It is simply amazing how a year ago, I signed up for Ironman
Lake Placid, knowing that it was an iconic race and one of the more challenging
Ironman’s in North America. I wanted to
race an Ironman with a non-flat bike course which is arguably my strongest of
the three disciplines. So one year out, I was at my computer and signed up as
soon as registration opened. The year
flew by and I accomplished many goals, surprising myself in the process, put in
the training and arrived at race week as ready as I could be.
I had a flight time of 11am so that I could get in my
morning workout before I left. I have
the Ruster Armored Hen House bike bag (one bag is for the bike and there is a
second bag for the wheels) as I like to have my bike with me until the very
last minute. If a company existed that I
did not need to drop off my bike until Sunday afternoon the week before, then I
would book it. But one doesn’t yet. Anyways, so I get to IAH and the United
representatives literally were arguing with me, not explaining professionally,
that my bike bag was oversized and that I would have to pay the oversized bags
fee. Well, the lady took out her tape
measurer and measured it diagonally, and it didn’t fit the regular bag fees and
I had to pay for the oversized bag fee.
Which if you don’t know is $200 each way. Ouch!
I have flown United hundreds of times, was a loyal customer, and this is
the very first time of the at least 10 times that I have flown with the bike
that I had to pay the oversized bags fees.
Oh well, I digress.
I flew from IAH to ERW to BTV. I realize this is not the quickest way to
Lake Placid, but I had racked up airline miles to use and my flight cost me
pennies. My layover was supposed to be a
quick 30 minutes, but damn flight was delayed by 2 hours. Why?!? Because the plane of the previous
flight was delayed. So I was supposed to
have a nice evening drive from Burlington, Vermont to Lake Placid, New York to
watch the sunset and take in the scenery.
But that didn’t happen. So I get
to Burlington, and my second bag with my wheels didn’t make it. At this point, it is 9pm at night and United
reassures me that this bag will be delivered to me in Lake Placid (about 2
hours away) the next morning. Uh
huh. I go to the rental car place and
they “upgrade” me to a minivan – it was that or a small Ford focus and I was afraid
the luggage wouldn’t fit. And I have to
say, the minivan was great!!
I drove up to the Plattsburg ferry which thankfully runs 24
hours (note: you need to take a ferry to cross Lake Champlain to get from
Vermont to New York) and I have to say, even though it was dark out, I quite
enjoyed the relaxing sound of water splashing the boat…very calming. The rest of the drive in was uneventful and
honestly I had no idea that driving in, I was driving on part of the bike
course. I was out of it.
I stayed at the Best Western and I would HIGHLY recommend
it. I get there, I get a King bed corner
suite! And my two balconies, one looked off on transition. Literally, I could see my bike from my
balcony. And I could hear Mike Reilly,
the voice of Ironman, say “YOU ARE AN I-R-O-N-M-A-N” over and over on Sunday
after finishing. There is a basic
breakfast (plenty awesome options downtown if you are looking to spend more
money) and there is a restaurant/bar, The Pickled Pig, that is just downstairs
that does carry out, good for post-race food.
And the Lake Placid Brewery was right down the street, there is a back
exit to go to Mirror Lake, and it is easy to just bike out since it is just on
the edge of town onto the main road. And
just a few steps away from the main downtown area. Here’s the bad thing, though, the hotels
really jack up their rates. Like a
lot! I paid $439+ a night. And you have to book one year out to get this
room, otherwise you are on a waiting list.
And they have you pre-pay for the rest of your stay two months out. Which I forgot about and was like, umm, where did this $1500 charge come
from. LOL.
A few more things to note about the town and then I will get
onto the race details. Almost all of the
local restaurants have “limited Ironman menus”.
Basically what they did was remove some items and jack up the prices
because they know people will pay for it.
Oh well. I tried a few of the
popular joints leading up to race day.
Highly recommend eating at off peak times or before the normal rush
times as this leads to less stress as there were some long lines!!
So Friday morning, thankfully in my one bag I had a tri suit
(no wetsuit) and that day called for a race site swim and run. I hopped into Mirror Lake which was a nice
refreshing 73 degrees (I am from Houston and LOVED this cool water). Am I the only person that wishes that wetsuit
legal was 70 degrees or less?!? The lake is so clear, there is no boat traffic
and there is the historic “yellow” cable line.
That is what most people love about this race; people claim that you do
not have to site that often as you can just look down and like a black line in
the pool, swim the line. Which is pretty
easy to see; it’s quite surprising.
Considering I am used to swimming in brown nasty water that you can’t
see anything in. And is gross. Uck, Texas lakes. Anyways, knocked out a nice 40 minutes swim
and then put on my shoes and ran around the lake for 25 minutes. The rest of the day was spent getting my
packet, right across the road from the hotel, and then taking in a few
sites. Such a fricking beautiful town!
