Ironman Lake Placid, Part 1

My intention last year was to blog my training for IMLP. It just didn't happen. Training for an Ironman, working full-time, taking care of family obligations (not always in that order, I hope), just ate up all of my time. If I did have a few free hours, I tried to sleep. No kidding, I barely remember last year. I'm making a promise to myself that I will blog my next Ironman. For now, I will just do my best to recall my training and the race.
When I signed up for IMLP, I knew of one regular training partner who was also doing the race. My friend, Bob, who is 20 years older than me (I'll let you do the math), and who had been a regular training partner for a couple of years, was giving the race another shot. He had raced it three times prior to last year. Turns out, much to my happy surprise, at least seven other people I knew had also signed up. This meant it was possible to have a few people to train with, commiserate with, and just generally support each other on this journey. We started out riding together quite a bit through the fall of 2014. We also ran together a lot through the winter, and occasionally met for swim workouts. We had a pretty mild winter during '14-'15, and I recall that I only did four runs on the treadmill, which is amazing for this part of the country (upstate NY, just 45 miles from Lake Placid). I truly believe that not spending a lot of time on the treadmill really helped me break out of the never-ending running injury cycle. A bunch of us did the Octoberfest Half Marathon in Peru, NY in the fall of 2014 as part of our base-building. A couple of guys from the group, Dan and Jeff are both faster runners than me, but were both battling injuries and de-training. They heard me mention that I'd like to PR at this race, so they ran with me and paced me to a 1:48:01 finish. I knew nothing about the NYC Marathon, so when they told me I could qualify with my time, I thought they were kidding. Dan had a deferral from the previous year, so we decided to sign up for 2015 when it opened. Dan and I also signed up to do the Naples Half Marathon in January--Dan has a condo in the area, and my step-son lives nearby. It was a fun, quick trip during MLK weekend in January 2015. About 2000 people do this race every year. There are cash prizes for pros, masters and five-deep in age groups. The chip-timing system crashed, and it was an incredibly humid day. But, it was fun to race on the course with the Kenyans, and it was Florida in January! No complaints. I finished sixth in my age group, and only missed my PR by two minutes.
Official Ironman training started about the third week of January. As always, I used a Joe Friel training plan. I purchased and uploaded his 140.6 Base, and then Build, Peak and Taper plans to my Training Peaks account. Outdoor riding ended by late October, and it was indoors on the trainer with Spinervals and TrainerRoad. I had read about a new web-based riding app built on a gaming platform, called Zwift. Zwift was in beta during the winter and spring of 2015, and I used it a few times to break up the boredom of indoor riding. As the slowest swimmer in the group, I only joined them occasionally for group swims at the pool. I was about a 2:17/100m swimmer heading into Ironman training. I was getting a lot of advice as to how to fix my stroke and gain speed, and while it was all well-intentioned, it had the opposite effect. Swimming 2.4 miles in open water with 2500 others athletes was basically my scariest nightmare, and one I had voluntarily signed up for. I desperately wanted to improve my swim, but trying to incorporate all the advice had the opposite effect, and this was a huge source of frustration for me. I eventually just focused on being sure I could do the distance and have a reasonable estimate of what my swim time would be. My plan was to swim two loops in Mirror Lake in the summer of 2014 to set a baseline and to Just. Do. It. and get it out of my head. It didn't happen, but I did swim 13 or 14 3500m plus swims in the pool, and I did one 2-loop swim in Mirror Lake a couple of weeks before the race.

Bob, Dan and me about to do our first open water swim in Mirror Lake. I look less than excited.

