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Ironman Lake Placid Race

Ironman Lake Placid 2011 Race Report

The beginning of the last day of the journey started at 4:19am for me. I had set my alarm for 4:20 and my father walks in to tell me it is 4:19. Thanks Dad, I could have used that extra minute of sleep, I would have been so much faster!!!

I got up and had a bagel and a stinger waffle to start the day. Drank a little bit of Gatorade and my Dad brought me over to the hotel where everyone else in the group was staying. I had dropped off my wetsuit and clothes at Janet and Brian’s room the night before so I didn’t have to lug it around. I also had made up my Ironman Perform drinks for the bike the night before so I just had to grab them out of the fridge on the way out the door.  The ride over was short and pretty quiet, my Dad wished me good luck and I walked the rest of the way to the hotel. Before big races like this I get pretty focused and quiet trying to make sure I don’t forget anything.

I got to the hotel room and threw on my bike shorts that I was going to wear under the wetsuit and we all headed down to get numbered and put our nutrition on the bikes. Halfway down the street Brian says “I know what Julie forgot”.  Julie’s face has panic
written all over it, but realizes quickly that he is talking about the bike pump. She heads back up to get the pump while the rest of us get numbered. She finally gets back, gets numbered and we head into the transition area. I go to my bike bag and get my Garmin out to record the ride and get my bike all setup. One of the best tips of the weekend of Brian’s many was to double bag our transition bags. It rained the night before the race and some people opened their bags in the morning to find their stuff soaked.

After leaving transition we head back up to the hotel room and wait around, try to drink some water. I have been drinking for two days now to make sure I’m hydrated and yet my mouth feels dry. Just the nerves of the upcoming event. Everyone goes to the bathroom one last time even though I’m sure we all went right into the Lake and pee in our wetsuits. Just before we leave the room I take down a PowerShot Gel quick to get a few more calories before the swim. I didn’t eat that much in the morning, I just find it too hard
to eat a lot before something like this, again, probably nerves.

With wetsuits on we head down to Mirror Lake. The swim was wetsuit optional, meaning that if you wanted a slot for Kona or an award for something you had to swim without the wetsuit. I choose to swim with the wetsuit because I knew I wasn’t going to be anywhere near a slot for Kona and also to conserve as much energy as possible on the swim. The water temp was 77 degrees, so getting into the water was no problem. We swam over to the back of the masses and stood near the beach to watch the pros go out, they get a 10
minute head start. After the Pros left they played the National Anthem. While they played the National Anthem my thoughts drifted to my brother-in-law serving in Afghanistan, as usually happens. At that point I said to myself that no matter what happened today I wasn’t coming out of the race unless they pulled me out, no quitting! After the anthem I turned and hugged Janet, Julie and Brian and wished them good luck and moved up toward the front of the swim start.

The Swim

I started the swim about 5 people deep from the line and just about in the middle. After watching the videos of the swim starts I really wasn’t sure what to expect, would it just be bodies banging into each other or what?

