|
BIG SHOULDERS
2005:
A View From the Beach
If you happened to be walking by
the Ohio Street Basin early Saturday afternoon, and you
noticed all the pleasure boats crammed in the waters below
the mighty Hancock, you might have a hard time believing
that just a few hours previous the place was crawlin’ with
swimmers. 572, to be exact, for the triumphant celebration
of Big Shoulders Number 15, which happened to include a USMS
Championship designation for the 2.5 K distance along with
the traditional 5 K monster.
In general, change was the operative word for Big Shoulders
as swimmers adjusted to staggered heats and even the nifty
opportunity to run ashore for a 2.5 K split before finishing
lap two of the 5 K race. Now would one call that a
swim-run-swim? A biathlon? A crazy sight? What about the
enthusiasm of the big purple team and their special
camaraderie on race day. Big Shoulders does love surprises.
There still prevails a feeling of familiarity to Big
Shoulders, but simultaneously no doubt of the event’s
national prominence. It is no longer surprising to hear of
swimmers fresh off the plane from San Francisco, Washington
DC or New York just for the weekend. How could anyone go
wrong? We have a premier race in a beautiful, clean city
with plenty to do. As Bill Mulliken says, in a phrase we are
still waiting for him to trademark, Big Shoulders is “the
world’s most architecturally significant race”!
The Lake Michigan waters were decently warm. East/south east
winds created surface turbulence across the water, whipping
up some choppy soup off turn two and right down the
backstretch. Swimmers didn’t do themselves any favors by
staying close to that wall today. This is the nature of open
water swimming.
Most swimmers agreed those new bright big orange buoys were
money well spent. The course was easy to site from the
water, if not easy to navigate for the currents. Three
cheers once again to Chris Sheean, Pam, Peggy, Boyd and all
the volunteers that continually help make this race terrific
every year, even when the going gets tedious and time
consuming. It’s these familiar folk, including the
Department of Parks and Recreation and the lifeguards, that
offer Big Shoulders the continuity necessary to grow with
class and style.
Speaking of familiar faces, several of our tried and true
performers came back for yet another twice-around to
maintain their perfect streak of consecutive 15 BS swims
since the race’s onset. These include George Wendt, Dennis
Miller, Laurie Tanamura, Tim Kelly and Dr. Dave Heinz. Our
resident dentist, Dennis Miller surprised us all with the
happy loss of 35 extra pounds of carry-on baggage for his
Big Shoulders trip. Lacking the extra thermal protection but
looking svelte and trim, rumor has it Dennis is up for an
Ocean Pacific bathing suit ad sometime soon.
In the sheer torture department, Tom Boettcher completed his
seventh consecutive Big Shoulders all butterfly. In going
toe to toe with Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour de France wins,
Big Shoulders fixture Boettcher answered one of the typical
pre-race questions – is the “fly guy” back again this year?
One man was heard commenting “My God, he looks just like a
porpoise. Its rhythmic, its beautiful.” French bicycling
officials attended the race to test Boettcher for porpoise
extract, but apparently his urine sample was dispensed
somewhere along the second lap. Big Shoulders sponsor
HumanLabs affixed some strange monitoring device to
Boettcher’s head, but his general body feedback one day
after the race was, “I feel like I’ve been hit with the
Michigan Ave. 147 bus.” Consistency was the order of the
day, as Dan Projansky came back for his second year of a
butterfly performance. His training regimen is incorporated
into the great coaching job he does up in Evanston,
encouraging others to take on the butterfly.
Once again, without reservation, we all owe a big round of
applause to the faithful volunteers and sponsors that keep
Big Shoulders growing and striving. Chris Sheean is the
focal point of a proud group that has overseen a tripling of
race attendance in the last five years. Some volunteers also
swim the race, some stay dry, some skip a year, but when you
look under the tents and around the announcers tables, you
see faces you recognize and humans who deserve a tip of the
hat. Under the auspices of Chicago Masters, Big Shoulders
has become a Chicago institution. Its no secret that this
year’s Big Shoulders, the 15th, was both classy and fun;
just what we look for each September and why we keep coming
back. Can anyone imagine what #25 might be like?
The Big Shoulders Website Gang
|
