The water temperature up at Waukegan Municipal Beach came in at a tepid 58F. Since it was only an 800 meter swim, I chose to ditch the wetsuit in favor of my jammers and thermo shirt. I took in a quick practice swim before the event where I ran into Jill who runs the Chicago Triathletes Unite! Meetup Group. One cool thing about Harbor Lights – it’s kind of a “reunion” event for all the people training during the summer. Check it out!
The swim was pretty straightforward – jump in with the rest of the thrashing swimmers and stay clear of the buoys. Actually, the water warmed up considerably after we rounded the first buoy and became quite enjoyable one you got clear of all the other swimmers. I finished the swim in just over 11 minutes before hopping on the bike and speeding off onto the horribly maintained frontage road. I wish I could have just kept swimming instead!
Do you really think it was a full 800 yards? It seemed much shorter to me and quite a few of my tri friends who did the race also agreed…
Yeah, I think so. I measured the bike part, and they were spot on.
You are right about the HLT swim. I did it without a wetsuit, and ended up with one of my recent best swims.
The bike stunk; the run was so-so.
But the bike would be a negative if I ever thought of doing it again. I elected to do the race since 6 women on my swim team did two relay teams. 4 of them had never done a triathlon before.
REZ
Flying Carp Swimming