Lake Zurich 2012 Triathlon Race Report

This was my first Olympic distance triathlon. I did TriShark sprint earlier this summer, and had issues with my goggles that threw off my already shaky swim. Since then, I have gotten in about 5 swims in Lake Michigan, so I was feeling better about this race. However, with the recent heat wave, the water temperature was in the low 80’s making wetsuits either illegal, or like swimming in a sauna. And for me, the wetsuit has been the only thing keeping my skinny legs afloat – and when they don’t float, they want to frog kick.

So, while the air temperature finally dropped last night so we would have our first day below 90, the water temperature was still 83 degrees. I opted to go without a wetsuit, because if I am going to do a half-Ironman in August, then that water temperature might not allow wetsuits either.

My wife, Laura and I had stayed at a Holiday Inn right across the street from the park where the race was based out of, so we just walked our bikes and tri-bags across Rand Road. Laura and I were both in same wave, so I knew she would be out of the water long before me, but that’s okay, my priorities in this race were to (a)just finish the swim, and (b) not be so beat up from my heart rate jumping from thrashing the water for 0.93 miles.

We started the swim from standing in the water after ‘chipping-in’ across the mat on the beach. I deliberately started at the inner side of the counter-clockwise course. You see, I have a tendency to drift to the right, probably because I only breathe on my right side, and to top it off, the buoys were on the left. I didn’t mind having other swimmers around me, it gave me a good sense I was going the right way, but after most of the wave passed me, I realized I was not just drifting right, but more like heading toward 2 o’clock. I probably did not pick my head up to sight soon enough because the other swimmers were around me. I took several course corrections to get headed back towards the buoys, and to get my heart rate down from the initial excitement and the extra work I was doing. I was okay in the murky water, but I was not comfortable being so far away from the other swimmers.

Making the first turn put the wind behind me and gave me the rising sun over my shoulder to sight. So I thought I was doing better, but I kept coming up the back of one guy, and I did not want to wear myself out trying to pass him with over half a mile to go. I even held up and let him pass, but he still veered into me. As we passed a buoy, I figured out why. Apparently, the race organizers had lost a buoy the night before. Their regular buoys are red, and the turn buoys are green, but they used one green buoy in the middle of a segment. They repeated several times to turn at the SECOND green buoy on that segment, but there were 4-5 swimmers including my bumper-pool partner angling for that buoy to mistakenly head for shore. If I saw that option 5 minutes before when I was considering hanging on a kayak if I saw one, I might have taken it, but now I was committed.

I believe the wave (or maybe 2) behind caught me on the last leg back to shore; I probably kicked some people, and made the mistake of going outside them, which exacerbated my tendency to drift right. In any case, I could easily sight the swim-in arch on the beach, so I just tried to keep my form from deteriorating as my arms tired. Interesting thing about Lake Zurich – the water was much colder by the beach than it was in the middle of the lake. If it was 83 near the start, it must have been 5 degrees warmer for 80% of the swim, so I would have been boiling like a kielbasa if I had worn the wetsuit. But the relatively cooler water felt good, both for comfort and, and to know I was close to shore.

The shore was both mucky and rocky when we got out, much to the amusement of the spectators watching friends try getting to shore. Lake Zurich has a very long run from swim-out to transition, probably 300 yards. It was just about all on grass, which was hard from the drought, but also fairly even. They conveniently had kiddie pools outside transition to rinse your feet off. I brought my own tray with water in it, but I have heard SOME people don’t bother and just step in a nearby bucket/tray; poaching off someone else’s planning and hard work (you know who you are!) So, hopefully that cut down on such despicable behavior (JK).

Transitions are still slow for me; I want to get everything I need. Even though it started out much cooler and cloudier, it is still July, and for someone with parents from Ireland, and a history of skin cancer, my skin needs sunscreen for even 1 hour of exposure, so I lubed up before the bike.

The first part of the bike is on Route 12/Rand Road, which is a busy four-lane, separated highway. They gave us one lane, and a pretty good shoulder, but racing with speeding traffic going by is a little unnerving. After about 2 miles, we took a hairpin turn, and went back up the hill we just came down on a parallel road. One thing that give you an idea of how hilly the Lake Zurich area is- their running club is called the Alpine Striders. Once we got off Rand Road, it was a great route, lots of rolling hills and turns, following the contour of the lake. We even passed a Civil War Reenactment, with rows of canvas tents, cannons and soldiers in blue and grey. Most of the course was pretty well marshaled, where there was just a basic turn. These roads were generally closed to traffic on our side, but if people needed to get out of a neighborhood, they let them.

The bike course was 2 loops, and close to the transition area, there are series of hairpin turns at the bottom of a hill. On the first loop they did a good job of directing riders, but some of the course marshals seemed distracted when I came by the second time, and it was hard to see the spot to cross oncoming traffic and head toward the finish. Otherwise, I liked the 2 loops, because I knew what to expect from the course, and probably took some turns quicker, and downshifted sooner on some hills.

One of my challenges on the bike is to make sure I eat and drink enough. My profile bottle straw is hard to reach, but I figured out if it is pretty full of water, I can pull it out, so I emptied most of a Polar bottle in there, and drank more as it got hotter. On our training rides, I used to eat trail mix and licorice –more snacks than fuel. I have started taking GU’s more on the bike; after 13 marathons and hundreds of long runs, they are kind of sickeningly sweet, but I tolerate them fine, so now they have a place in my bento box.

