"Rest Day" in the Windy City and What Lays Ahead...

I spent a very long day yesterday in Chicago visting venues and meeting with various equipment suppliers, and people who work at the various venues.  Most of my day was spent here:

This is one of the many many hallways of the McCormick Center in Chicago.  Which is a MASSIVE complex of convention and exhibit space.  Which is what you need if you have to have sessions of 15,000 people in one room.  This photo is just one hallway / atrium of many that we walked through.  Theoretically yesterday was supposed to be an offday for me but I swear we walked for miles yesterday.  The event I'm working on uses venues on opposite corners of this massive multi building complex so we often spent 15 minutes walking from one room to another.  Definitely made for a long day.  By the end of it I was exhausted.  Not to mention mentally the day is rather exhausting.  I'm responsible for designing the lighing and scenery for two of the 10-15,000 person function rooms as well as assisting in some design and coordination of four other spaces as well.  All of which we visited.  When you put a producer, production manager, technical direction, and video director in with a scenic and lighting designer everyone wants to make their opinions and ideas known and it makes for a mentally draining day.  Especially when it was my first real day on the project and people are asking me things like "What are you thinking of doing in this room?".  Nothing like being put on the spot.  I have some rough ideas, but its going to be a long process to get this show done and I'm only at the beginning.

Speaking of work...   I've been enjoying a bit of a slower period work at home and work travel wise lately which is how I've been pulling off my increase in training without too much trouble.  However all that is about to end.  The rest of my year is going to go something like this....

August...   continued 1/2 Iron training, a one week trip to Raleigh, NC for work, and beginning to work on USGBC which is the November show I went to meet about in Chicago.

September....   no work travel, 100% of my daytime will be spent working on USGBC, and I'll be racing my butt off all month with the FIRM 1/2 on the 12th, the TDD on the 18th, and the AMICA 19.7 on the 25th.

And then the real craziness begins....

October...  4 work trips!  4 days in NYC, then a week in DC that ends with me flying straight into two weeks in LA.  Then I go home for a few days and then...

November...  a week in Dallas, then home for one day and then 10 days in Chicago.  And then finally my work travel season for the year is done.

That October-November stretch is going to HURT!  Not much time at home at all and a whole bunch of work stuff to juggle with the biggest show at the end of it all.  Somewhere in there I have to find time to train.  I suspect I'll switch to more of a run focus once the travel really kicks up and hope to be able to gear up to a marathon in early January.  But we'll see.  And of course once I'm back home in late November I need to get my ass in the pool and leave it there till I grow gills.

So its going to get ugly pretty soon....  so for now I need to remember to savor every moment spent training with good friends outdoors, enjoy my time swimming in the ocean before it gets too cold and really enjoy every single part of my first 70.3.  Sigh.  If only I could get paid to be a professional middle of the pack triathlete!  Oh well..   time for me to get to work!

Next up....

Ocean swim tonight in Narragansett, On the bike tomorrow morning for a bit, Swim Friday, and then an intense weekend of training on the FIRM course including a 56/6 brick on Saturday and the complete 13 miles of the run course on Sunday.  Should be a great weekend of training.  Maybe even hit the beach for a bit after the run for a cool down swim and some beach time!