean, Asia, and the U.S. in the ten weeks leading up to the event wreaked some havoc with my training schedule. How did I fare? Tune in again please soon!

Basler Halbmarathon

My first triathlon season this summer/fall in Switzerland turned out nothing of the sort. Although I had trained for and planned to participate in a few short- to medium-distance events, none came to fruition. The first event had filled up by the time I tried to register, the second was preempted by our weekend trip to Paris (oops) and the third--in French-Switzerland with a killer hilly bike leg that I was really looking forward to--was obliterated by heavy rain and 40-degree temps on race day. So to keep some sort of athletic goal ahead of us, Steph, our Australian friend Kim and I signed up for the Basel Half Marathon (13.1 miles) in late October.

Unfortunately for Steph and Kim, too much international work travel (Russia+Turkey and Beijing, respectively) disrupted their training schedules requiring both to bow out, leaving me as the lone competitor. Kim agreed to join Steph in my cheering section, however, so the three of us met too early on a chilly Saturday morning at the Hauptbahnhof for a 7:00am train. Basel sits in the country's northwest "corner" where Switzerland meets both France and Germany, about an hour train ride from Zürich.

At 900 participants, the event seemed miniscule compared to our old Chicago races, where at least 5,000 people turned out for every 5k run. Conditions were perfect, cold but clear and sunny. Logistics were adequate, the main beef being a stated requirement to arrive 90 minutes before the start, when 30 minutes would have been more than adequate (every moment of sleep is precious to me). Somewhat bizarre for Switzerland, the course was mostly flat and 2/3 on concrete instead of trails, a welcome change from the Winterthur half marathon Steph and I ran in May. I rose to the occasion and smashed my previous best time, finishing in a quite respectable 1 hour 47 minutes (damn but the Swiss are fast, I didn't finish in the top 50% of men).

Soon after, I received congratulatory phone calls from from both our Dutch and Mexican friends; I only mention it because the support of three friends on the day was another hugely welcome change from our May race, in which Steph and I mainly supported each other. Developing a friend network is so important to settling into a new environment that I can't overstate it. Steph, Kim and I spent the early afternoon briefly wandering Basel's downtown shops after a satisfying lunch of pizza, beer, salad and fantastic French fries. The town is smaller and quainter than Zürich with more French influence. Steph and I will return in December for her company Christmas party, so we'll take another look around then.

Just to keep the day jam-packed, we had also planned to host dinner for our German/Manhattan friends (the same couple I'd seen that Thursday night). Steph did most of the work with last-minute shopping and pulling everything together by 8:00pm, and we enjoyed a nice evening hanging out, eating and drinking wine until nearly 1:00am, when both Steph and I crashed head-first into the pillows and slept like stones. To stretch out some leg soreness, we took Hobbes on a long, wonderful autumn walk up our Zürich hillside late Sunday morning, discovering a new French bakery & café (a huge addition to the neighborhood!) and wandering through vineyards with still-unharvested winegrapes and excellent lake views. After later meeting our Dutch friend to catch up over drinks (non-alcoholic) and a light lunch, Steph cruised off to Milan on Sunday evening for another work photo shoot, this one thankfully only lasting one day. All-in-all, a successful October weekend.

Race pics: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.bqj0op8z&x=0&y=-oagt1g&localeid=en_US


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Germany on our Power

Strange how the more things change the more they stay the same, eh? Just as Chicago's reticent yet inevitable summer eventually does each year, Zürich's has already justified our 7-1/2 month wait. And although my ADD certainly doesn't need another addiction to add to my/our existing list of traveling, cooking, running, swimming, hiking, learning German, blogging, looking for employment and acting as daily tour guide for the golden furball, that's too bad because I've got a new one--biking!

Since my Nov/Dec near-daily townie-biking to the grocery store in Kloten, which didn't exactly count as much exertion, I'd only road-biked once this spring and Steph not at all. The sketchy weather combined with lingering disorganization since our move(s)--because road biking unlike running or swimming requires a modicum of organization--not to mention a zillion other things going on blunted any progress on two wheels. Moreover, although we enjoy it OK, biking was admittedly never a great love in Chicago; perhaps blame the urban concrete jungle with its only viable extended bike path along the lakefront usually crammed to the gills with moving and stationary human obstacles in all forms, sizes and speeds. But now...Enter: Switzerland.