So cute!! Met a few Wattie Ink teammates at the Lake Placid Brewery (no, I
didn’t drink anything…) and then grabbed some pasta (I carb load two nights
prior) at Nicola’s, like a block from the hotel, highly recommend, and ate my
fill. Then to bed. Oh and my bike wheels
did in fact arrive on Friday but not until like 4:30pm, so put together my bike
that afternoon also.
Saturday, I was up at 6am and on the bike by 6:30pm. Crazy fact: the sun is up at 5:30am in Lake
Placid. That’s crazy awesome for this early
bird. I biked the hill out of town that
some people claim is one of the harder ones (lol) and did a quick 35 minutes
ride. Grabbed hotel breakfast, did some
tweaks on the bike (hello tighten brakes) and chilled out for a while. Another fun tip, always pack crazy glue. You never know when you may need it. My visor popped out on the flight, so I glued
this in. AND the crazy as F thing
happened, my bike seat post stay/screw in broke. As in snapped in half. So, yes, I crazy glued that together and
crazy glued my seat post where it was.
Said a prayer this wouldn’t be an issue on race day and put the wrench
to tighten it, if needed, in my bento bike bag on my stem. Eeeks! It held up thankfully…..but won’t be
riding this bike until I get a new one!! Rest of Saturday was check the bike,
soup for lunch, fish/rice for dinner and to bed by 7pm…no joke.
Race morning, the only time I get up at 3:30am and am
excited about it. HA! And then I realize
how much it sucks to be a women. This is
maybe TMI for some people, so sorry, but this is the first time ever that I
have had my period on race day. And I
almost always get bad cramps on the first day.
And I did this day. L
Not much I could do about that at that point, though. Breakfast on tap: 3 cups applesauce, 1.5
bananas, 1.5 cups of coffee with non-dairy cream, 2 scoops protein (Herbalife
24 rebuild strength) drink, 2 scoops sports drink (Herbalife 24 prepare) and
well a gu right before the swim start. I get up this early as I like to give
the food 3 hours to process and do the motions of setting up transition
slowly. I am not a fast person when it
comes to setting up transition. And if I
get there earlier, it makes me less stressed.
The bike was already there, so I just had to add then some fluids (first
aid station on bike is 8 miles in) and my nutrition. Which if you are curious, I took my new hot
pink Wattie Ink sports bottle and filled it up with 10 salted caramel gu’s and
water. The gear for your run is in one
bag, the gear for your bike portion is in another bag. At placid, this hangs from a rack. It is
known for rain surprises in placid, so the racks may be needed some years. They give you another bag for morning clothes
and you have to hang it there.
Transition area is about .4 miles from the swim exit and it is up a hill
and unfortunately you need to have to get rid of your stuff then and walk
there. A couple tips, use the port-o-potties
by the lake early. Not at
transition. Less lines. Also, have your Sherpa ready to take your
fluids bottle just before the swim or have a disposable water bottle so that
you are still taking in fluids. It could
be an hour from the time you drop your morning clothes bag until you start and
there isn’t a table there with fluids for you. I got in the water at 6am and
did a quick little water splashing around and then walked over to the swim
area.
The swim is a two loops rolling start where you seed
yourself according to your swim ability.
I just did a 70.3 four weeks prior at just above my Ironman swim race
intensities at 33 minutes, so I lined up at just passed the hour marker. The women pros went off like 6:15am and then
we went off at 6:40am. I got in the
water and freaked the F out. It has been
a long time since I have had anxiety issues at swim starts, but I just don’t
like swimming with people next to me. I
seriously need to fix this if I want to continue to grow in triathlon. So the first 3 minutes were spent on me
trying to figure out how to breathe and swim.
Annoying. And I got water up my
nose a few times. So frustrating. So if anyone in Houston want to play open
water swim starts with me, I am game. I
have improved swim times in the pool, but that doesn’t mean a thing if I can’t
swim once I get in the open water.
Anyways, so I start to get to swimming eventually. And realize I hate this course now. Two loops swimming, in my opinion and we all
have an opinion, is dumb and tough to rally yourself up to go swim another lap. And well, everyone was trying to swim the
cable line. This was my first Ironman
swim that was wetsuit legal and I swam slower than two of my previous
non-wetsuit legal swims. Anyways, so as
I am trying to swim the line, I get water up my nose and elbowed too many times
to remember. Mostly by bike manly
looking guys. Whatever. I honestly
prefer most other Ironman swims because everyone is more spread out as everyone
is not trying to all swim in the same space.
And I am not that great, apparently, at navigating the water. At the end of my one clockwise loop, I run on
the dirt for a second (there is a table with water there) and then back in the
water. Time for another go. Somehow, I swam slower my second loop!
Boo! I just told myself, just keep calm,
keep the heart rate low and it is a long day.
Sorry non-triathletes, I made sure I peed towards the end of the first
loop. Swim time: 1:13:42.
