iwilltri.com race coverage of the 25th Chicago Triathlon:
****** the last video chapter:
Chapter 10: $/david thompson/Top 5 Women’s Finish: e. snowswill,b. lavelle,j. dibens, s. mcglone, m. carfrae
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g4FqbFFsJ8
8,500 athletes, the windy city shutting down main areas of dtown, it was everything I expected…just nuts ! Very well planned, executed - 54 waves, volunteers about every 15 feet in every direction, good treatment for the pros, all in all I can’t see why they won’t be at 10k soon…
I have lots of video coming on (tapering for IMmoo will give me more time I hope) - including:
-interviews with Michellie Jones, Dede Griesbauer, Mirinda Carfrae, Greg Bennett, Brian Lavelle, Julie Dibens, Leanda Cave.
-the whole pro trans layout so u can drool over the bikes, elite amateur t2, pro: swim, t1, t2, and finish chute. -post race catch up with Bennett and David Thompson.
As always all my videos will be up at youtube.com/iwilltri.
Race Day:
-Elite age group T2: I just got to see them out of T2, but it was funny in that male/females were all on one super long rack - just about everyone got lost and could not find their shoes…you had 2hr Oly guys going back and forth trying to find their shoes. Anyways, I can’t recognize age groupers as well, but Lars from Insidetri.com came in 3rd off the bike on a nice QR, while Kathy Yndestad from our home state was 2nd at T2 and finished 2nd (watch out imflorida…she will podium) - that gives her #1 at lifetime, #2 at chicago, and I don’t know if she’s doing LA, but I’m pretty sure she’ll do Dallas.
Pros:
-Bikes: Felt DA cementing it’s position (again) as bike of '07 with many on guy’s side, 2 (becky/emma) on women’s racks. Then orbea, followed by cervelo. Some other random ones (pinarello! but not the top end one) and 2 litespeeds (Julie D & DKT). Wheels = a lot of zipps / hed3s, some mavics and blackwells. I did not see anything that new or revolutionary…Oh, not 1 new specialized (though they did have 1 at the expo) / Michellie Jones bike= the real deal. You’ve seen the ad in triathelete, but up close that sram setup and custom paint job are super sweet + pink tubulars…very nice. Helmets: the much delayed/illegalfor2yrs/giroadvantage2 helmet is finally here and yes tons of pros had them, though the LG and some rudys were present too.
-Pre-race: I was there pretty early to see age-groupers, but pro trans opened at 9am. There were only 3-5 athletes till like 10… only 2 swimmer-bands to warmup…maybe this is diff becasue the race was so late for them (11am) - but anyways some had their gear all ready to go (mjones not-surprising, her husband being expert mech) while others messed around alot - which is good to see too since I’m always looking at my bke, double triple checking…
-Swim: so all the guys in the water, and there are 2 buoys that make up imaginary “line”…thing is the guys start inching ahead, more ahead, looking back and forth - some spectator cowbell rings and they are off! Oh wait no, not official horn…so half take off in 50sec/100y pace, while the rest just wait…they end up sending a lifeguard boat to intercept them and they are back again. The women of course follow directions and go off without a hitch (I can already hear my wife saying well hector…) Nothing much to report on gear, except that the blue70 is THE wetsuit of '06-07, so many of them…sure some zooots/2XU/QR/Orca - but lots of Blue70.
-T1: brazilian Paulo Miyasiro and Craig walton stream in. Not as much of a gap as I expected (but I don’t know since transition is like 6 blocks from swim exit - not kidding), bennett and paul mathews come in, followed then by a small pack - david thompson gets the rocketship, and is off. On women’s side, the top ladies are all bunched together really - their transitions are very fast and from what I remember Emma and Becky are first out.
-T2: I hear updates that they are giving the comcast crew, and I hear that Waldo is first. He comes in, with Bennett quickly behind him. Bennett is running like a madman these days (he was telling me about 20miles in 2hr “training runs”…gulp) so with the small lead that Waldo has it seems like Greg will catch him. I am not surprised to see David Thompson come in 3rd since I though he’d get the fastest bike split. After him there is a gap and you start to see bigger packs stream in. For the women, Julie Dibens and Becky L come in, with Emma behind them - but we’ve seen this before where Emma’s footspeed takes out faster bikers by mile 2 or 3…after them there were small clusters so I stayed to catch Mcglone, M Jones, Mirinda and some others but I couldn’t wait any longer to run over to the finish (since Greg might run 31).
-Finish: this city knows how to put a race on - 3 shutes, age groupers a big one, pros on the side with their own finish…greg comes around the corner first to go 3 for 3 for the '07 Lifetime Series. He is on fire at this distance and he is just living it up - he was telling me how he wants to help re-create the short course glory days of the terminator/ pigg /welchie and he is a good guy to do it- he has that “passion” for triathlon and in the time I talked to him about training (MA heart-rate zones/method, lydiard running prep, tapers) he is just a student of the sport and a great ambassador of it. Congrats to him. In 2nd we saw Waldo with a great day after having a mech at lifetime and he is clearly getting back to his old days after 2 years off. Who was in 3rd? - yup I wrote on slowtwitch last week that David would podium and yes he did. He was able to hold on to his 3rd place throughout the run and he is really having one of the breakout performances for our USA pros (Two 101s victories, 1st at powerman, 1st at racine, 1st & record crusher at 5430 half… clearwater next?). On the women’s side we saw the familiar face of the best short course draft/non-draft athlete in the world as Emma even had time to give hi fives all the way thru the crowd. Becky Lavelle scored a great 2nd ahead of the 1st Oly trials in China in 3 weeks, while Julie Dibens and Samantha McGlone almost had a sprint finish with Julie about 2 secs in front. Samantha is fit, she has been having a great season and I really hope she does well in Kona (along with Crowie!). It was very cool to see 7 time winner M.Jones run in top 10 with huge cheers from the crowd on this 25th anniversary of the Chicago Triathlon.
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