Chicago Triathlon: What to Expect on Race Day

By Raymond Britt

Chicago Triathlon: What to Expect

Each year, Chicago is host to several thousand triathletes from all over the world, participating in a weekend-long series of triathlons. If you’re racing or watching someone race, welcome to the world’s largest triathlon.

By the time you pick up your race bib number, bike stickers, wrist-bands and t-shirt at the Chicago Triathlon Expo, it will begin to dawn on you: this is for real. The race is just around the corner.

You’re far from alone if you’re feeling a bit anxious about everything you’ll have to do on race day from before dawn until after you finish. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ve written it all down for you. Read on.

There are a variety of different events taking place on race weekend: Kids and Super Sprint races on Saturday, Sprint and Olympic Distance races (in a variety of formats: individual, relay, mountain bike, elite age group, and pro) on Sunday.

For simplicity, I’m writing about the Olympic Distance race here: 1500 meter swim, 40k bike, 10k run (Sprint Distance is one-half the distance, on the same course).

Early Wake-Up Call

Set those alarm clocks early, because you’ll need to have entered the transition area, set-up your bike and everything else before dawn. Race organizers want everyone out of the transition area – no exceptions – by 6am.

I suggest you plan your commute to arrive downtown by 5am. There’s plenty of parking in the underground lots east of Michigan Ave and north of Monroe. The parking garage exits conveniently put you close to the transition area.

Transition Set-Up

Race organizers provide bike racks, organized by ‘Wave’, the number of the group you will be racing with. At the expo, you will learn your Wave Number, which also identifies what time you’ll start racing. If you’re in Wave 39, for example, that’s where your bike must go; it’s against the rules to put your bike with another group.

Sorry, but you won’t get that much room to set up your things under your bike; just enough to fit under the width of your handlebars. Actually, you won’t need that much space after all. Here’s what you do:

• Lay your bike shoes, socks, helmet, sunglasses, jersey, and bib number on a small towel to the left of your rear bike wheel. This will make a quick change easy after the swim

• To the right of your rear bike wheel, put your running shoes and hat, maybe an energy bar, for a quick bike-to-run transition

• On your bike, load one or two bike bottles and maybe an energy gel or two, for calories and hydration on the bike

• Place any extra things you might want during the race in your gear bag, under your bike; they’re out of the way, but available if needed

It’s a simple as that.

Finding your bike during the race might be the harder thing, so take a couple of minutes to note landmarks that can help pinpoint your bike when you are entering transition from the swim at one end or off the bike from the other end.

When you have your bearings, gather up your wetsuit, goggles, swim cap and sunscreen and exit transition to wait for your turn to race. Depending on your Wave start time, the wait could be as long as three hours. If you’re one of those late-starters, you may need a diversion or two such as the Sunday paper and a comfortable place in the shade. Your time will come.

Getting Started: The Swim

Steve Abbey has seen the swim venue change over the years. “Swim courses have ranged from Oak Street Beach to Olive Park, to one at the Aquarium and veered around the Planetarium, to the current course in Monroe Harbor, which has been in place for several years now,” he recalls.

The Monroe Harbor swim course is very straightforward, literally. For Sprint Racers, they will swim a straight line south to north for 750 meters. Olympic Distance racers will swim approximately 375 meters south toward the Aquarium, then make a U-turn for the northbound swim of 1125 meters to the finish.

Swim Waves, typically groups of 100 to 200 swimmers, will begin racing at 6:00am. For the next few hours, every few minutes the swim start air horn will blow, signaling the beginning of the race for the next wave. You need to know when your group is slated to start and plan to be near the swim entrance about 15 minutes before that.

About 10-minutes before your start, a volunteer will begin gathering your group into an organized procession to water’s entry. Start zipping up your wetsuit and getting comfortable with 5 minutes to go. Two minutes later, the Wave in front of you will hear the air horn, and their race will begin.

Sixty seconds after that, officials will let your Wave enter the water, a process that will only last two minutes before your Wave starts. Jumping into murky water with no bottom can be disorienting. Get in as soon as you can, then quickly move to one side for some space to get used to the water.

In any typical Wave you will have your fleet swimmers, the good swimmers and the dogpaddlers. Figure out which one you are, and seed yourself accordingly. I fit somewhere in the middle, so I tend to move to the outside middle of the group, so I don’t get stuck in the middle of too much activity.

The time passes faster than you think, and soon the air horn is for you. Time to race!

As everyone starts thrashing in the same general direction, it will feel chaotic, because it is. Tell yourself that it will all sort out soon as people find their space in the water. Let things settle as you find your own swim rhythm. Soon, you’ll just be swimming as you do in training, just with a few others around you.