Transition, as mentioned, is a longer one. If I could give a suggestion to Lake Placid,
it would be to get wider carpets. Noted,
it was nice they had them even at all, but they weren’t wide enough in most
spots for me to pass people and still be on the carpet. I run transitions, not jog like most people
or walk like some, but run. I finally
get to my bag on the rack, grab it, run to the females’ tent and throw on the
helmet, throw my base salt tube in the pocket, a couple gu’s, extra tube and
go. I swam in sports bra, cycling jersey
and tri shorts. This year, they allowed
us to have the bike shoes already on the bike.
Looks like most people didn’t chose this option. I did. Transition 1 time: 4:22.
The exit from transition is awesome and fairly sketch
maybe. All downhill with a sharp
left. I bet some people get scarred
there, but I did Escape from Alcatraz with way worse turns and well, thankfully
there were no hot shots trying to fly down it next to me. Haha. So, you exit town and people are lined
up for the first 3 or so miles and then you ride the good hill out of town and
then it was pretty awesome. There was a
nice little bit of riding and then my favorite part of the entire course…the
Keene descent. Seriously, so
awesome! Being from Houston, there is
nowhere to properly practice hills up or down like this so it was some big gear
work on the trainer. Good times. But the downhills you can’t stimulate. Well, somehow I ended up with 3rd
on Strava and got up to 48.5 miles per hour! I wish the entire course was like
that. HAHAHA! Just kidding. At the end of the descent, you make a left
and then this part until the U-turn is the part where you can really put in the
work and make up time. False flats and
some real flats and when on the first loop, plenty of people. After turning around, it is back to town and
a right and then a few decent rollers and then the second out and back and then
a quick bit to turn back towards town. The
road back to town on the first loop is definitely do able and beautiful,
cycling next to the Au Sable River. And
seeing the Olympic sites. And then the
climbs back into town. One bad part, my
power meter decided not to work on race day.
Good thing is that I was wearing a heart rate monitor and knew what my
heart rate targets were so I did my best to keep in the range. But unfortunately I did all of the training
primarily on power. Oh well. Turning into town and knowing you had to go
out for a second loop is kind of a point where you need to rally up and get
ready for the next round. The second go ‘round, the wind picked up a little bit
which that and maybe a little fatigue made it a little slower than the first
loop, but not by much. Overall split: 5:41:02 (I have no idea how I pulled that
off considering I only did one bike ride over 100 miles in my build up and it
was a disaster!)
So, I get into T2 and those volunteers! Best ones yet. I ran into the female tent and no one was in
there! That’s a first! So I run in there
with my bag and I plop my butt on a chair and before I can process what’s going
on, the bag was open, my socks were being put on my feet while they were putting
my hat on my head, and putting on my race best and putting on my sunglasses
while other girls were handing me water and sunscreen. What a whirlwind! It felt like seconds but T2
was 2:23. Pretty good for an Ironman transition. J Unfortunately, though, as I was going to put
my sunglasses on, they 80% snapped in the middle. Said a quick prayer for them to hopefully
stay on my face because I always wear sunglasses!!
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| Photo Cred: Jon Miles |
Off to the run. That
town was on fire! The cheers were amazing.
Felt like I was on fire. And
tried sooo hard not to run too fast.
That was hard as hell and I failed a little. But I didn’t go too crazy fast. There’s a
good downhill in the beginning and then it was mostly flat with a hill in
there. And wow was it desolate and not
shady. It was like 77 degrees at that point.
Oh so lonely. The only
entertainment was the other racers, which it was thin on the first loop, and the
thoughts in my head. I made a point to
take in as much fluids as possible and ice myself. I love trucker hats for this. Shub it towards the volunteers, they toss ice
in there, I put some down the front and on the head and you don’t have to
stop. Well unfortunately, I just start
to feel very off at mile 8. Seriously
could not convince myself to move like normal and I was slowing way down. So I stopped at the next aid station, salt,
coke and then back to the run. And then
did that on repeat mixing up coke with Gatorade and adding in gu here and
there. It was a long run. I saw a few
girls but not that many the first loop and then more on the second loop. But it was hard to tell who was in what age
group. So I had no idea where I was at
then, but I did everything to keep on going between aid stations.
I heard the party at the finish line and give it the last
little bit I got to get there and then I get to hear for the fourth time,
Claudia Smith from Houston, You Are An IRONMAN!! Run time was 3:55:51. Final time was 10:57:20 A personal best by
right around an hour.
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| Photo cred: Karin Langer |
Head to the food and grab some Coke, Gatorade, pretzels and
pizza. Yum! The volunteers at the finish line were the
best….they basically waited on me. It was awesome! Then went to get a massage. And picked up my bike and walked across the
road to the hotel. I didn’t know what my
exact time was so I looked it up and saw that I was 5th in my age
group! Yay! I started dreaming of a Kona slot…knew it was
a long shot. Well, at breakfast/awards
the next day, I unfortunately didn’t get the slot. But has me now thinking that I need to really
set my eyes on Kona qualification and find the perfect race for me. Any suggestions??
Thanks to Team Wattie Ink and all of the sponsors for their
continued support!!