The gun goes off and we start. I start out breathing on every stroke and sighting on every other stroke to try and figure out what is going on. People are packed in all around me and I’m looking for some open water. Even though the Lake was calm with all the people swimming it became very choppy quickly, more choppy than I expected, but nothing that
interfered with my swim. After a few minutes I was able to get past a few people and see some open water. At this point I’m probably about 15 feet from the line. The line I’m referring to is the line under water that goes the length of the swim and holds the buoys. The problem now becomes the people that started way out to the right that are trying to get to the line, they continually cross in front of me, which while kind of a pain, isn’t too bad. The other thing that is happening now is some of the moron swimmers that are
wound up and probably over exhorting themselves are hitting the back of my calves while they swim and I’m having trouble moving around some of the people crossing over. Instead of just swimming around me, if they are that fast, they are just slowing us both down at this point. I finally found some open water and swim a little right to get to it and get the guy off my legs. Now that I’m about half way down the first loop before the turn I can finally start to relax a little more and breath bi-laterally. For me this is when the swim really started as I was able to just relax and go, I’m almost on top of the line, I stayed probably about 3 to 4 feet away from it the rest of the swim. After making the turns relatively easily and coming back in without incident I look up at the clock and see that it says 41:xx. My first thought, was “well that sucked”, then I realized that I had to take 10 minutes off because the pros had not finished the swim yet. The second loop I pretty much stayed 3 to 4 feet away from the line and just relaxed and passed people, because by now anyone faster than me was already ahead of me. As I came in toward the finish there
was one guy who was trying to pace himself off of me, which I thought was pretty funny because he was dying just trying to keep pace. I actually started laughing while I was swimming watching him and thinking to myself, buddy, we have 138 miles to go after this, relax and enjoy it. Finally he got to close and caught an elbow from me on one of my recovery strokes and disappeared. I ran out of the water and the clock read 1:03, I was pretty happy with that. I had expected between 1:05 and 1:10. The wetsuit strippers were great and I was off to T1. On the way Melinda popped up from out of nowhere and screamed to me that I was doing great, she seemed to pop up everywhere during the day! I think I also saw Kim and Dave as well during that transition.

Coming out of the swim!

T1

The first transition is kind of long because you have to run about a ¼ mile to the transition area. I jogged down, grabbed my bag and headed into the changing tent. I took my time and made sure that I had everything on that I needed, threw the wetsuit back in the bag and headed out to get my bike. That was another long haul as I had to run the entire length of the field just to get to my bike. I grabbed my bike, started the timer, crossed the timing mat, mounted up and was off.

The Bike

I knew what to expect on the bike, we had come to ride the course a month before. I had always been warned by Coach Brian and a few other people that have done Lake Placid to not get caught up in racing out the first 8 miles. I feel like I did a pretty good job of  listening to that advice as everyone passed me. I think I may have passed only one person  and it took probably half a mile to do it. Funny thing is he said to me “It’s tough isn’t? Letting them go”. He was right, it was hard to watch all those people go by because I knew that I could keep up with many of them. I just kept telling myself to relax, enjoy the day, go easy and finish. Finally made it to the big 6 mile descent into Keene. This really highlighted my lack of skills as a cyclist as I was all over the brakes. Watching riders passing me at 40, 50 and probably up to 60 mph, I topped out at 33 and it probably wasn’t on this part of the course. My biggest problem was the Zipp 808s I had on were catching wind and making me pretty nervous. I wish I had more time in the saddle with those on, during windy days.  Also wish that I had went out and found some big hills in NH to practice descending as there is nothing here in MA that remotely compares to those descents into Keene.

I did make it to the bottom unscathed though so that was good, because I saw at least one rider who didn’t. Headed out to Ausable, NY for the out and back part of the course and average around 18mph to the 30 mile marker and was around 18.3 before starting the climb to Wilmington. I saw Julie both times on the turn around but never saw Janet who was in front of her. I guess I could have been rolling through one of the water stop and missed her. Like the first climb I just took my time and spun up the hill, never really pushing myself too hard. I just kept thinking in the back of my head that I have a
marathon to run and I want to run not walk. The head wind in the High Falls Gorge area was pretty good, but I kept aero pretty well and just kept going. Finally got to the Cherries and Bears. We had taken a ride on the this part of the loop a couple days before so I had it pretty much memorized at this point. Power past a few people heading up Papa bear as there was a big crowd and I felt pretty good. It was a lot of fun riding through town.  Coming through Special needs for the bike, Melinda once again popped out of nowhere to yell to me. It was fun seeing everyone while I was out on the course. After seeing Melinda I saw Kim and Dave on the back side of the Adirondack Inn and then when I came around to the front I saw “Jules Crew”, wow can Heidi scream!

Average speed for the first loop was 16.5, I had slowed down more than I wanted to but it really didn’t bother me, not sure why because at other races it would have. I was enjoying the day and having fun on the ride and since it was my first Ironman, maybe it was just about getting to the run this time.