We vacationed in Florida in April that year. My friend, Dan and his wife were there for the first few days of our stay, and I rented a bicycle from Naples Cyclery. Dan and I rode a few times in Naples together, then I did a couple of rides there and in my step-son's neighborhood on my own. I also got a lot of running in, of course. Flat, beautiful weather, and my step-son's gated community is huge, with lots of wide streets to run in. The swimming didn't go as well. FGCU is only about 10 minutes away, and for a few bucks you can swim in their pools. They have a 25-yard practice/warmup pool, and a 50-meter competition pool, which is sometimes set up crossways with short course lanes. That year, they had some maintenance issues and the pool was closed. I had to make do with the small pool at the local L A Fitness gym (I think it was 20 yards), and my step-son's 10-yard backyard pool. I did 100 laps in that pool one day.
Once I was back from Florida, training was in full swing. I did several bike rides in the 70-80 mile range. I only did one 100 mile ride. It was one I will always remember. It was a Saturday morning early in June. I was meeting Bob and Dan at a park about 10 minutes away. We were riding to Lake Placid and back, so some of the ride would be on the race course. I was almost at the park and was stopped by a sheriff's deputy. She had a pump shotgun at the ready. I was clearly going for a bike ride, dressed in a tri kit, with my bike strapped to the rack on back of my Outback. She took a quick look through my windows and waved me on. When I got to the park, the guys, who came from the opposite direction, commented that they had been stopped by New York State Troopers. Same experience, quick look in the car and waved on. We agreed they were looking for someONE, not someTHING. As close as we are to the Canadian border, drug smuggling is not unheard of. But there were no dogs, and no detailed search for hidden contraband in our vehicles. I jokingly said, "You don't think someone escaped from Dannemora, do you?" Dannemora prison was about eight miles away, and no convict had ever escaped from inside the prison. Until that day. Now, wouldn't you think since we were clearly going to be riding our bikes nearby (on some pretty isolated back roads) they might have mentioned that we should be careful, or alert, or something? Nope. Not a word. We geared up and off we went. As we made our way over the isolated back roads to Lake Placid, we noted NYS Police choppers flying overhead. When we got to Wilmington, Bob (who knows and/or talks to everyone) asked a state trooper at the store we stopped at what was going on. The trooper told us that two convicts had escaped from Dannemora and were at large. I suppose we weren't really in any danger. A tri bike wouldn't make a very good escape vehicle. Still, we had money and cell phones, and Dannemora is a maximum security facility. There aren't any "good" inmates there. We made it home safely, but the next three weeks were spent finding partners for every ride and run, going through checkpoints every time I left home, having law enforcement guarding my school, and even having school cancelled a couple of days because the buses couldn't get through the road blocks. Hard to sleep with the choppers with infrared sensors crisis-crossing over my house all night. The third weekend of June I went to Syracuse to do the 70.3 again. It was a relief to sleep without hearing choppers all night, but on the way home, we got into a convoy of cars leaving Malone and headed to Plattsburgh pretty late at night. Of course, our luck, we were in the middle of law enforcement leaving Owl's Head after the convicts were spotted in the area (one was shot and killed; the other was shot and wounded and taken into custody). Did I mention they were both murderers? Yeah.

It was comforting having a Trooper outside my classroom, not knowing where the escaped convicts were.

 The only other item of note was that I tweaked my left calf on a run in Lake Placid on River Road sometime in April. We had gone up to get the bikes tuned up at Placid Planet. Dan and I were running, with my husband trailing along somewhere in the car. I was running in the dirt off the side of the road, which was still very soft from the spring thaw. Sharp snap and I couldn't even walk. We were almost at the end of River Road, so it was a good thing my husband was nearby, because I had to call him to come and get me. There was no way I was running, or even walking back to town. Of course, that messed with my head in a major way. I wasn't able to run for a few weeks, and by the time the race came, I had only done one long run of 16 miles. As I said many times that year, if you ever want time to fly by, sign up for a race you're convinced you'll never be ready for. Before I knew it, it was July. Stay tuned...

High Peaks Cyclery Mini-Tri

High Peaks Cyclery bike shop in Lake Placid has been running a weekly mini-tri series for the past 29 summers. It's a 400 yard swim, 12 mile bike and three mile run, making it almost a sprint distance race. I've been doing triathlon for three years, and had heard about this series right from the beginning. My friend, Sandy, has been gently encouraging me to do one, and I finally did last night. The races are on Monday nights, starting at 6:30. Mondays are usually my rest days, and Lake Placid is almost an hour's drive from where I live, so I had a couple of easy excuses for not going. Last night's race was the last of the season, and I desperately needed redemption from my DNF at the Y-tri two weekends ago. I rode the Ididaride the day before, a 75 mile ride with over 4300' of climbing. I averaged 17.6 mph, and my average heart rate was just over 130 bpm, so I knew I hadn't gone too deep. When I woke up yesterday, my legs were feeling good, so I decided to go.

