Yesterday, Alex gave us a little more insight on his reactions to: the sheer busyness of Chicago, the logistics of racing in a WTS event, the women triathlon race, and staying loose before a major race. Please cheer on Alex today at 4:30pm for the men race. Stream here: https://triathlonlive.tv/
Yesterday morning started out with a little bit of a wild bike shake out. Decided to try my luck riding the Lake Shore bike trail rather than deal with the stop lights on the city streets. Not sure which would have been the better choice, the bike path was packed with joggers, other cyclist, dogs and anything else you can imagine. So I gave up on that idea and found a nice deserted stretch of road on Navy Pier to open up the legs. After throwing the ride onto Strava (a running and cycling GPS), turns out I got the KOM (king of the mountain) to boost!
After a breakfast very similar to yesterdays, I packed up my room and got ready to move down the hall into a new room. This was all part of the logistics I have to juggle, however it gave my breakfast a chance to settle so that I could go do my dynamic run drills. The great thing about Chicago is all the parks; it was easy to find an open grassy field to get my drills done. Even better because I got to watch a pick up cricket game going on, still can’t tell you what was going on, but it was fun to watch.
The women’s race was on soon after that. I went up to someone else’s room to watch the race online and out the window at the same time. Racing after the women allowed me to really see how the course can play out. Although it could be completely different tomorrow for the men’s race, lessons were still learned. And Gwen is just unstoppable!
After moving rooms I laid around for a while and then decided to try out the hotel pool to loosen up my shoulders. 20yds, 3 lanes and a bunch of kids gave me chance to practice my open water skills too. I felt pretty good after playing around a bit and then got ready for dinner.
I met up with the rest of the team out here in Chicago at Mario’s and had a great dinner to cap off the night. Easy and light, just the way I like to feel going into a race. Although the mood is becoming more excited to race for tomorrow, I’m still feeling really laid back and just ready to smash it all out!
About Z3 Triathlon: The Z3 Triathlon team aims to be the cornerstone high performance elite development triathlon team in the Midwestern United States. We strive to accomplish our mission by teaching life skills through sport. For more information about the team visit www.z3triathlon.org or email info@z3triathlon.org