Saturday: Race Report: Big Shoulders 5k is a Great Success

Me and Ashley Pre-Race

A View of the Start (Bleak)

Finish Line

So this morning, I was up at 5:40AM to get suited up and head downstairs to get a coffee and a big breakfast sandwich.  I assumed that when swimming three miles in shiver-me-timbers water, I would become ravenously hungry.  I pretty much refuse to enter any sort of state where hunger would make me uncomfortable, so I ate a Grab the Gold Bar, and an apple and drank loads of water before eating my tasty egg and sausage bagel with a cup of coffee.  As we were eating our bagels at the window looking out to the street, it started to rain.  It was a torrential downpour.  I must admit that the downpour was disheartening.  Our swim warmup yesterday was so lovely and sunny, that the rain seemed like a real betrayal on the part of the city of Chicago.

I slithered into my wetsuit and we all walked down to the swim start where we were merrily informed that the water temperature had dropped another two degrees to 62 and the storm had whipped up two foot swells in the lake.  Also, it was still overcast with a fog rolling in, and I will just say that the visual was a bummer.  Over the PA, the race officials began lectures about hypothermia and encouraging wetsuits.  And I made a last minute decision to use a neoprene bonnet to keep my head warm.  This turned out to be one of two brilliant decisions that I made today.  The second brilliant decision that I made was to pee myself in my wetsuit just before we walked into the water.

NOW, I understand how many health violations are involved in peeing your self, and I know that I reduced myself to the level of a third world human, BUT, once I explain myself, you will be proud of my ingenious solution to combat the liquid cold.  When I peed my wetsuit, I was immersed in warm liquid to my armpits and down to my ankles.  We had an in-water start, so I didn't feel the cold until my hands and feet hit the water and it wasn't that bad!!  By the time my urine washed out of the wetsuit, I had swum several strokes and was starting to warm up.  Now, I could not feel my feet, which was a weird feeling, so I am sure that means that I was really cold.

Pre-Race

The water conditions were not great.  It was raining and there were two foot swells and the visibility of the buoys was nil, but this sounds worse than it was.  When you say "two-foot swells", it sounds very Horatio Hornblower, "we will all die in a watery grave" scary, but the swells were just rolling waves.  There were no crashing white caps like I experienced at Alcatraz.  The rain was a bummer, but it was not driving rain, so I was able to swim through it.  The 62 degrees was bad, but I had my wetsuit, my neoprene bonnet and my pee trick.  And in terms of the buoys, I knew the general direction I needed to be going, I was surrounded by strong swimmers, and I could see the flashing lights of the emergency boats in the water.

So, we did two loops of a 1.5 mile course, and I really enjoyed it.  I was pretty proud that I did not cry uncle, and I probably did show up with something to prove.  There just wasn't any way I was getting out after the shame of Alcatraz.

I finished in 1:44 minutes.  I seriously chaffed my neck with the wetsuit, and it was most unfortunate, as it felt as if someone had tried to murder me with a noose.  Even more unfortunate was the fact that I could not get neosporin for my wounds, because the medics were so busy with hypothermic swimmers.  I finally got neosporin and stripped out of my wetsuit and bathing suit straight quick as leaving on cold clothes apparently pushes you over the edge of hypothermia.

It was a nice morning for the most part, and I think I could do it better next year, so I am IN Big Shoulders!!!