Then it was off for the second loop. For me the second loop was very much like the first. Planning for the race I had thought in my head that I would push hard on the second loop if I was feeling good. Well, at the start of the second loop I was feeling pretty good. I had followed my plan of taking a Gel  on the bottom part of every hour and a Stinger Waffle on the top of every hour, so I knew I was getting my nutrition. I was also drinking a lot of Ironman Perform. I think on the first loop I went through 4 bottles. I went through my Speedfil one of my reserve bottles and one from the race course. I purposely held back the other of my reserve bottles because I had put 2 salt sticks in each bottle I prepared and I
wanted to make sure I took some in on the second half of the course.

When I finally made it to the Ausable turn around again I was feeling like I didn’t want to eat anymore. I was a little worried about that. I felt like if I forced myself to eat something I would get sick, so I took a little bit of Gel from my flask and just continue to drink as much as possible. I have always found that hydration is what lets me down in the past
and I was determined not to let it happen this time. So every water stop on the bike I would grab an Ironman Perform and re-fill my tank. The great thing about this was that it was always cold and just tasted great because it was getting a little warm on the second loop. For about 2 hours I didn’t have any solid food, I did have a few more salt sticks from my dispenser to make sure I didn’t cramp and that I was retaining at least some of the fluids I was drinking. I stood up for a few of the small rollers before you get to the Cherries and Bears to get my legs ready to run. The first time I did that my hamstrings felt
really tight, but they loosened up quick and the next few rollers I stood to go over I was fine. I remember Janet warning me that her Quads killed her last year because she didn’t get out of the saddle so I kept that in mind. Something else off the check list that I remembered to do.

Finally just before I came back to the Cherries and Bears I had another Stinger Waffle and my stomach seemed fine and I continued to sip on the Ironman Perform the rest of the way. Surprisingly there were still people on Papa Bear yelling for everyone coming up the hill and that gave me a boost of energy to go up those final hills. My legs felt strong going up the hills, but on the flats I felt like I couldn’t maintain speed in the second half for
long periods, not sure what that was about. Overall I lost a little more time on the bike and end up at 16.3 mph. That is by far the slowest I have ever gone on my bike. Instead of dwelling on it I just put it out of my mind and moved on, can’t change the past and to be honest, I’m not sure that I would change my bike ride. Yes, it was slow, but I felt comfortable the entire ride and my legs never hurt on any climb. I guess that means I went too easy on the bike, but again, I was worried about the Marathon, something I had never done before. Coming through town I saw all of our group’s supporters again. They were great, yelling out encouragement and cheering us all on.

T2

When I finally got off the bike for the second transition my legs were feeling pretty good and I took my time and walked to get my run transition bag and headed for the changing tent. I sat down in the changing tent and my head was feeling pretty hot like I was over heating and my arms were red because I forgot to put on sunscreen. I changed as fast as I could into my run shorts and shirt, smeared some Glide on so I wouldn’t chafe and be sore on the run. Threw my bike stuff in the bag and started to head out of the tent. Hey! Wait! Where is my watch? I looked down by where I was sitting and spotted, threw it on and was on the way out of the tent again. This time I stopped and had the sunscreen guy smear some all over my arms and neck. Gotta love the support you get at an Ironman, I didn’t even have to get my hands all slimy! Off to run!

The Run

This is what I had been thinking about most of the day. Especially  after the debacle at Patriot where I was barely able to run because I had  dehydrated myself on the ride try to get a fast bike split and not carrying  enough water. I started to jog down the street, heard the family yell and  looked over, gave them a smile/wave and headed down the road out of town.  As I headed down the street I was thinking, “Hey  my legs feel  pretty good!”. My Quads  were not hurting, my calves felt good.

