Accenture Chicago Triathlon 2006

Lynne Kiesling

Sunday was the Accenture Chicago Triathlon. I had been hesitating to do this event for years because of the sheer mass of humanity: this year there were 8,000 athletes and 500,000 spectators. Happily, my sprint-distance wave was not too congested, and I was more able to swim than I expected. I had more fun and did better than I expected. Here are some pics:

Results:

• Swim 750m: 20min 54 sec (3min of which were the 0.25 mile run to the transition area, ugh!)
  
• Transition 1: 2min 50sec
  
• Bike 22k: 44min 24sec
  
• Transition 2: 4min 4sec
  
• Run 5k: 30min 28sec
  

Total time: 1hr 42min 41sec. Rank 598 out of 1718 total sprint participants (65th percentile), swim rank 548, bike rank 462 (!), run rank 968, sex rank 191 (although I don't know how many women participated in the sprint). I had fun, of course the racecourse is the most beautiful city in the world, and even the sheer mass of humanity was fun, because the participants, volunteers and organizers were all great.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled economics content ...