As its countless guidesigns make apparent, Switzerland is not only a hiker's but also a biker's paradise, a fact registered somewhere in our brains but as yet unexploited. So last week Tuesday, I finally organized the bike equipment (living on the sixth floor doesn't help) and Steph and I rolled outside with no particular destination on a nice evening after work. Within five minutes, we bumped into a roadsign for a regional biking path and followed it out of Zürich. An hour later we returned home wide-eyed from our first-ever European biking experience--brutal climbs (for us), rapid descents, cobblestones, quaint churches, vineyards and awesome lake views. Yes, just like that we're hooked.

Newly armed with a highly-detailed regional Velokarte (biking map), we decided to up the ante for the following weekend. But where to go? As our various short train trips to northeasterly Schaffhausen had indicated, Germany lies nearby just over the Rhine, but we didn't expect the map to show the river dipping so close to Zürich to the northwest. So that's it! An international biking daytrip! The official route guide measured the trip one-way at 19 miles and an 'easy' grade (of choices 'easy', 'medium' or 'difficult').

Unsure if we had the legs to make it to Germany and back (19 miles isn't too bad but 38 is fairly significant), our peloton of two hit the road mid-morning on an already hot sunny Saturday.

A hundred sweaty minutes, 23 miles and more hills than we'd seen in 13 years (above) later, after taking only one wrong turn that cost some time to correct, we coasted down through tiny Kaiserstuhl am Rhein, Schweiz, over the Rhine river, past a lackadaisical German border patrolman who barely spared us a glance and up into little Hohentengen an Hochrhein, Deutschland! (Click on the top Google Earth map to enlarge the whole path.)

We picked one of the several local restaurants with an outdoor patio, parked the bikes and shuffled our tired legs to a table. We ordered two grosse Biere and merrily perused the German menu and prices in Euros instead of Swiss CHF. Gigantic mixed salads, double schnitzel with fries and a huge omelette hit the spot nicely. The food tasted the same, the ambience felt the same, the local accent sounded the same, but the relatively inexpensive bill was a welcome foreign element indeed.

Chuckling at the prospect of biking our distended stomachs 23 miles back to Zürich (we never really thought we'd make it anyway), we pedaled back across the river to the Kaiserstuhl station and kicked back with espresso at a neighboring café waiting for the train (my exercise recovery drink used to be Gatorade, but when in Rome, etc.). Funnily enough, the less-direct train ride home took almost as long as our bicycle jaunt. So as I'm sure will gratify all the pundits out there, Europe's summertime benefits are finally, rapidly and gratefully erasing the horrible vestiges of culture shock and months of frustrating readjustment from our winter move. But no, it doesn't mean we'll be biking to France or Italy anytime soon.

A few Saturday biking pics are here. Sunday was the Europameister final game, Germany v. Spain, with final pics as well: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.9kl12zsr&x=0&y=dtb5y1&localeid=en_US

Undertrained, Overcommitted

If you're superhumanly attentive or monumentally bored, you may notice I sometimes attach a label or 'Category' to the bottom of blog entries. Honestly I haven't the foggiest idea why readers might filter this blog by category but nonetheless, it's easily facilitated by blogging technology. There's one category in particular you haven't seen in a loooong time. You've seen lots of 'Excursions'. You may remember seeing 'Housing' entries before and after we moved. Yet although we consider it a major component of our lives, 'Exercise' hasn't made a blog appearance since way back in Sep/Oct for my/Steph's last big triathlon/marathon, respectively.

Not belonging to a health club here (insufficient value for the Franc), we mostly kept in a shadow of shape by running the nearby farm fields in Kloten in Nov/Dec and running (weather allowing) or swimming in Zürich during Jan-Mar. Maintaining our customary regimen was nearly impossible, since due to initial stress and/or new germs or climate or something, I've been sick literally once every month since moving to Switzerland in November, after not contracting so much as a cold for over a year in Chicago; Steph hasn't fared much better. And this is without our much more frequent Chicago (often late) nightlife activities; we're teetotalers in comparison today.

Naturally, our exercise schedules themselves become less flabby once a goal is set and our bodies follow suit; therefore we had targeted the Winterthur (next big city over from Zürich) half-marathon in mid-May--13.1 miles. We enjoy the half-marathon distance for requiring some (but not too much) organized training, yet ending well before the marathon's masochisitic brutality begins in earnest.