The Monroe Harbor walls offer constant landmarks to see how for and fast you are swimming. My experience is that the distance always seems longer than I expect; in other words, the swim doesn’t end as fast as I wish it would.

Just keep going, the end is near, and so are the volunteers, ready to help pull you out of the water. Yes, you will need the assistance. Once on land, you’ve got a short trek of several hundred yards to the transition area. Many people set a pair of shoes at the swim exit to make this long jog a little more comfortable. I’ve tried it and found it to be more trouble than it’s worth, but the choice is up to you.

Get Rolling: The Bike

Once you find your bike in transition, take a second to make sure you put your helmet on correctly (like making sure the front is in front, buckled, etc.). With shoes, bib number, sunglasses and everything else in place, head to the north transition area, your bike at your side. When you exit, you can only mount the bike past a certain line, noted by officials. Be patient, soon you’ll be rolling.

Over the years, Steve Abbey has also seen the bike course change. “The bike course used to be one loop north to Hollywood then south to Pershing,” Abbey remembers. “The current loop course to Lawrence Ave – once for Sprint racers, twice for Olympic Distance racers – has been in place since the late 1990s.”

The bike course, entirely on Lake Shore Drive, is a mainly flat course with some very gentle rolling over bridges at major East-West city streets such as Fullerton, Belmont and Fullerton. The city reserves two left lanes each way on The Drive for cyclists, while the right lanes will still contain Sunday morning auto traffic. The fun part: just watch, you will be riding faster than those cars sitting in occasional traffic jams.

The biggest climb of the bike race is the first 200 meters up a ramp to enter Lake Shore Drive. Take this climb at a relaxed pace; no need to needlessly blow energy this early. Once at the top, capitalize on a little gravity, letting a nice decline pull you past Navy Pier and toward Oak Street Beach.

Regular bike traffic, in this race, is to remain on the left side of the cycling area. At the beginning, move there, and let yourself get into a cycling groove. Find the pace that’s right for you -- one you can sustain for 25 miles that also will let you run 6.2 miles after that -- and just settle in.

You might begin that settling-in process about the time you pass the Drake Hotel, when the course heads directly north. From this point consider the race to be roughly four 10-mile segments: out to Lawrence, back to the turnaround for lap 2 (only for Olympic Distance), to Lawrence again, then back to transition.

I also like to consider the 10k segments as broken into smaller segments, from overpass to overpass. After the Lincoln Park Zoo, you will gently roll over Belmont, Irving Park. Montrose, Wilson and Lawrence. They seem to be three to four minutes apart, maybe a mile or so between each one. Take them one at a time, use gravity coming down off one to help build momentum to the next one.

When you are ready to pass someone – and you will find this happens often – communicate. Call out: ‘passing on your right!’ I like to even add something personal so they know I’m talking to them, such as: ‘on your right, #2365’. And thank everyone when you get past them. It’s good karma to be nice out there.

Running Down A Dream

Coast back into transition after a good bike ride and you’re almost there. Just 6.2 miles to run, along one of the most beautiful cityfront 10k courses in America. A quick change into running shoes in transition, and you’re off, running along the edge of Monroe Harbor.

You may be feeling tired, but elements of the run may make things a little easier. First, you can look forward to regular aid stations with water and Gatorade on the run course. Then the Chicago Triathlon course lets you do some sightseeing on the way.

Running from transition to just before the Aquarium is the first mile. Run that first mile taking a glance or two at Monroe Harbor as your pass, smiling to yourself that earlier in the day you were swimming there. A left turn around the Aquarium and an east-bound trek to the Adler Planetarium will get you to mile 2. Next, heading south on a bike path, you’ll pass Soldier Field and cross the 3-mile point as you arrive at McCormick Place.

You’re halfway there. Just keep things steady, walk if you need to, get as much fluid as you need at aid stations. Say ‘hi’ to some runners coming toward you. Thank the volunteers. All you need to do is continue forward motion with a smile and you’re almost there.

Continue south on the bike path past a 5th aid station, make a U-turn, then pass the 4-mile point as you return toward McCormick Place. You’ll pass mile 5 before you reach Soldier Field, and from then to the finish line, it’s time to enjoy and savor your day. You’ll make a return trip around Shedd Aquarium, then head west, under Lake Shore Drive to the finish line.

It’s a great feeling, turning the corner onto Columbus Street, knowing you’ve completed the Triathlon – Swim, Bike and Run. Some people talk about it, others dream about it. When you get to that finish line: You did it. You. Nice Job. See you Next Year.