The only problem I had at this point was my stupid watch GPS  was picking up the satellites! Crap, how am I going to pace myself like this?  Finally about 5 minutes into the run it kicked in and I was starting to get  readings, and the readings were just what I wanted to see. I did 8:50, 8:53 for  the first two miles that it recorded. I quickly slowed myself down a little  bit, I was thinking if I could do 9:30 pace that would be great. Walk each water stop for about a 30 second delay and then run a 9 minute mile to the next  water stop. That first water stop was the most important one though, they  handed me that ice cold sponge that I was able to put under my hat and keep my cool. I continued to squeeze the cold sponges on it the rest of the marathon  and it felt great.

Around mile 4 or 5 I heard someone running right behind me.  They were pacing off me, and it was starting to bug the crap out of me. The foot falls were loud and they never said anything. Finally I turned and started to talk to the guy and he was actually quite friendly. Turns out he is a marathon runner and usually does around a 3:30 marathon but was hoping to do 4:15-4:20 for this one. I’m thinking in my head, “I’m sticking with you my new best friend Al and you are bringing me in for a 4:15 marathon!” Well, Al was nice to chat with and I ran with him for about the first 10 miles when his wife came out to meet him with some juice and I just kept on going. His best tip for me was to power walk up the steep part of the two hills. I did that and it worked out great, my legs felt good at the top and I was able to get up to speed pretty quickly again.

At around mile 7 I saw Janet on the run heading out to the turn around and about a minute later I saw Julie heading out too. It was good to see them, it meant they had very good bike rides and were having a good race. Where the hell is Coach Brian? Must be dragging an anchor around the course!

As I came up the hill into town to finish up my first loop I saw my family cheering for me. They all had on matching red shirts to support me. It was the first time I realized they had the shirts on. It was pretty cool to see them all.

Coming back on first loop!

I pretty much cruised through the first loop of the run in around 2:05. I was very happy with that and thought if I could keep that pace it would be awesome. My legs felt good and so I kept to my strategy.

As I headed back out I saw Julie coming up the hill into town, she was about 20 minutes behind me. She was having a very good run. As I went back down the hill and through the first water stop I saw Janet coming down around through the water stop. She was also having a very good first half for the marathon.

Finally at around mile 16 I see Brian for the first time. I yell to him and he yells back, good to finally see him and know he is ok. It is such a long out and back on the run that it would seem impossible not to see everyone out there.

At mile 19 though, things got a little bit scary as I started to get a pain in my left leg near my knee. It wasn’t the knee itself, but felt like the tendon on the side of the knee. It was kind of a dull pain that was getting worse. I would only feel it when I was going up the little
rollers. This was not good, I had 7 miles to go and I didn’t want to slow to a walk. I tried changing my stride a little on the uphill part of the rollers and extend my legs a little more and stretch the knee. The pain didn’t go away, but it didn’t get any worse either.

I had been looking for Julie and Janet again after the turn around but this time they were not where they were the first time. This time I didn’t see them until I was almost at mile 21, they were slowing down, but the good news was they were both still running when I saw them and were going to finish with having had a very good Ironman.

The last 5 miles, I kept to my strategy and made it up through town to the short out and back. Where is the damn 25 mile marker?! And where is the damn turn around?! Running along Mirror Lake Dr. I just wanted to get to the turn around, it seemed like it was the longest mile of my life. I see Brian again, not sure how far ahead of me he is from the turn around, but I’m not able to catch him in my final sprint to the finish line. Finally I see mile
marker 25, hey, wait? Isn’t it just a mile back to the stadium? Why am I not turning around? Did they measure this course right? Once I hit that turn around I knew there was less than a mile and my legs felt good except for the little bit of knee pain, which went away once I knew there was under a mile. I started to stretch out the legs and push to the finish. I notice a guy from the local TriFury club, I thought about saying hello, but screw that! I’m almost there, it is time to get this thing done. I’m pretty sure I managed an 8 minute mile for the last mile. The crowd really gives you a rush of energy, running into
the stadium I high fived every kid as I ran around to the finish line.

