Ironman USA Lake Placid 2009 Race Report

As always, this will be a long read. Grab your favorite beverages (you might need more than one), have a seat and relax!

Days Leading up to the Race (Wednesday through Saturday)

I drove to LP on Wednesday, 7/22, with my friend Brad, who would be doing his first Ironman. I guess I forgot how long it took to drive there because I told him 11 hours, but between a slight delay in customs getting into Canada and then traffic through Toronto and its suburbs, it took more like 16 hours on the way there (please note we PR’ed on the drive back by almost 2 hours!). Also we needed to stop to eat a few times, and McDonald’s was the choice, being quick, easy and predictable. While I typically don’t eat there except after very long rides or an Ironman or marathon, I was perfectly OK with that.

At some point on the way there, there was a dead coyote on the road. I pointed it out, and Brad (somewhat jokingly) said he thought it was a wallaby. I got a good laugh about this and throughout the drive one of us would periodically bring up the wallabies and their habits. I guess you had to be there for that one!

Also at some point, since we were seeing a lot of trucks, I wondered out loud what would happen if a truck were carrying balloons, and how it would get through customs. “What are you carrying?” “Balloons.” Again, guess you had to be there.

We also saw the aftermath of a bad collision in northern Michigan. As we passed by the carnage, there was a totaled car with someone inside receiving an IV, and they were just beginning to cut him/her out of the car. There was another car that was overturned, and I think two more on the side of the road that had been involved. Brad and I hoped the person receiving the IV was going to be OK, although probably a lot of recovery would be needed. Something like that makes you stop and think…and since we were on the way to do an Ironman, we thought that “that guy” is going to have MANY bad days, whereas we might have A bad day. Kind of puts things in perspective.

When we got to the rental house (the same one I stayed in last year), Brad camped out since his parents weren’t arriving until the next day, and that would be when he would go and stay with them. I think we crashed pretty hard (I had a beer first), and there was no alarm clock set, but I got up around 7:30 and announced I was going for a swim. I think we made it into the lake just after 9:00AM, and we each swam a loop (1.2 miles). It is always nice to just go and swim in Mirror Lake (this was my 4th time at Lake Placid) without all the race day traffic.

Next, we went and registered and got bagged and tagged. While in line, we met a man who had done Ironman Nice 3 weeks before. At one point, it came up that he had done some ultrarunning as well, so I asked him if I needed to do conventional training for a 50-mile race, and he said no. That sort of validated my thoughts that if I just want to finish, I should have enough endurance to run 10-11 hours all at once, right?

Someone I know from blogging, Tom, spotted me right before I got to the front of my registration line. It was great to meet him (he was doing his first Ironman). He recognized me from my blog, although I was fully clothed, so not sure how that happened ;)

I weighed in at 111 on their scale, and figure 2 pounds were the normal “not just having woken up” pounds from coffee and such, and maybe 1 more from starting to reintroduce carbs into my diet. Even so, this would be my lightest “official” race weight. I’d been weighing in at 107-108 for the past 8 weeks or so and felt great.

Before we left the high school, I met a woman in my age group who as it turns out, knows a friend of Brad’s mom! Small world it truly is! She beat me handily and had a great race. I saw her after our finishes, and I was really happy for her. She’s a much better runner than I am (which isn’t that difficult to achieve!).

Next we went to the expo and bought a few things, then it was back to the house. I had to get a new tubie put on Bitch since my bike shop had put the wrong size tire on the rear wheel back home and it wouldn’t clear the rear seat stay. Luckily, my friends from Elite Bicycles were set up about 1.5 blocks from the house, so I suited up to run and took my wheel with me. My little :30 run felt just wonderful—I was running all these little hills and just enjoying the heck out of it! I still wasn’t making any predictions for race day, though. Brad also utilized the Elite guys for some work on his bike, and then finally we walked a few blocks and got some sandwiches.

Brad left to join up with his parents, and then Shelley, her son Eric, and her SO, Steve arrived. I hadn’t seen Shelley since early last December, and I hadn’t seen Eric since CheaterMan (Ironman Florida), so it was all good. I had met Steve at Triple T but didn’t get to spend much time with him due to all the hoopla.

The housemates went to dinner at Tale of the Pup. That is my favorite restaurant in Lake Placid! I drank a beer bigger than my head (see the Flickr pics) and had some BBQ chicken, and it was all good!

We all slept in on Thursday, and that was great because I’d been sleeping 9-10 hours a night for several weeks now. Note to self and anyone else doing this: in the last few weeks leading up to a big race like this, sleep is probably the best thing you can do to recover from all the hard training while you are tapering. I don’t think I’d ever slept so much before an Ironman, and well, you know how this one turned out!

Shelley and I went to swim on Friday morning, and she went off and did some stuff while I went and got my bike tuned up prior to a short ride. I rode the run course plus a little extra and had a great time. I kept thinking about how this was the last time I would be here (as far as I know) and my last regular Ironman (but you know that will change, right?), and so I was trying to suck up every little bit of experience. After I biked, I did another short little run (my last before the big day), and again, it felt great. I wasn’t sure about my biking legs, but my running legs felt ready for punishment!