Nonetheless, our demanding European vacation travel schedule (sympathy probably not forthcoming) combined with schizo mountain weather this spring rattled our training schedule. You're perhaps familiar with the endurance-training concept of tapering, that is, pushing yourself to the desired performance level and then relaxing or "tapering" in the week or two approaching the event? Well when Sunday, May 18 rolled around, I considered us extremely "well-tapered". That morning we rode the train (of course) from overcast Zürich to Winterthur, about 25 minutes, then found the registration area within the city, about a 15 minute walk, then obtained our race numbers and stored our extra gear (despite all-German and patently unclear signage), then lined up with another 1,600 fitness freaks at the starting line (1,600 is quaint compared to Chicago athletic events, which always unfortunately attempt the "World's Largest (fill-in-the-blank)" because of Second City syndrome).

Good news was miraculously avoiding rain despite every forecast all week predicting the opposite. Bad news was that every single other competitor had apparently not been gallavanting around Europe all spring and were already accustomed to Swiss germs and were teetotallers and have trained on mountains all their lives. That is, at least not trained on the world's flattest largest glaciated lake bottom for the past 13 years. Still not fully accustomed to Swiss topography, we'd term the race's first half as "rolling"; the entire second half was inclined with the only variation being a gradual burn upwards vs. occasional steep killer hills. Admittedly we never tried for a personal best and would have posted a lackluster result on flat terrain, but could only chuckle finishing in the bottom 10% instead of our Chicago-usual top third. The highlight was undoubtedly the charming Swiss spectators, scattered thinly but conspicuously along the entire course, spiritedly cheering even the dregs like us in their inimitable trilingual fashion, "Hopp, hopp, hopp!" (Swiss-German), "Allez! Allez!" (French), and "Bravo!" (Italian).

Now here is where I maintain that Steph and I, despite all our adjustments and obstacles the past seven months, must finally be clawing back to a semblance of our true social form. In addition to the race, we had several weeks back also planned to entertain our original Zürich relocation guide, the peerless Mr. Mssrli, for dinner that evening. In our Chicago heyday, a random weekend might include an endurance event, dinner party for eight, Chicago bar-hopping until 2am, an impromptu wine and cheese pairing for friends Sunday afternoon, and then baking pastry from scratch Sunday evening for everyone in the office Monday morning. Well maybe not entirely, but our deliberate overcommitment to Mr. Mssrli must mean we're feeling slightly closer to normal.

As further evidence, we insisted on grilling outside as originally planned (our imported U.S.-Weber grill was brand new and, yes, we bought the largest American-sized one available from a Swiss retailer and, no, I won't tell you how overpriced no matter how much you ask) under the new big patio umbrella despite the downpour that evening. And might I add, although we're usually befittingly humble, we nailed all three courses with possibly as good a meal as the best we've enjoyed in any Zürich restaurant to date. Our culturally-comparative conversations with Swiss/British Mr. Mssrli were as entertaining as always and before leaving at 11:30pm (one positive sign) that Sunday night he suggested (unaided) that we meet out for dinner again in the near future (another positive sign).

Thus completely exhausted and probably on the verge of our seventh sickness, we toppled into bed perhaps a touch more satisfied that someday soon our general overall performance in Europe--athletically, socially, psychologically, (linguistically?)--will improve a hair past that bottom 10%.

Marathon Inferno

Major congratulations to Stephanie for finishing the 2007 Chicago Marathon today!!

Not only was it the hottest Chicago Marathon in history, today was the hottest October 7 ever in Chicago at 88F with 60+% humidity to boot. And it wilted the 45,000 participants (will they ever cap the Chicago marathon..?) who generated over 90,000 gallons of sweat today, according to my calculations. Over 300 people were taken away in ambulances with one death.

Officials actually shut the course down after only 3-1/2 hours. At that point only 4,000 runners had finished; another 20,000 that had already passed the halfway point were allowed to complete the full distance (while being incessantly shouted at by dozens of bullhorn-wielding organizers and a helicopter overhead to walk rather than run); the remaining 20,000 that hadn't yet reached halfway were simply redirected back to the start. My favorite line came from a particular police car PA speaker while slowly cruising the final five mile stretch of Michigan Avenue, "If you don't stop running and start walking, we will arrest you" (of course, he was kidding).

Between Stephanie and our good friend David from Plymouth, IN, who also ran today, they saw dozens of people collapse. Both added 30-40 minutes to their planned finishing time, with Steph at 4 hrs 56 minutes and David at an amazing 3 hrs 30 minutes (this was his 10th marathon including running Boston two years ago). The last several course miles looked like a triage with countless ambulances running around and blaring sirens. Steph received incredible help, moral support and sherpa service from another awesome Chicago friend Tom who ran "bandit" (that means he wasn't registered to run) with her from mile 10 until the end at 26.2; he was only planning to run 11 miles but ended up sticking through the entirety to help her with additional water and Gatorade and positive reinforcement.

