A little PRIDE and a BIGFOOT...

The weekend of June 25-26 was a fun weekend in Chicago...PRIDE weekend and then Sunday am a little trek up to Lake Geneva, WI for the RAM Bigfoot Triathlon.

The BIG event for PRIDE weekend in Chicago is the parade on Sunday.  I didn't like parades when I was 3, so I have no desire to go watch a parade 3 decades (plus) later.  It is awesome to hear that 750,000 people watch/support the parade, but that's about 749,994 people more than I want to be around at one time.  But...Go gays! ;-)

By choice, to participate in the PRIDE activities, I like to opt for the Proud To Run event, but with the triathlon on Sunday - I opted to do a longer training day Saturday and go be Susie Q's athletic supporter!

Saturday am started off with a nice, chilly swim in Lake Michigan @ 5:30am and then headed down to Montrose and the lakefront with Susan for the race start. 

I have to back up a step to really set the picture for Susan's race.  In October 2009, we were driving to run the Bucktown 5k and although she had been running, she didn't think she had yet run the full 3 miles.  She said "I hope I break 30 minutes."  My response was "No pressure. You haven't run the 3 miles.  Look to finish.  You can't do any worse than my first 5k in Chicago at 51:41".  We laughed.  She ran a 27:46 and a bunch of 5k's, 10ks, and two half marathons under her, has been plugging forward since!

Last year, she came in second in her age group.  This year she was out for the AG win!  

And she did it!  Whoo hoo!

And I found out that being a cheerleader at the events is harder than it looks!  Susan tends to pop out all over the course...not quite sure how the heck she does that with perfect timing!

After the race there was a little awards presentation. 

The rest of Saturday afternoon was riding my bike "Silly C" looping up along the North shore.  It wasn't the greatest ride since nutrition wise, nothing was feeling great.  I was short of my targeted time, but managed to log 83 miles.

Dinner was the first "solid" meal of the day which ended up being a lesson learned for Sunday.  Well, either that or I swallowed some bad lake water.

Sunday...BIGFOOT time!

After the long ride Saturday, the sprint tri was on tap (750m swim / 20K Bike / 5k run).

Woke up with a stomach bug, but since Susan was doing the race, there was no option to bail.  So a little "suck it up buttercup" motivation at 4am and hit the road!

Weather couldn't have been better!  It was the first race/event of the year that I was not freaking over the radar and since it was a sprint triathlon, it was suppose to be a "fun" day.  So I was a little bummed with the bad stomach situation and had enough marathon and 1/2 marathon events to have the sign ingrained in my head:

Yep, it was one of those days.  And although it took a bit of the "fun" out of the race, it was actually a good learning experience.  I didn't do anything nutrition-wise that I was supposed to do on the race (drank nothing, no gels), but I knew what I was doing would not cut it if I was doing the Olympic length, 70.3, or Ironman - I would have had to make other choices.  The fact that I'm aware of what's going on is a step in a good direction!  It was a good "opportunity" to have the discussion with my advising "peeps" of what I should be doing.

I didn't "race" it like I would have liked to, but after the swim and bike ride the day before, I wasn't intending on "racing".  Race recap:

• Swim - Average as I was getting my head into the game.  I made a little error of going too wide, but overall ok.
• Bike - Since I "survived" the swim without incident, I figured I would plug on the bike. I was concerned about not taking any nutrition in, but it wasn't extremely hot, and it was a short race.  I actually finished 2nd in my age group for the bike split! (I think all of the speedy's were doing the Olympic or at Pleasant Prairie tri!) 
• Run - Got of the bike my stomach was not feeling great.  The 5k was a recovery jog.

I waited at the finish line cheering on people and waiting for Susan to finish.  She did one triathlon last year, but this one actually had a "real" swim, so as I was standing there I started to wonder how her race was going and really hope she didn't have a bad experience on the swim!  She flew through the finish line and said she had a BLAST!  And she did AWESOME!!!  Whew! That could have been a long ride home!  :-)

We cheered Christine from Tri-Umph rockin' her first triathlon of the season and a couple other tri-folks!  We cheered the 17 year old that did the race tandem with his vision impaired 14 year old brother across the finish line.  That was SO amazing to be part of cheering that accomplishment.

It was such a great weekend. 

Chicago weather = awesome. 

Seeing the 'hood filled with people celebrating (err, partying) for diversity = awesome. 

Being able to "feel" and be excited for other's accomplishments...inspiring.  It's the clarity that I am utmost grateful for having the gift of one day at a time.