For more, return to our Complete Chicago Triathlon Coverage.

Balancing the Numbers: Getting the Most Out of Your Training

RunTri.com Racing Coverage || By Raymond Britt, cover story for Inside Triathlon Magazine

It’s about finding balance. It’s about getting the best out of yourself. It’s about learning what you’re capable of. It’s about discovering your strengths and working on your weaknesses. It’s about doing more with less time. It’s your swim, bike, run life in a nutshell.

It’s your training log.

It’s a vital tool that can help you unlock your hidden potential. It can also help you achieve that potential despite limited time, because – let’s be honest – there will never be enough time in the day to train as much as we want, while living our real, everyday lives.

Real Life

Starting as back-of-the-pack finisher eleven years ago, I wanted to find a way to improve from a novice athlete (how about a 4:47:01 debut marathon?) to eventually qualify for the Boston Marathon and the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kona, Hawaii.

But there were many natural obstacles: a full-time job as a tech executive, four children; in short, a full-time life that left little extra time for training. In fact, I’ve only been able to train an average of eight hours per week in recent years. No, that’s not a typo; that’s life.

To meet my goals, I had no choice but to get the maximum out of those few training hours. I needed to find a way to balance real life with my goals of improving running and triathlon performance. Sound familiar?

The simple tool I used to do it: my training log.

You can get the most out of your training by tracking the right information, doing the right analysis of your performance, making the appropriate tweaks based on that analysis, and translating those improvements into better racing.

The good news is that all it takes is a few key pieces of data after every workout, and spreadsheet calculations help you do the rest. Easy.

A Deceptively Simple Start

It all began innocently enough. On a warm summer night in August 1994, I decided to do something I’d never done before — run a couple of miles. I liked those first two miles enough that I tried it again the next day, then again and again. I was hooked.

On a whim, I jotted down the times and distances on a piece of paper. My rationale for those notes: it would be interesting to see if I might run enough miles to actually equal a marathon distance. Little did I know that was merely the beginning.

Many years and 50,000+ miles later, I’m still tracking every workout. It’s simple to do so, and I’ve found the benefits can be significant.

In that 1994 training log, I entered straightforward information, very similar to what I track today. It’s so simple — intuitively, you probably already know what to include. Here’s an example of my actual 2004 training log data. This is everything you’ll ever need to capture about your training.

Week and Date: noting the Week will allow you to aggregate training totals later; I start my weeks on Sunday as a psychological boost. This way it’s possible to start the week with a long training effort, as opposed to saving it all up for the end of a more traditional week that ends with Sunday.

· Type: For type of activity, list Swim, Bike or Run – simple enough, but this will be key to totaling your workouts and seeing important patterns such as training mix and comparative performance by discipline

· Distance and Time: The basics of your workout; don’t worry if you don’t have exact information, use estimates if necessary

· Pace/Mile and Miles Per Hour: these data can be simply calculated with a formula to gauge performance versus perceived effort over similar workouts

· Exercise/Route/Comment: include short notes about your workout, route, conditions, anything that’s noteworthy, should you choose to compare against other similar workouts later

· Heart Rate: I’m not a slave to heart rate training, but occasionally, I will wear a heart rate monitor to manage training effort. Having this information allows you to compare similar workouts on similar routes; lower HR/MPH over time indicates you’re improving

· Watts: When I ride CompuTrainer indoors for winter training, which tends to be six months per year, I track wattage. In doing so, I look for higher watts relative to heart rate as an indicator that I’m training better.

· xtra: I keep simple notes about light weight work (I use an ‘x’ for exercise) and abdominal work (an ‘a’)

· Equipment: I enter the equipment I use so I can tell when it’s time to change shoes (roughly 300 miles per pair), or see how much time I’m using certain equipment, e.g. riding indoors on CompuTrainer vs. outdoors on my Softride Rocket.

· Other fields: It’s possible to enter much more information, but be careful to avoid data overkill. I loosely track body weight, but not much else.

It’s that simple. You could stop there, not do further analysis of your training, and this would still be a useful tool.

Having this baseline information helped me qualify for the Boston Marathon in 1995. My big challenge: knock a full minute per mile off of my previous best marathon time. I became totally focused on driving myself to that faster level. I aimed my workouts toward speedier, quality miles, looking forward to entering the better results in my training log each time.

In a way, the training log, this simple spreadsheet, had become my master and coach. I knew the target I needed to reach, I was accountable for it, and I strove to get there and beyond in each workout.