I didn’t know what my time was going to be as I came into the stadium as I never looked at any of the clocks once I had left the swim. I knew from my bike ride that I wasn’t going to be able to make it under 12 hours, a goal I had stated earlier on this blog. I looked up and it
read 12:26:xx, I was pretty happy with that. I just ran my first marathon in 4:14 and my first Ironman in under 12:30.

 

Coming to the finish line!

My Journey to become an Ironman had come to an end.

I want to thank everyone that supported me through this journey, especially my family for putting up with me being gone for most of Sunday on long bike rides.

Also want to thank Coach Brian and Janet, who are now 2x Ironman Finishers, for all of their support. They took Julie and I under their wing and guided us through this journey. Sending out training plans for each weekend and creating bike courses and run courses for us to ride. Constantly fixing Julie’s bike, a task that no one would envy! Guiding us around the Ironman course on a training weekend where it never seemed to stop raining. All of their insight and knowledge from doing this event the previous year really made us well prepared so we were able to have a fun day and enjoy our Ironman day. Thank you!!!

 

The Support Team
Ironman First Timers

 

Julie, Janet, Zane
Julie, Janet, Brian, Zane
Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

The countdown continues….

Wednesday morning we finally headed up to Lake Placid to get this thing started. The 5+ hour drive with 2 kids in the car was not too bad. Although within the first hour of the trip my daughter commented, “This vacation isn’t as fun as I thought it was going to be!”.  She did have the Ferry ride to look forward to going from VT to NY. JP and Mackenzie both liked that and it was a good break. The condo we are staying in is definitely nicer than the one we stayed in when we went to the Kingdom Swim in VT. The kids are happy because there is a bunk bed. The view is pretty nice, we can see Lake Placid and it is just a short walk down a path to the beach. The water is a bit chilly, I hope Mirror Lake is the same.

This morning our Tri group got up and went for a ride on part of the bike course and up the Cherries and Bears. It was a good ride and we did it twice because it was only about 10 miles and we wanted to get an hour ride in. I still think that those hills are not the worst of the bike course. Maybe I will think differently after Sunday, they are end the end of the course so after 108 miles that last 4 might be tough.

Also did check-in this morning. They really have quite an operation going on to check in 2500 athletes. They check Id, have you sign waivers, pass out a packet with your timing chip and various numbers that will be stuck all over me and my bike. They also check your weight in case you show up at the medical tent, which we all hope to avoid. Now I have my official wristband for the rest of the week as well.

Tomorrow morning we are headed to Mirror Lake for a practice swim. Looking forward to getting in the water again.

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

4 days 20 hours….

The journey to Ironman Lake Placid is quickly coming to an end. Many people keep asking me if I’m ready, ready for it to be over. I think that I’m ready. As for ready for it to be over, nope, not ready for it to be over. I’m ready for it to start. I’m very much looking forward to doing the Ironman, well, most of it anyway. I think once I get off the bike I will probably be thinking what the hell was I thinking signing up for this. I’m hoping that feeling does happen until after the first half of the Marathon though.

The other question I get is, “What is your goal? To Finish?”. That one always kind of jars me because I never put much thought into the fact that I might not finish. I look at thinking about not finishing like a golfer standing on a tee with water in front of him. If he is standing over his ball thinking about the water, that’s where it’s going to end up. If I spent time thinking about not finishing I probably wouldn’t. I spend most of my time going over my race plan in my head so that when race day comes I just have to go out, stay focused and execute the plan. I guess it is a possiblity, but it certainly isn’t going to be because I’m not prepared. After swimming over 120 miles, running over 400 and biking nearly 3000 since the beginning of the year I feel that I’ve prepared myself for the day. When you consider that up until this point last year I had biked about 200 miles for the year I think I’ve come a long way.

Anyway, this morning I went out for an easy one hour ride on the bike.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/100255093

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

5 Days and the taper continues

Did a 2 hour ride on saturday and a 1 hour run on sunday.