As you finish the bike, runners share the road coming at you in another lane for several blocks, so I looked for Laura. I gave up looking for her because it was too distracting to pick out faces while I was speeding by in a congested area. I also figured her strong swim and stronger bike put her pretty far ahead of me. I did see Bridget Bogdan, who had started in the wave behind us, so hopefully she heard me shout out to her from the bike.

I dismounted and got into transition with no issues, which is an accomplishment, because it is only the 3rd time I have done that. I only put sunscreen on my neck and arms before I biked, because I figured I would have my head down a lot. So in T2, I put some sunscreen on my face. Good thing I did, because I was almost over the mat when I realized I did not have my cap. So, I circled a few bike racks to get it, I always run with a cap – the white material is a better reflector of heat than my black hair.

One part I did not like about the run course is that just after transition, they have you run between two landscaping area- 3 feet high timbers with a 3 feet gap at a 90 degree turn. I felt like I was cutting through someone’s gangway as a kid. It is not a good course design, because with heavy legs coming off the bike, someone could easily whack their shin against it.

Water stops were frequent enough on the run, at least every 1.5 miles, but the first one was only 0.75 miles after you got water coming out of transition. Most of the water stops did not stock Gatorade, and when then did it was the neon blue kind. I feel that that is a kiddie flavor, and something like Gatorade Performance in lemon-lime or orange or fruit punch goes down easier. One of the water stops when you came back for the second loop was in the middle of a curve on a hill, so it really slowed your momentum to get back going.

I shouldn’t complain about that, because as I said to someone in T2 – ‘Now comes the fun part’. I enjoyed getting out of my comfort zone for swimming and biking, so having the run last is like a reward for me. I probably went a little fast at first, under a 7 minute pace for a quarter mile, but I settled in to like 7:30-8:00. We ran through neighborhoods, through the old downtown area of Lake Zurich, and right next to the lake where we could see private beaches/marinas where people keep their boats across the street from their houses. And we started to experience some of those hills we rode on the bike, up close and personal. That was okay with me, I have been running a hilly course near my house with John Molchin the last few weeks, so I do okay on hills. I also find that other people are not willing to go as fast downhill as I am, so I can pass a few people there, too. Laura read that a good way to run downhill is to pick your knees up, so that your feet stay under you. This reduces the impact on your knees and quads that a lot of people get from leaning back as they run downhill.

I think 2 people passed me on the run, one guy in the first mile was dogging me with heavy footsteps – I expected him to be linebacker sized, but he was close to my height- even slimmer, but pretty strong. We traded leads for a while, but he pulled ahead when I walked through a water stop to have a Gu. The other person that passed me, I barely heard –it was a willowy thin young girl, dressed more for running than for a full triathlon, so maybe she was part of a relay team. She had an incredibly high back-kick, almost hitting her butt with her heels. She got out of sight pretty quick.

I have not actually run that many 10Ks, more 5-Ks, marathons and half-marathons. So, my pacing, and focus may not be as good as the other distances. I felt good, and tried to push myself, but I was unsure if my nutrition was adequate during the whole triathlon. I saw a lot of people cramping on the run, so I took some Shot Blocks that I did not use on the bike, to make up for the lack of Gatorade. I did seem to get a good push in the last few miles, and I am happy with my run pace of 7:51. But last August, I ran the St Jude’s 10K after running 12 miles as a training run, to get in my 18 mile long run for fall marathon training. I was able to run a 7:39 pace that day, and get first in my age group and 3rd overall in that small local race. Six weeks later, that experience helped me around mile 19-20 in the Fox Valley marathon to hold an 8:00 minute pace to qualify for Boston. I need to transfer that sort of experience to the triathlon, and “Run with Faith”, that I can finish just as fast after swimming and biking.

Towards the end of the run course you are on Rand Road, looking at traffic, and part of it on sidewalk, so it made it hard to pass people, but I smelled the hay in the barn, so I turned it on. As soon as I was in sight of the finish at the grassy park, I could hear Laura cheering, so I knew she could see me, too. I felt slightly embarrassed that she finished so far ahead of me that she could make it back to cheer for me, but many more times glad to see and hear her, just as I have been at so many of my races that she has been there for me, all over the course, and at the finish.

They had ice bags at the finish, which was a good idea even though it was not 100+ heat index. They also repurposed the kiddie pools from transition to have water bottles buried in ice. The park has lots of shade and tables, so it made for nice gathering spot for racers and families, especially kids. Overall, I would recommend the Lake Zurich triathlon. It was a good entry race for me, and seems to have attracted more competitive triathletes, too. My overall time was 2:58:29. My swim time was 41 minutes, my bike speed was 18 mph, and my run pace was 7:51. So, you can see where my strength lies. But I did the swim without a wetsuit, and given my wayward swimming, I may have actually swum close to a half-Ironman distance, so I am ready to commit to that. My running has not translated to the bike as much as I would like, but this race put me just over 1000 miles on my speedometer, after riding 400+ on RAGBRAI last summer. So, more time in the saddle should help with that. It was good to see other Tri-Smarties like Brent White and Bridget Bogdan there, but of course, the icing on the cake for me was sharing the experience with my wife Laura, who has shown me the way into this sport. Laura beat her time from her one previous Olympic Distance Tri by 5 minutes, with a 2:53:59. She had a great race overall, in spite of breaking her little toe a couple of days ago. She is a warrior wife and one tough cookie. Maybe one of these days I’ll catch her on the run.