Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Mirror Lake Swimming

We are up here in Lake Placid, NY for the training weekend. Long drive from MA in the pouring rain, but not too bad. At around 4:30 after we put all our stuff in the rooms we headed down to Mirror lake for a swim. The first thing you notice is that they have lane lines!!! Well, they have bouys all the way across the lake for the kayak/rowing people to race. The triathletes stay right on the line to avoid being run over by the fast moving boats. Let me tell you, they are FAST moving. While you are swimming if you breath and see them the next time you breath they are out of sight. The water temp felt like it was about 68, would love for it to be that for Ironman. Not sure how far I swam, I’ll have to see if I can figure it out on google maps. I felt good, just like at Patriot. Tomorrow, a REAL LONG bike ride.

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

No long run this Wednesday

Heading to Lake Placid this weekend and will be doing a long run over the weekend so today was just a swim and short run. I was going to do a double but ended up taking pictures of the pond for about 20 minutes so just did a single crossing instead. Then ran 5 miles with Heidi, pretty quick pace, under 8 minute miles for the entire run. Last mile was under 7 minutes.

Weight: 162.2

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Legs still sore

My legs are still a little sore from the half-ironman this past weekend so my ride wasn’t as hard as I was planning for it to be. Still it was a good ride, started out slow and rode the first half the ride in a gear less than I really wanted to be in. That allowed me to loosen up my legs and get my hamstrings feeling better. After about 7 miles in I started pushing it a little bit more. On the way back I started getting my power numbers up to what I had intended to do for the entire ride. It was a good first ride after the race.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/93873139

Weight: 163.8

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Back to training for IMLP

Went to the pond with the idea of doing a double this morning. Water temp was 72 and I was cold after 1 crossing without the wetsuit, so instead of freezing myself I cut that short and headed out for a little bit longer run than I planned. I had intended to only run 5, so I did 7 instead. There was quite a bit of talking this morning as we were all chatting about the Patriot race over the weekend so I was behind on time as well.

The run was ok, my legs are still sore from Saturday though. I find the best way to get rid of that feeling is to get back out there, ride and run. I felt pretty good on the way back in, but will need to stretch out tonight.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/93663127

Weight: 163.2

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid Race Triathlon

Patriot Half Ironman Review

Saturday morning was the Patriot Half-Ironman. It’s a good warmup race and a good point to figure out where I am with my training for the Ironman. Learned plenty of things from this race. Hopefully I will be able to correct them for Ironman.

The Swim

I was in the last wave for the swim, for individual racers, behind me were the Aquabike. This is the first triathlon I have been in where I started so far back, usually I’m one of the first waves and come out of the water and all the bikes are still racked and then everyone passes me. It was a little different for this race, the wave starts were seperated by 4 minutes, so it was fun to pass the yellow caps, by the first turn, at the second turn started to pass white caps and as I was coming into the shore I even passed a few of the orange ones. I just relaxed for the swim, kept my breathing even and didn’t push. My pace was 1:30 for 100s. I think that is easily maintainable for Ironman. If I had pushed hard I couuld have taken at least 2 minutes off that, maybe more, but I don’t think it would have been worth it when I got to the bike. I was the 5th person out of the water in my age group, that’s out of 72.

Time 0:31:34

T1

Uneventful transition, took my time and made sure I had everything and headed out.
Time 0:02:39

The Bike

I knew the bike course was flat and going into the race I had set the goal of 2o mph for the ride. I felt like that was reasonable. When I had come out of the water Julie was there, she started 8 minutes ahead of me and so we started out on the bike together, sort of. She blew past me and I could see her out in front of me. I was keeping my cadence high and spinning to get my legs warmed up after the swim. Julie probably stayed about a half mile in front of me for the first few miles, then I caught and passed her on one of the slight inclines on the course. Which followed her passing me on the downhill. I have to say she had an amazing bike ride. I just couldn’t believe how easily she passed me and would get so far out in front then we would come to another incline and I would finally catch and pass her. That happened for pretty much the whole ride, maybe I just don’t try to push myself enough on the downhill or she isn’t pushing on the uphill. I don’t know, but she needs to pull more on the Sunday rides!!!!

Learned many things on the bike ride. One, I need to work harder on my tuesday and thursday rides to increase my biking fitness. Two, drink, drink, drink and make sure to take more salt sticks. I lost a lot of electrolytes during the race and became dehydrated. When I finished the race I though I just pushed too hard on the bike. Having looked back on it and weighing myself when I got home from the race I learned that I lost 4lbs. Far too much weight to lose during a race and that is AFTER having a large milk shake on the way home and drinking a couple bottle of water after the race. NOT GOOD! Third, don’t mix ice with your drink, it dilutes it too much! Four, water bottle exchange, make sure to squeeze ALL the water, Heed, or water you get into the tank. I ran out of water with 5 miles to go on the bike. That caused problems on the run.