On Friday afternoon, Marci and her twin sister, Julie, arrived. Marci was coming in to volunteer so she could get premium signup for the 2010 race, and her sister came along to experience an Ironman. Shelley and Steve went to the pasta dinner on Friday, and Eric, Marci, Julie and I went to Tale of the Pup (did I say I love that place?) for dinner.

Usually I make my T1 and T2 bags on Friday—it is sort of a religious experience for me—complete with calming music, I need to be alone, and I obsess for about an hour. But this time, I was leaving that task for Saturday.

We all slept in Friday night (10.5 hours for me!), and while my training schedule said to go do a really short swim and run, I decided I would do neither. I made my T1 and T2 bags, assuming it would rain as predicted. The weather had said 80% chance of rain with highs in the 80’s, and while I wasn’t too keen on rain like last year, I figured at least I would be ready for it this time.

I checked my bike in around 1PM, riding down by myself and setting up. There was nothing to do to my bike except deflate the tires (I did hear some others exploding while walking to drop off my bags), and then walk back to the house. Someone was handing out free tiny blueberry muffins on my way back, and I took one for a nice snack. I’d been sipping Gatorade throughout the day to start sodium loading, and was starting to feel a little bloaty, which is exactly what I would expect.

I tried to nap a little on Saturday afternoon, but it just didn’t come as I was getting a little excited. On Saturday evening, Shelley made a kick-ass dinner for all of us in the house, and I chowed down on spaghetti with shrimp and marinara sauce, and Shelley’s special garlic bread. I ended up drinking 3 beers.

While I went to bed early, I don’t think I fell asleep before midnight. There was too much food in my belly, which made me hot, and then I just started thinking about things. But I wasn’t worried—I had sleep in the bank, and the night before doesn’t really matter.

Race Morning

Of course, the first thing I did was turn on the Weather Channel. It looked like we might or might not get rained on! At least the early morning temperature was nice—around 65. I figured that if it was going to rain, it would be warm rain, and so I wasn’t too concerned about hypothermia.

I drank my Ultrafuel and ate a Powerbar Triple Threat and had some coffee. Yum! The taste of a huge workout! I put on my bike shorts, bra top and pirate singlet. I’d never worn the pirate thing before, so that was kind of exciting. I started following my checklist to make sure I didn’t forget to do anything or take anything with me to transition, and it was like clockwork.

Brad had stayed the night, as I’d offered this to him seeing as how his parents were all the way in Keene, which is on the bike course, but a ways from transition. It was fun and interesting, as always, watching Brad and Shelley go through their pre-race rituals.

Steve droved the 3 of us racers down to transition, and after stopping to drop off our special needs bags, we walked down to transition and dispersed. I had not brought a pump with me, so I borrowed someone else’s for the first time ever, I think. I set up my bike, got my wetsuit and swim stuff ready to go, and went and found Brad to see how he was doing, which was pretty much fine. The time always goes so quickly once it’s race morning!

The Swim

The sky was threatening, although it hadn’t rained overnight. Brad and I walked down to the swim start, and then it started drizzling. I was thinking, oh fuck, repeat of last year, but it stopped as quickly as it started, and I stopped for one last potty break in the swim house. While I was in there, it rained again, but briefly.

I’d decided I’d line up sort of in the back but not far back this year, and I was in the middle from left to right. It all happened so quickly, and then finally, you hear the BOOM and we are off. I started swimming, no hyperventilation—just jockeying for position, knowing this would be a long swim. I’m not a fast swimmer, but I can swim economically, which is fine by me for now (I will take some lessons for Ultraman), so I just plowed through as best I could. I didn’t get too beat up and wasn’t at all surprised at my time when I came out for the first and then the second loop. I never felt tired, and don’t think I swallowed any water, although it was close on that a few times! It did rain while we were swimming, and I later heard it was pretty hard for about 10 minutes, and while I remember being pelted slightly by raindrops, what the fuck, I was pretty wet already and it didn’t matter! At the time, I didn’t think about oh crap what if it rains all day—I just kept swimming. I managed to pee twice really well while swimming, which was good, because I didn’t want to have to stop once I got out of the water, and I always have to pee during and after any training swim!

When I got out of the water, the sky looked pretty nice and I was hoping for a good weather day. Things were pretty methodical—find and point at a wetsuit stripper, get this thing off, now run to transition! I am always surprised at the people who just sort of stop. A person can make up valuable time in transition, so I just started running, calling “on your left” a few times, as it’s a good hike to the tents.

T1

When I got to the changing tent, I had a volunteer all to myself, so things went pretty fast. I made a spot decision to not put on the bike jersey or jacket, so it was just socks, shoes, helmet, sunglasses (fogged up because there was so much water in the tent) and race belt. I had to take my sunglasses off to run to my bike because I couldn’t see, and it sucked that there was so much water on the ground, but oh well, the race goes on!

I got my bike and it was all wet, but so was I so it didn’t matter. As usual, when I got to the mount line, people were spazzing out all over the place, so I paid attention and got on and got to pedaling, noticing right away that I had almost zero brakes because of the rain. Oh well, I am not winning this thing—I just want to have a good ride and get out of town safely!

