Chicago Triathlon, 8/24/08

Chris and I road tripped to Chicago last week. Left Thursday, stopped in Cleveland for a delicious dinner at Michael Symon's (does anyone watch Iron Chef America?) restaurant Lola's. On Friday, we stopped in Ann Arbor, MI (to visit campus, check out the new School of Public Health, and eat at the Prickly Pear and Zingerman's) and Kalamazoo, MI (for Bell's brewery) before reaching Chicago, our final destination.

Our reason for the road trip was to participate in the Chicago Triathlon (olympic distance: .9 mile swim, 24 mile bike ride, 10K (6.2 mile) run).

There were 8,000 participants, 54 waves, and a ton of spectators.

The swim was in Monroe Harbor, the bike course was two loops along Lake Shore Drive and the run course was towards the art museum. We survived and both Chris and I got our personal best times in an olympic distance tri.

Chris:
swim - 41 minutes
T1 - 6:06 minutes
bike - 1:25:06
T2 - 4:32 minutes
run - 1:07:04
Final time - 3:23:51

Binni:
swim - 42:43 minutes
T1 - 5:03 minutes
bike - 1 hour 26 minutes
T2 - 6 minutes
run - 58:23 minutes
Final time - 3:18:11

On the way back to the East, we drove through Indiana, Kentucky (pit stops at Lynn's Paradise Cafe in Louisville for a Hot Brown and Buffalo Trace Distillery for a tasting) and West Virginia.

In Kenova, WV we ran across an old school pharmacy with a soda fountain. If you're ever out that way, it's a cool place to stop.