Time: 2:45:42

T2

This was another uneventful transition, the one thing I did learn from it was to make sure that I have my watch find the satellites earlier in the day so that when I start the run the watch is ready to go!
Time 0:02:27

The Run

After letting myself get dehydrated on the bike the run was not good. I knew I was in trouble about a half mile in. I was relaxed and running and the watched said 8:30 pace, but I felt I was running too hard and couldn’t catch my breath and backed off. I could feel my quads tightening up and at the time I thought I had just pushed too hard on the bike. Looking back, I was dehydrated. From this point on I ran from one water stop to the next and then walked through them taking ice and water, mixing them and drinking it to cool down. I took a Salt tablet as well as two gels on the run. The result was one of my slowest half-marthon times ever.

Time 2:02:31

The race overall was very well supported and run. I would definitely do the race again. Even though I didn’t do well with my nutrition I was still able to set a personal record for a half-ironman. I also had a personal best on the bike ride at 20.3 mph. This was the first event of any distance that I was able to maintain over 20 mph. I still wonder how I was able to maintain 19.3 on the Timberman bike course that is much hiller.

Total Time 5:24:50

Weight: 160

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

A different bike workout

I tried something different this morning on the bike. I wanted to start out with a hard effort going as fast as I could out and on the way back ride at a more comfortable pace. Well, I accomplished the second part by not the first. I should have been paying more attention to my powers numbers than my speed. My speed on the way to the end of Middleton Rd. was 20.5, which seems good, but really is not that great considering my average watts were 223 and should have been closer to 250. That tells me I need work on pedaling harder on flat or slightly downhill grades.

The ride back felt good, and I was able to relax my hands and upper body in the aero position. It’s surprising how much faster you can go when you are able to relax.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/92751867
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/92751861

Weight: 163.2

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Slow swim and fast run

After taking the day off yesterday I was back at the pond this morning. Checked my e-mail early and saw that Karen was up for a double this morning so I got down to the pond at 4:45. I had not planned on a double for today but figured I would join her for the first crossing and then go run. The water was pretty cold today, no one was there to take the temperature but I’m guessing 65 and Karen didn’t have a wetsuit. It was a nice easy swim for me, but I’m sure Karen was freezing, didn’t chat long on the other side and came back quick.

On the way back from the swim I saw Brian, Janet, Julie and Heidi heading out, so I figured I would wait around for them to come back and go for a run. Ended up being Heidi and I on the run because she was in a hurry and I was ready to go. We went out pretty fast and I wasn’t sure how fast we were going to end up going. The first mile wasn’t bad at 7:53, but the next 2 were 7:11 and 7:04. Faster than I had intended on running today, but I started to feel good and kept pushing, finishing the last two at 7:03 and 6:48.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/92549138

Weight: 165

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Rainy weekend but a nice pond morning

The weather wasn’t very nice this weekend. I went out for a ride early Saturday morning to get some extra miles in. Wasn’t a very hard pace it was good to get out before the rains came. Did another 40 on Sunday in the rain and called it a day.

This morning it was a little chilly, air temp was 51 and the pond was back down to 68 degrees. Did a double starting at 4:45 with the wetsuit.

Weight: 164

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Nice pond morning

Met Jan and Karen at 4:45 for a double at the pond this morning. It turns out that I have a much faster wetsuit than Jan does. We did the usual double this morning but without the Neo, she just left me in her wake.  I thought I was feeling pretty good this morning too. Went out for a 5 mile run afterward and was still feeling pretty good so it turned into a 7 mile run. Was able to keep the overall pace under 8 min/miles and when I started I was thinking 8:30 would be nice.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91360151

Weight: 164

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Swim on the bike?

The day started out nice. Biked down to the pond and the sun was rising up over the pond. Looked like it was going to be a beauty of a morning. Then about halfway across the pond it seemed awful dark and the sun was gone. By the time we reached the other side you could tell a storm was coming. Fortunately it was not a Thunderstorm, at least I didn’t hear any thunder or see any lightening. The wind picked up though and made for a long swim back. I wish I had wore different swimming attire this morning. I just wore a pair of jogging shorts to ride over in and swim and it proved to be a good swim workout because of the drag from the shorts. No rain during the swim, not that it matters when you are in the water.

Heading out for an easy ride on the bike the clouds were still looking ominous and by the time I reached the corner of Middleton and Main it was raining pretty good. Headed down to the end of Middleton Rd and by that time it was just raining. The rain wasn’t cold though so I felt ok riding. The worst part of riding in the rain is getting home and having to clean the bike up, that probably took almost as long as the ride!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91183711

Weight: 163.8