We got to Lake Placid early. The race director, Brian Delaney, set my bike up in the primo location in transition. I got my area set up, and took my bike for a quick spin. Decided to go with my shallower rear wheel with the 12/27 cassette. Put my wetsuit on and did a warm up swim almost all the way to the first buoy. I felt good. It was a beautiful, sunny evening and the water was smooth. I got out of the water and listened to the race instructions. Now, one thing I've noticed is when I get out of the water and don't remove my wetsuit right away, it "suctions" to my body. That's the only way I can describe it. I really should at least unzip my wetsuit after my warmup swim, then zip it quickly and pull the neck down to let some water in before I start swimming. I was all the way to the back, where I always start. Another thing I need to change. I only swim freestyle in races, and once I get into a rhythm, I'm fine. The problem is, I'm always swimming with the breast- and back-strokers, and I can't get going. The same thing happened last night. The race began, I started swimming, and I was immediately on the feet of slow people or whip-kickers that I couldn't get around. My wetsuit felt suffocatingly tight, and I was starting to panic. My heart rate was through the roof, and I could feel that weak, hypoxic feeling in my arms and legs. I entertained the thought of quitting for one second, but just couldn't stomach the thought of being a two-time loser. So, I just kept swimming. I somehow made it to the turn-around buoy, then managed to find some open water in front of me. Sighted a few times, only had to adjust once. I swam right into the exit, stood up and hit the lap button on my watch, and turned around to see how many people were still in the water. Shocked to see maybe 20 swim caps, and that only 11 minutes had elapsed since the race start. I always feel like I'm in the water forever, and that I'm last. Next race, I'm positioning myself about 3/4 of the way back. I think that's where I truly belong, and hopefully, it will keep me with the freestyle swimmers.

As I ran into transition, I yelled to my husband to grab a gel for when I finished the bike. That weak feeling was translating into a hungry feeling. I think I just imagined it, but it couldn't hurt to have a gel. I knew I had a 100 calorie bottle of Heed on the bike, so I should be okay. I did a quick transition, about 1:30, then headed out on the bike. I hammered it. I love the bike leg; I feel so strong, and I'm always so glad to be done the swim. Headed down Mirror Lake Drive to Northwood Road, a little climb there, then down to Route 86, and a lovely, fast downhill through the Notch to River Road. I passed everyone I came to. I was flying! After the turn on River Road, there is a little bump. I passed a couple of people there, then thought it would be a good time to grab another drink before I settled in the aerobars to time-trial River Road. As I reached down to put my bottle back on the seat tube, I muffed it, and my bottle went under the bike. Dammit! I just got that bottle at Ididaride the day before. I was only four miles into the ride, and there went my calories and fluid. It was a cool evening, maybe low 70's at this point, so I made an instaneous decision to leave the bottle. I had my handheld for the run, and my husband would have a gel ready for me. That would have to be good enough. River Road is made for me, with a few little rollers to work. I continued to pass people. I heard an admiring, "Whoa!," when I passed one young guy. I heard my watch beep a 5 mi lap and saw 12:56. The next beep, after turning from River Road to Route 73, and climbing the hill after the bridge back up to Route 86, showed 14:37. A spectator on that hill cheered my Team Placid Planet kit, and told me I had a cool helmet (Giro Air Attack with the face shield ). I did the math, and knew my ride would be about 35 minutes. Took the right on 86, back to Northwood and Mirror Lake Drive. My husband had the gel ready for me, and I was in and out of transition in about 45 seconds. I was worried that my shins would start rebelling, or I'd just suffer a general rebellion from my body because of the 75 miles the day before. I felt a little redlined as I ran that first mile on Mirror Lake Drive. I made the turn onto a dirt road just as my watch beeped a one-mile lap, and I was shocked to see 7:46. Holy crap, I was flying! The dirt road is a bit of a climb. A few people passed me shortly after transition, but then I started passing people on that dirt road. I made the turn-around, and had a nice downhill in front of me. Started to feel like I had my legs under me. Back to the end of the dirt road, my watch beeped again, and it was just two seconds slower than the first lap. I was back on Mirror Lake Drive with a mile to go, and I just pushed as hard as I could, keeping a good rhythm. Only two guys passed me after the dirt road. I heard my watch beep one more time before the finish (I can never figure out how to run the shortest distance on a race course), and I had run a 7:36 mile. Another tenth of a mile and I was at the finish line, so happy to have finished the race feeling so strong! My watch said 1:12:59. (Link to results)