In October 1995, I ran the Chicago Marathon in 3:14:28, qualifying for Boston. The bigger deal: having knocked 85 minutes off my debut marathon time in one year, largely because of unrelenting focus on the numbers in my training log.

But focusing on the raw data is only the beginning. The fun starts next.

Finding the Story Behind The Numbers

The magic comes in the way you analyze the information in your training log. There’s a story in the data, a story about you, how you train, what you’re capable of, what you prefer, what you avoid, and what your strengths and weaknesses are.

The plot can thicken as you assess changes in progress, performance and fitness over time as different variables change, e.g., distance, effort, heart rate, watts. By analyzing your training data you can crack the code to find your opportunities to improve. And the code covers the gamut – weekly totals, training mix, annual totals, comparing previous years, and equipment.

All it takes is a few simple Microsoft Excel calculations and Pivot Tables to convert the data entered in your training log into key insights about how you train.

Weekly Totals

While preparing for my first Ironman triathlon in 1997, I diligently read as much training material as possible. One of the most valuable things I learned was the concept of periodization, four week cycles building to greater training time, followed by a rest week, then the cycle began again. This intuitively made sense; take your body to a new level, ease off to recover, then go even higher.

On paper, training plans built on the principle of periodization looked great. But real life got in the way, often robbing precious training time, and shattering hopes of staying on the textbook schedule I had planned. And it’s still the same, year after year. To counterbalance these time challenges, I need a guide to keep me on track.

This is where the Weekly Totals analysis in my training log comes in. I’ve learned to take distractions as they come, and to try to rough out weekly training that approximates periodization. A Pivot Table calculates the raw data, and a chart is linked to the weekly totals. Seeing my weekly training in chart form provides a visual to tell me if I’m on track.

For example, in a typical 'high volume' training and racing year, I averaged just over eight training hours per week. Some weeks exceeded ten hours (several of those weeks included marathons or Ironman races), but most are under eight hours. Weekly blocks of time that approximated periodization. Not strictly by the book, but good enough to lead to a 10:12:22 Ironman personal best in Lake Placid in week 31.

These weekly training totals might look low compared to the averages tossed around in triathlon forums, but I contend that total hours mean far less than the quality of training in those hours. It’s quality, not quantity. You want to make sure the combination of the daily workouts and the weekly totals is projecting you forward. That’s your main focus, having great training hours, not just accumulating time.

Year-to-Date Summary

While the weekly picture of your training provides ongoing perspective, a Year-To-Date Summary analysis tells you what you’ve accomplished in total for the year – time, distance, averages by discipline. More importantly, it gives you insight into what you need to change.

There are several good things a training log summary can reveal. My training logs tend to show that my training mix is close to where I’d like it, at least for the first part of the year – heavier on biking, although certainly light on swimming. The average times per mile are among the best I’ve seen by April — particularly in cycling – leading to a confidence boost compared to other years. My distances per week are lower than they will be in summer, obviously, but not too bad, except for the swimming again.

Training Mix

Speaking of making mistakes from the past, I was an expert at it, until I saw the light, in the data.

I had been training for and competing in Ironman races since 1997. By the end of 2001, I had improved somewhat, but there seemed to be an impossible gap between what I thought was the best I could do and what seemed required to qualify for Kona. The gap, in my estimation, was at least 40 minutes in an Ironman race. I had to do something different. But what?

Once I posed the question, no serious scrutiny was necessary. I had to look no further than at a sum-total table in my training log that summarized time by discipline, per year. The simple table of annual totals told the story.

The answer was obvious. In 2001 I was running 50% of the time, biking 35% of the time, and swimming 15% of the time. You can guess two things from these numbers: I preferred running, and I was not a particularly good cyclist or swimmer in Ironman races. I was stuck in a comfort zone. A zone that was perfectly fine if I never wanted to improve, but one that needed to change rapidly if I wanted to get to Kona.

I made a dramatic shift in the first seven months of 2002. Whenever possible, I was on the bike. Long rides, intervals, hills, whatever. I needed to spend more time improving on the bike. That was my focus, and my training mix changed accordingly.

The shift paid off. By the time I got to Ironman Lake Placid in July, I was more than ready for the hills, and more ready than I’d ever been to run a marathon after a 112 mile bike ride. My training log dictated the change, I followed the guide, and I got what I wanted: my first Kona slot.

To this day, I keep a close eye on training mix. Even early in the year, when it’s easy to let things slip, and when it’s easy to skip an indoor ride in favor of a preferred outdoor run. My training log has been reminding me to not stray, with a simple pie chart that shows the training mix. It keeps me honest. It says: keep the balance.

