Mission Accomplished!

Yesterday I completed the sprint distance of the Chicago Accenture Triathlon. And what a day it was! Pat and I stayed downtown at the McCormick Hyatt on Saturday night - thanks to Michelle traveling too much last year and getting lots of Hyatt points. We spent the day Saturday picking up my packet and checking out the expo. Then we walked to Old Navy to pick up jeans - very exciting for Pat! We had some time to relax in the hotel and then headed to Joe's Seafood and Steaks. It was a wonderful dinner and enjoyed every bite!
We then had an early night and had 3 alarms and a wake up call to make sure we didn't miss the race!
We were up and out of the hotel at 4:15 am! We rode our bikes up the lakefront and got mine checked into transition. We then had time to hang out before my 6:24 am start.
There were about 8700 participants - of those, about 2500 were in the sprint distance like me. They were reporting the water temperature to be 72.
So at 6:23 my wave (#7) got in the water and started one minute later. The swim was tough - much tougher than in Naperville. I didn't get kicked as much as I thought I would, but it felt like a long swim. When I got out I then had to run 1/4 mile to get to the bike. That wasn't bad except for the sidewalk wasn't flat, so it hurt my feet.
I hopped on my bike and rode up Lake Shore Drive to Foster Ave and then turned around rode back. After the turnaround I decided to drink some of my G2 and when I went to put it back in the cage on my bike it fell out, so I didn't have any other drink for the ride. The bike took about 50 minutes, so that is the longest part of the race. I would pass people and then people would pass me, but it wasn't very crowded. I saw some really nice bikes out there, and there were plenty similar to my Schwinn 10-speed from 8th grade graduation! I did see a rider with a very aero-dynamic helmet - it reminded me of the helmet that Hal wore on Malcolm in the Middle when he was competing in speed walking - that made me laugh.
So I put my bike back in transition and started the run. After doing the Naperville triathlon I had committed to being faster in transition - and it worked. My bike-to-run transition was less than 2 minutes, so I was happy with that.
The 5K run path went south on the lakefront, past the swim and continued down to about Soldier Field. I then turned back north and then finished just north of Roosevelt on Columbus. The run wasn't too bad and I kept a good pace.
I was very excited to see the finish line. My legs were getting very tired and I was ready to be done.
Pat was there to greet me as I finished and I proudly wore my 'finisher' medal. His phone rang soon after I finished and it was the Goy's - they had been checking my progress on line and knew that I had finished - isn't technology amazing! I was glad to get some water and Gatorade and then have time to hang out.
I was able to get my finish time from the Accenture booth (1:47:18) and then head to the Athletico tent to get stretched.
I grabbed some food from the picnic area for us and we headed back to the lakefront. So at 9 am we were eating hamburgers and veggie burgers (guess who was eating which?!). But by that point we had been up for 5 hours. I tried to see my friend Tracey who was doing the international distance, but I kept missing her.
It took a while to get my stuff out of transition, but then I headed back to the hotel for a refreshing shower and time to rest.
It was great to see the girls - and to hear how wonderful they were (obviously we wouldn't hear anything different from grandma and grandpa). Reagan was very interested in my numbers on my legs and arms.
Thank you to grandma and grandpa for taking such good care of them!
I am really glad that I decided to do this race this year. It was a great accomplishment and it really kept me motivated at the gym. Now I will have to come up with a new goal. But I think I will take a few days off before jumping back in.