Afterwards, everyone who races grabs a raffle ticket for some awesome prizes. I know they do the raffle every week. I'm not sure what the prizes typically are, but this week they had running shoes, fuel belts, beer from Lake Placid Brewery, shirts, googles, socks, gloves...all great stuff. I didn't win anything, but the age-group awards were coming up next. Before the raffle, I had wandered over to the table at the finish line where two formidable-looking women were entering results on a laptop. I tried peeking over their shoulders and got the hairy eyeball, and was told that Brian would give the results, so I slunk away, not knowing how I finished. After the raffle, Brian called out the age-group winners, starting with the youngest to oldest women, then the same with the men. There was a table full of items to choose from: Baseball caps, water bottles, nutrition and hydration, gym bags, etc...Again, awesome swag! Now, Lake Placid is a world-renowned vacation destination, which typically draws very fit people. Around 70 individuals and 10 teams did the race this week, and they were from all over. A woman from Far Hills, NJ won my age group. She beat me by about two minutes. When all the age-group winners were called, I started to leave, thinking it was over. I was half way to my car when I realized it wasn't over, and they were calling 2nd place winners. I got back just in time to hear my name, and I picked up a nice gym bag. I was very happy with my performance, happy that I toughed out the swim, and that I was walking away with some swag. It was almost 9:00 at this point (if you do this race be prepared for a long evening!), so we went to Wise Guys for dinner--they serve until 2:30 a.m. and the food is great. On the way home, I swung onto River Road and found my water bottle. Bonus!

**A Team Placid Planet group email went around the next day, and a couple of race veterans commented on how rough the swim was. One guy was sporting a bump on his head from being hit or kicked. I know I wasn't near that scrum, but there were a lot of people for this shoreline swim, so I don't feel so bad for feeling like it was a tight swim.

Spinervals Lake Placid Camp, Chapter 2

Friday, June 21st: I slept just ok. Strange place, room was warm, even though I turned on the air, or maybe it was just me. Got up at 5:30, threw on a sweatshirt, and walked to the Stewart's convenience store just down the street. I've been to that particular store many times. I knew they'd be open and that the coffee would be fresh and hot. Also picked up a yogurt and a muffin. It was a bit chilly, but not overly so, very quiet on the street. Nice way to clear my head before the swim. I had the coffee and yogurt back in my room and got into my wetsuit. I messaged my friend, Mary, to tell her about the meeting time and to warn her about the iso squats :) Mary had also signed up for the camp, but other commitments came up, so she was only attending Friday. We all met in the lobby at 6:40 a.m., and walked down to the beach. The air temp was probably in the high 50s, buzz among the campers was that the water temp was 67 degrees. I think that was a touch generous. Coach talked to us a bit as we got ready to get in the water (I wore my full-sleeved wetsuit and neoprene booties). We swam out to the beginning of the lovely cable that goes along the swim course just four or five feet below the surface of the water, punctuated every 20 yards or so by buoys on the surface. Coach Troy asked us to swim for 15 minutes, then turn around and come back. He talked some more as we tread water, then took a photo. I look a little grim in the picture, I was starting to feel chilled and wanted to get moving! I am not a fast swimmer by any stretch, though I am a more confident swimmer than I used to be. I've only been swimming about five years, and though I've worked hard at improving, I know I'll be at the back of any swimming pack I'm in. Since this was my first open water swim since last August, my goal was to swim relaxed and in control, and not worry about anything else. It was a little hard to get my face in the water and get started, the chilly water took my breath away. I tried humming as I exhaled underwater--a little trick I'd learned from a friend to help me exhale completely. I quickly got into a rhythm and away I went. I checked my watch a couple of times, turned around after 15 minutes, and almost immediately, my calves started to cramp. The water was cold, and I was starting to feel chilled. I kicked very carefully back to the start, got out of the water, and silently congratulated myself on surviving. All the campers were in high spirits after the swim. We were all very chatty on the walk back to the hotel. So maybe I wasn't the only one who was happy to have our first workout done, or maybe the chilly water woke us up. Coach instructed us to grab something to eat, and to be back out in front of the hotel by 8:40 to start the ride.

