Lake Placid Recon

There have been days during this Ironman journey where I have to stop and say to myself: “Shit, this might actually be doable.” Last Friday through Sunday was kinda like that.

Last weekend I lived the life of a full-time athlete and trained my tail off in Lake Placid on the same course I’ll be racing in less than 5 weeks. On Friday morning, Dave and I took the day off of work and traveled to Lake Placid for what was to be one big triathlon adventure filled with lots o’ swim, bike and run. We bailed from the Philly burbs shortly 7am and showed up in LP a little after 2pm. Not a short drive! As a side note, I originally thought that the carpool was just going to consist of Dave and myself. Little did I know that Dave was going to bring along someone else! The third member of the ride was Dave’s navigation system narrator. I dubbed her Vanessa. Vanessa sounded pretty sultry and guided our trip for over 400+ miles. Come to think of it, Vanessa reminded me a lot of my marriage: I am incapable of doing anything autonomously so I need some guidance. She tells me how to do things the right way and also tells me when I do things the wrong way, only to correct my mistakes each time! Just kidding of course! Silvia – I love you way more than Vanessa…I promise!

Anyhow, we showed up in LP in the early afternoon as I mentioned. We checked into Art Devlins, which I highly recommend. It’s a very fair price and can’t be much more than a couple hundred yards from the transition area. Dave and I went to High Peaks Cyclery to get our respective bikes worked on a bit. I also highly recommend HPC. The folks are super helpful and the labor costs are pretty reasonable.

Following the bike work, we headed over to the lake to do two full loops (2.4 miles). Mirror Lake was really beautiful. A yellow line runs the entire course, which meant that sighting was completely unnecessary. That’s my kind of open water swim! We banged out 31 minutes for the first loop and 32 minutes for the second loop. 63 and change in total. I’d actually like to swim a little slower than that on race day. It is just my bike warm-up after all! I followed my swim with a 32 minute run. We hit the hay early for our long day on Saturday.

We were supposed to meet up with Joe and his crew at the Olympic Oval. When we were heading over we found a huge crew that was leaving directly from our hotel. I felt bad for not meeting up with Joe but logistically departing from the hotel and coming straight back to the hotel for nutrition/hydration after the first loop seemed a bit easier. Joe, we’ll have to meet up prior to the race instead…sorry about that!

Saturday was one long day in the saddle! 112 miles (2 full loops of the bike course). I started out with a huge pack of riders but promptly got dropped by most of them. Today was about my pace and my pace only. I kept my ego in check and just rode the way I wanted to. I have to say that the course is unbelievably pristine. It was hard at times to fully appreciate the scenery given how tiring it is, but it really was just exquisite. Mountains, rivers, lakes, streams…the whole nine. The descent into Keene is frigging insane. I loved it! Nothing quite like breaking the speed limit on your bike and realizing that cars are not passing you because you are going faster than they care to go. Very cool stuff. Route 73 is pretty sweet to say the least. The turn onto 9N is also pretty cool. It felt like one of the few sections on the course that offered riders at least what felt like a decent flat (maybe false flat) section. You can really hammer on this section, but it pays to be patient. Taking in nutrition on the section also works well compared to some of the hillier areas. When you hit route 86 you start to do some climbing. I swear the hills get twice as large on the second loop. The out and back on Haselton Road was wild. Virtually no cars…basically hundreds of iron men and women in training. It was an awesome experience to be part of. After you finish off Haselton Road, the real climbing begins. The ascent along the White Face Mountains is gorgeous, but very challenging. I found the hills to be very different compared to my ride at Black Bear. Black Bear was all about STEEP ascents. LP is much more gradual, but the climbs last much longer. I finished off the first loop in 3:31.

When I got back to the hotel I found Dave there, which I thought was strange since I figured he’d be way gone by then on his second loop. Turns out that Dave had some pretty bad luck. On his second loop, only about ¼ from our hotel, he was struck by a car. Luckily, Dave did not sustain any really threatening injuries. Lots of scrapes and a lot of soreness, but he is a very tough dude and I believe he will mend soon. Send him some comment love when you get a chance. I offered to take him to the ER, but he told me to get my ass back out on the course. His day was done, but I had a long day left ahead of me. I took about 20 minutes in between my first and second loops. Not ideal, but given the circumstances I can live with it.

I was a bit shaken when I headed out on my second loop. The thought of Dave hitting the pavement had me pretty nervous. His bike handling skills are really legit and mine are not. These accidents can happen to anyone.

The second loop was tough! I split 3:40 for the second loop. A positive split of 9 minutes doesn’t seem horrible on a tough course like LP. I was shooting for a 7 hour day in the saddle and ended up 11 minutes north of that. Hopefully I can post a similar ride July 22. The hills felt much larger on the second loop, but my spirits never dampened. I was really proud on my 112-mile ride. Although I wasn’t setting any land speed records, I showed up to do 112 and did exactly that. In and of itself, this is the real success.

Following the bike ride I was pretty shelled. I took 45 minutes off before my run to hydrate up a bit. Although I drank 4 24-ounce Gatorade bottles each loop (192 ounces in total), I think I fell about 2 to 3 bottles short for the ride. It will be nice to have aid stations about every 10 miles on race day for my hydration needs. Including my other nutrition, I hit about 400 calories per hour for the ride. Not bad. I think I should still take in more.

My run following the 112 lasted for just over 40 minutes. At the end of the day I put in 7 hours, 51 minutes and 54 seconds of training. My longest day of training. Ever.

After some dinner, Dave and I watched a movie called Antitrust, which appeared to be a parallel to Microsoft’s story and had some spicy plots thrown in for fun. Trust me, I am no programmer but an analogy in the movie really hit home that made me think about my near 8 hour training day. Tim Robbins, who played the dude which was a Bill Gates look-a-like made a speech about programming. He said that in programming you are either a one or a zero (binary code language). He likened his company to a one, speaking to its success. On Saturday I rode 112 miles and ran about 4 miles. I was a 1 on Saturday.

Sunday we woke up and my legs were pretty beat. Being that Dave was still in tough shape I would be the driver on the way home. I originally planned to do one full loop of the LP run course (13.1 miles), but I figured I’d rather not run a half mary and then drive 7 hours home. I thought the smarter move was to drive home and then figure out the running situation when I got back to PA. Anyone who’s ever run in Valley Forge can vouch for the fact that you’re not exactly wussing out on hills if you are running long in VF. Following the long ride back to the Philly burbs I put in a 10 mile run. Not quite a half mary, but still a strong effort considering the weekend.

Over a 50 hour period between Friday and Sunday evening, I put in over 11 hours of training.

Shit, this might actually be doable.