We were back in NY visiting family again this weekend so that means I was back up to the Ashokan Reservoir to ride again. It’s really nice riding along 28A up there, not many cars and the views of the mountains and water are great. The course is mostly rolling hills, I think only 2 where you would switch to the small chainring though. Kind of like riding around MA.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/99520404

The run on sunday was  a pretty flat run along the Dam. Easy pace with negative splits.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/99848346

Followed up the weekend with a nice easy crossing at Stiles this morning.

Part of me wants to push harder because I feel pretty good but in the back of my mind I keep telling myself to save it for Sunday. I also keep thinking to myself to take easy, don’t get hurt in the last week!

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

9 Days to go

Easy ride today from the pond with Jan, Julie, Mike and Karen. We left Stiles pretty much in the dark. I think I will need to get a light for my bike if we are going to keep these thursday morning rides going. The roads were wet but it had stopped raining and the sun was trying to break through some of the clouds on the horizon. I actually spent almost two hours out riding today, that is what the long ride on the weekend is supposed to be!! Just relaxed on the bike and stayed areo, the weather was really perfect today.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/99072453

Weight: 162

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

10 Days to go

Single crossing this morning at the pond and a pretty easy pace. Then a short and quick 5 mile run. The run wasn’t that much fun, horse flies are out and I didn’t have my hat! Funny thing, seemed like they were worse on the way out than they were on the way back, maybe I just ran faster and they couldn’t keep up. Yeah, THAT’S what it was! I was so fast they couldn’t keep up. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

I have my spare tubular stretching now so if there is a flat I will be able to get the new tire on. After seeing the gigantic hole in Julie’s tire on Sunday I really need to have a spare, maybe two!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/98846320

Weight: 161.2

 

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Lots of lasts before Ironman

Today was the last of the Tuesday Time trial rides. From here on out the rides will be easy. Well, maybe not easy, but they will be at a more reasonable pace. I’m sure I will push harder once and a while during the last few rides but it won’t be for very long. Now it’s all about staying loose and getting to Ironman with no injuries.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/98626531

Weight: 162

 

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Easy swim

Water temp was 79 this morning. The sunrise was pretty nice as usual and it seemed like a good morning for a slow single. Now if only Smolak Farm would open before 7am like the used to!

Putting the race wheels on tonight to get some more time in the saddle and get more of a feeel for them since I’ve only used them once so far.

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Last 4 hour ride!

Today was the last of the really long rides. If you consider 4 hours a really long ride. I actually haven’t minded the 4 hour rides. It was when it started to get into the 5 and 6 hour time zone that it felt like work. Today was a great day to be out there, maybe a little warm toward the end of the ride but it was very comfortable for most of it.

I think my nutrition plan is coming together. Today I used Ironman Perform with two Salt tabs in each bottle. During the ride I drank all 4 bottles and had 3 Honey Stinger Waffles. I practiced pulling them out of my back pocket and eating them rather than waiting until we stopped. Hopefully during the Ironman I will be able to do that and not have to stop. I also had 3 shots of EFS Gel during the ride, alternating the Waffle and the Gel every half hour. That should give me plenty of calories during the bike and a few extra for the start of the run. If the weather is bad on race day I may have to stop and get my stuff to eat, but I guess you deal with the conditions you get.

The Ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/98283417

Saturday Run: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/97891949

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

IMLP #1675

It’s getting closer and closer. Today I was e-mailed the Athlete guide and found my race number in the participant list. Only 16 days away! I’m looking forward to finally doing this race and getting it done! Hope I remember to enjoy it on the day of the race.

Forgot the entry from yesterday. I did a 2.5 mile swim at Stiles with no wetsuit. Water temp is 79 degrees now, going to be warmer tomorrow probably. Followed that with a quick 5 mile run. This morning I went for a ride with Julie, Jan and Karen. It was a fun ride, a little over 30 miles. Didn’t work too hard most of the ride, only on the hills would I push harder.