It's been awhile...

I still haven't written about my trip to NJ and the good times with my family, friends, and jellyfish, but that's coming. Right now I'm in Chicago and 12 hours away from the Chicago Accenture Triathlon.

We flew in from Denver last night and are staying right in the city with a friend of a friend. This is the first time I've traveled to do a triathlon and this is by far bigger than any I have done, so it's pretty exciting. There was a bit of anxiety last night during the cab ride from the airport when I was told my bike hadn't arrived at where we are staying. I called UPS (it might be a bit embarrassing, but I know the UPS number by heart since I call them often with shipping dilemmas for work). They said the box was delivered at 1:18pm that afternoon and was sitting by the door. Not a good sign, since it obviously wasn't. I figured it had most certainly walked. The cab pulled up to the address and right away Cyrus realized the address he was given was off by 10. We hunted around for a bit, and sure enough my bike was sitting at the coach house 5 houses down the street. Elation.

This morning [after an amazing breakfast of blueberry pancakes] we ran over to Lake Michigan and went for one of the nicest swims. Ever. It was amazing...I can't believe how nice it is here! The water was warm (77) and clean. And best of all: to get in we jumped off of the edge of a seawall about 6 feet above the surface.

Cycling here is a different story, and there's even more stop and go than in Boston. I'm actually fine riding in the city, but compared to driving in Denver, people here are insane. I felt like I was in Lima again last night when we to get pizza. I guess it's only taken a year to go from Bostonian to Westerner. What's the rush?

PS - Happy Birthday, Dad!

Bust a Mile

Triathlons are great and all, but part of me still misses running. Somehow suffering through a 10k at the end of a triathlon doesn't really cut it. Two weeks ago after running 5:44 for one of my mile repeats I decided I would hop in the Pearl Street Mile to see what I could bust out. Aside from 20x200 on the cinders last Thursday I went into today solely on tri training, where my running workouts consist mostly of 4xmile every other week.

I drove up to Boulder with Ofer who also ran the race just for kicks. Pearl Street was hopping, and after the kids, family & friends, and masters' waves went off I took to the line with the Elite Women. My starts are still sticking with me from my 800m days, and when the siren went off I bolted without a thought and found myself leading (!) the first 100m. I settled in around 250m and tried to maintain my spot in 4th place. Top 5 were awarded prize money. Went through the 1/2 somewhere around 2:37 and then started the gradual hill up to the finish. I dropped back into 7th or so, my legs wondering what was going on. I crossed in 5:32 and my lungs KILLED. For the next 15 minutes I thought I had done permanent damage. Imagine the feeling after racing indoors, but then amplify it by a magnitude of about 100. All in all not too shabby for a mile on a whim.