Equipment

The last piece of information I analyze is something that might be considered an afterthought: equipment. I first started tracking time and distance with regard to shoes, and later extended it to include everything – bikes, pools, etc.

Again, it’s as simple as creating a Pivot Table to capture the data from your training log entries. To that, I’ve added calculations to show pace and speed for each.

I use this information to tell me when to change shoes (around 300 miles per pair), when to spend more time riding outdoors compared to indoors (I like a 1/3 indoor, 2/3 outdoor mix for the entire year), etc. Also, I can compare totals and averages against previous years to know if I’m performing better on certain things, or what needs to improve.

How much is too much?

Can you have too much information in your training log? You bet. It’s tempting, and I’ve done it. Big mistake.

I got so obsessed about training data in the late 1990s that at one point I had broken each main running route into ten different segments, and entered time and heart rate for each segment. I then plotted a regression of heart rate versus speed for each segment. This led me to the point that I could almost predict the finishing time of a 20 mile run based on my heart rate after the first mile.

Frankly, it was too much information. I found myself more tied up in knots about the data, and less about the workouts. Looking back, I knew a great deal about the metrics of my training, but all that did little to improve my training or racing. I had all the data in the world, but was stuck in a rut. So I went back to the basics, using the primary data described above. This simple data has served me well, and can serve you well, too.

When Time Isn’t On Your Side

It’s great when you have the time you want, relatively speaking, and are able to carry out your training plans in a way that translates to a good daily, weekly and annual balance. But sometimes, life throws a curve or two that calls for you to spend less time training than you’d like. Never mind that there are exciting races on the calendar, never mind that they come at you before you’re ready.

This past winter and spring has been a classic example, as I looked forward to Ironman Arizona and the Boston Marathon. Consuming work and important family activities, not to mention another icy cold, windy Chicago winter, drove my training time to lower levels than I wanted.

These challenges forced me to wedge the absolute most out of minimal training in order to still race well in April. I looked at previous year training logs and borrowed the best workouts, the ones that seemed to make me improve the fastest.

While my weekly training hours were low, averaging close to only six hours per week, consistently the daily detail told me that those hours were more productive than ever, and the annual averages confirmed that, relative to previous solid years.

The results: a great example -- I completed Ironman Arizona in 10:36:05, my third best Ironman ever; a week later, I ran the Boston Marathon in 3:02:24, my second best time on that course.

I can’t say that running these two races on an average of six hours per week training is for everybody. But I can say with confidence that I would not have performed so well without being able to apply lessons from the past to get the most out of training a very limited timeframe. Again, my training log – past and present — served as a guide that took me to solid race performances.

Used right, your training log can do the same for you.

You as Science Experiment

Pull all the pieces together – the data you enter after every workout, and the calculations and tables that can be generated quickly – and there’s so much to learn about your training. It’s as if you are your own personal science experiment.

Whether it’s comparing speed vs. heart rate, comparing time trials over similar courses, assessing how well you perform in winter vs. summer over multiple years, or comparing year over year performance, your training log can provide everything you need.

Remember: keep it simple. You don’t need very much information, but you can take it a long way. Your training log can tell you things that an endless series of triathlon books and articles will never reveal – the core truth about your training strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for improvement.

It’s all there for you. Every workout is another piece of information that can take you closer to your goals. Save the data. Let your training log do the heavy lifting. Analyze changes over time, the good and the bad.

The more you save and analyze, the better you will know yourself and the more you will have opportunities to race better, to unlock your potential, to meet and even exceed your racing goals. And in that equation, hopefully you will also find balance, balance that allows you to live your life fully, in an optimal blend of work, friends, family, training, and of course, racing.

Qualifying for Kona by Roll Down: Harder Every Year

A few years ago, if you finished an Ironman within a few places of the initial Kona qualifiers in your age group, you could hope a declined slot might roll down to you. Those days, those chances are fast becoming a distant memory. (But sometimes miracles do happen: see our What Are the Chances a Slot May Roll Down to You?)

Races accepting record participants year after year, combined with fewer Kona slots per race, have all but dashed many a roll down dream. Let's look at a specific example, Ironman Canada, age group M40-44, from 2003 to 2010. More competitors, fewer slots, faster qualifying times, fewer roll downs.

Participants in the M40-44 division have increased by 35%, while the number of slots has decreased from11 to 12 in 2003 and 2004 to 8 in 2010. Kona qualifying times in M40-44 have decreased from 10:09 to 9:45. In 2003, the last Kona slot rolled down to the 20th age group finisher. In 2010, the last slot only rolled down to 11th place.