I invited Mary to come back to my room to change. I wolfed down the muffin, got my cycling gear on, and prepared my nutrition and fluids. I had GU Electrolyte Brew and Hammer Heed powder to mix into my bottles. I also brought GU Chomps and Roctane Gels. Troy told us that Dan and Dave would be at certain places along the course with water, cookies and Gatorade/Powerade (I don't remember which, because I don't drink either). We brought our bikes out, and prepared to ride. I wore my Spinervals jersey, tri shorts, and sun sleeves. It was chilly, but I knew it would warm up. Troy had on a couple of layers, and some lobster-claw mitts tucked into his back pockets. Some people (not me!) were smirking over the gloves, which Coach didn't wear, leaving his reputation intact ;) We were riding one loop of the reverse of the Ironman bike, which meant we'd be climbing Keene hill--7 miles and 1350' of ascent--near the end of the ride. Coach Troy said he'd be controlling the pace on the downhill through the Notch, that we'd be stopping and regrouping at certain points along the course, and that everyone would do the climb at their own pace. Since we'd all be finishing at different times, we were to do our brick run whenever we finished the ride--one or two loops around Mirror Lake. We set off around 9:00, and it was an awesome ride! The bike is my thing, so I was feeling very comfortable, and feeling that maybe I did belong at this camp. I rode close to Troy's wheel through the Notch and near the front of the group down 86 to route 9N. We did the out and back on Haselton Road--one of my favorite roads in the entire North Country. I think it's a shame the entire road is no longer a part of the bike course. Coach Troy had strongly advised us not to hammer this ride, to save our legs for the 112 miles the next day. At some point, either in Wilmington or Upper Jay, I shed the sun sleeves. We split up into groups after Wilmington, I think, though we all regrouped at certain points before continuing. I hung with the A group until the return leg of the out-and-back to Ausable Forks. They started to push the pace as they neared Upper Jay again; that's a bit of an uphill section. I debated pushing to hang on, and decided to ease off and save my legs. I was going to get dropped, that was inevitable, so it didn't make sense to kill myself. And, the group would stop to regroup at the sag wagon stops, so I was able to start with them after each stop. We finally reached Keene, and started the climb. I like climbing. I live on the top of a hill that's a category 3 climb on one approach, and a 4 on another. I'm small and light, so I have an advantage. I felt good, got into a rhythm, and just tempo-ed up the hill. There was a traffic light about half-way up, routing traffic into one lane for construction. Jerre caught me before the light; our timing was bad and we caught the red and had to wait about 10 minutes before continuing. A couple of others caught up to us before the light changed. Turned out to be just the recovery I needed. We were still climbing after the light, and I took off feeling strong. After a minute or two, I turned to say something to the guys, and nobody was there. One of the guys caught and passed me near the top. I was feeling really good, and just decided to hammer the last few miles. The road is in rough shape, and my bottle with the Speedfil top jettisoned off into the trees on one particularly bad bump. I never could get that bottle system set up right, so, good riddance. Rode to the hotel, brought my bike up to my room and threw on my running shoes, and ran two loops--about 5 miles--around the lake. When I finished, I went down to the beach and waded into the lake up to my waist for a little ice bath. I highly recommend this! Back to the room to shower, and ate every bit of food in my room that I could find. I then went up to Placid Planet for a new hydration system. I got the XLab Super Wing and two Gorilla XT cages for behind the seat. I left the bike with Dan to install it for the next morning, and went to the nightly lecture. Afterwards, almost all of us went to dinner at the Lake Placid Pub and Brewery. It was great visiting with Ginny, Dan, Jerre and Christina down at my end of the table. We were a loud and raucous bunch. I was very happy with how my day went, and no longer feeling over my head. Coach Troy changed the ride start for the 112 miles to 7:00 a.m., so I went straight back to the hotel and to bed after dinner. Good day! My stats for the day: Swam 1130 yards in 32 min, biked 56 miles in 3:10 and ran 5.2 miles in 48 minutes.