The marathon course was improved for spectators this year, so I saw Steph at 3 points: miles 10, 21 and 25. Friends Matt and Melissa also cheered her on at miles 17 and 23. Friends Brad and Beth live right on the course at mile 10, not only providing Steph a much-needed bathroom break (from over-hydrating, nothing wrong with that) but also blasting music and spray-misting their garden hose into the running crowd which made Brad popular enough to run for mayor. Despite all the runners' problems, the crowd was great this year (people come out to cheer when it's 88F, not 44F) and the event is always phenomenal, so much that I was briefly overcome by a moment of homesickness for Chicago without even leaving yet.

So once more, congratulations to Stephanie (who also raised $750 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation as part of a Hyatt-sponsored charity) and David and the additional 44,998 successful, limping, salty, sunburned and exhausted participants of the Hotter than Hades 2007 Chicago Marathon!

Tri Something

One significant pre-Swiss goal was accomplished Saturday morning as Todd successfully completed the Lake Geneva (WI) Olympic distance triathlon without drowning, crashing or pulling up lame. The weather was perfect, sunny with not much wind, the waters of Lake Geneva were smooth and comfortable when I splashed in with 350 others at 6:30am. Are you dying to know my times? I knew it!

0.9 mile swim - 29 minutes
25 mile HILLY bike - 1 hour, 24 minutes (17.7 mph)
6.2 mile SUPER HILLY run - 55 minutes (8:52 min/mile)

I completed this very same triathlon two years ago with a very similar result; this year was a little faster on the bike and slower on the run. So apparently I'm not aging too badly--which is positive thing--but not improving either. I hope the mountains around Switzerland (the real Lake Geneva..?) are less severe than the hills in Lake Geneva, WI, because the bike in particular this year seemed tough.

The worst part of the whole thing was my transition from swim to bike--last time took 4 minutes, this time 41 minutes. Hm. Did I really have that much trouble peeling off the wetsuit? No, actually I somehow lost my bike helmet prior to starting the race and had to stand around in the transition area waiting for poor Stephanie, who at 5:50am had sped back to our point of origin (East Troy, WI - 25 miles away) to try to locate it, because you can't ride the bike without one.

She ultimately hurriedly bought a new helmet at the local Wal Mart (at an everyday low price) only to find on her arrival that I had already biked away about ten minutes prior. How? Another poor competitor after the swim had found a flat tire on her bike, gave up on fixing it, saw me standing around and kindly lent her (slightly too small) helmet to me.

Logistical idiocy on my part aside, the event was quite fun--it's a great course--and a tremendous success. Now I slip into my post-Fall triathlon funk as I have no event to train for throughout the late fall and winter. At least we have Stephanie's thrashing of the Chicago Marathon to look forward to in early October!

Brutal (or Easy) Start to the Weekend

Labor Day weekend started abominably early this morning as Steph and Todd woke up at 5:30am and 6:30am (that may not sound early but believe me, it was) for training for the Chicago Marathon and Lake Geneva (WI) triathlon, respectively. That is, Steph ran 18 miles (crazy!) and Todd biked 26 and then ran 6 miles (sane!).

If you hadn't heard, the Chicago Marathon upped its quota to what feels like 170,000 participants this year. It's necessary to hit the shoestring-wide Chicago lakefront path as early as possible so that only the first 70,000 are clogging up the works, before the remaining 100,000 show up at 8:15am. Then simply add a few thousand spandex-clad jerky bikers and stir.

So Stephanie, who suffered during her 16-miler last weekend, breezed through her 18-miler today. That's just over 3 hours of running. For whatever reason, the Marathon Training gods were smiling on her. Probably because they had already decided to lash out at one of her training partners, who pulled up lame after straining (or shredding, who knows?) an unidentified lower leg muscle.

Todd didn't fare so well. The bike went okay, but I fell apart on the run. Check out the split times for the six miles: 8:34, 8:44; 8:59, 9:24, 11:00 (was I crawling?), 10:02. I may have been still dehydrated (or drunk?) from Wednesday's Cubs game. Total bike/run time was just over 2-1/2 hours. The Lake Geneva triathlon is next weekend, so I simply need to tack on a mile-long swim before the hilly bike/run and I'm done. No sweat.