The Bike

We ride down two short, steep hills, and people do amazing stupid things there, but I avoided crashing and started out of town. My legs felt fantastic! Plus it didn’t seem there was any wind, the temp was perfectamundo, and I had met or beat my anticipated T1 time plus swim! So all was good.

Right away there were people blocking, and I had to yell at a few to cut it out—either finish your pass or drop back. Not like we are supposed to ride the center of the road! I’ve done this course 3 times before, so I was pretty familiar with the climbs and such, and was smart on the gradual climb out of town, but man, it was feeling easy!

It wasn’t raining, and by the time I got to the descent into Keene, the road was pretty dry, so it was bomb on down! As always, I was a little scared, but I didn’t brake too much and enjoyed the hell out of the coasting. I didn’t look at my speed, because I know that if I did it would scare me.

After we finished that and started heading towards Jay, I was like, fuck this weather is amazing and it’s not windy and I got a pretty good cruise on. And I just kept drinking my Infinit and water, and stayed aero pretty much the entire time. At the first climb into Wilmington, it got really crowded, and somehow I ended up between 2 pretty big guys (although most people are big compared to me), and asked how they were doing, and they said fine, and one of them asked me how I was doing, and I said, “I am practicing being small!” And after that, I went ahead of them on the climb. I guess they didn’t get my joke.

When we got to the out and back in Hazelton, I powered past many people, being careful to avoid downed bottles and assorted bike parts, and really enjoyed this part of the course. On the way in, I stopped at a porta potty to pee, and a little while later, there were 2 little bumps in the road that I took my left hand off the aerobar to point out to someone behind me, and I ended up turning the front wheel, and good thing I was thinking and put my hand back on the bars and straightened it out and didn’t crash! I really thought I was going to go down for a split second there, but was happy to pull it out and kept riding.

Then we come out of there and soon start the big climb next to Whiteface Mountain, which seems to go on forever. But I was just patient and spun, and when I wasn’t climbing, it seemed my RPM’s were about 100-105 in the big chainring, which is all good.

When I came upon the set of hills at the end of the loop known as Little Cherry, Big Cherry, Baby Bear, Mama Bear and Papa Bear, I was like what the fuck these are NOTHING! I guess all the other hill riding I’d done this year kicked in and all I could think was that these just weren’t that big of a deal, and they weren’t.

The Ergomo on Bitch doesn’t give me accurate watts, so I just relied on feel and cadence/speed. I had ridden the Ironman Wisconsin course 3 weeks earlier in 6:25 and ran well off the bike, and I was on a similar pace at the end of the first loop, so I figured I was doing what I was capable of.

Just about finishing lap 1 I saw Shelley pulled over talking to Steve. While I was worried, I didn’t stop and just kept pedaling through since I had my own race to run. I knew Shelley would understand.

Coming into town, you are surrounded by spectators, and it’s flat or downhill, so you want to go fast. I almost bought it into a right-hand turn into a chute, and once again, I saved myself from going down and was laughing hysterically to myself because I am doing this shit in an Ironman!

As we headed back out of town on the long climb, I immediately assessed myself. Mentally it’s always hard to start another loop when you just finished one that isn’t exactly easy. I could sort of feel my quads and was worried I might slow down a lot, but as it turned out, once I got into things for about 15 minutes, I felt just fine. What you notice on double loop Ironman courses like IMLP and IMWI is that a lot of people lose the will to pedal all the time on downhills and flats once they are on the second loop. It just means they went too hard on the first loop, and I felt good that I could still motor on.

The second descent into Keene I took a little more conservatively—there was a touch of wind, but I guess I just wanted to relax a little bit. But as soon as it was over, I got back to diligent work in getting to Jay, and the winds were still favorable in there and my speed was pretty good. I stopped at an aid station that I utilized 2 years ago that’s pretty big and has a big turnout for cars. I peed in the porta potty and while in there I assessed my legs and they still felt pretty darn good!

The second climb into Wilmington went like clockwork, the Hazelton out and back was a little windier than the first time through but nothing bad, and then the second climb next to Whiteface seemed to take longer, but it was just mental at this point. Some guy was next to me for a bit, and I asked him if he knew the name of the climb. He said no, so I told him: LAMFC. He asked what that stands for, and I said it: LONG ASS MOTHER FUCKING CLIMB! I was laughing, but I guess he didn’t get that I was trying to be funny. I guess some people just have no sense of humor during an Ironman, but I have all sorts of silly thoughts in my head that keep me going, as much of the time I’m thinking what a dumbass I am for doing this in the first place!

And then I remembered I had some of Dad’s ashes with me. Whereas last year at this point I was totally miserable from being rained on all day and going slow on descents and peeing constantly, today I felt just fabulous, so I took the crack baggie out of my Bento box, opened it with my teeth, kept pedaling and let Dad’s ashes blow in the wind, and I was smiling the entire time!

After that climb ended, we hit the fruit and the Care Bears (as I like to call them), and nothing was a big deal for the second time, only now I am starting to think about running as I head into transition. I kept on motoring the last ½ mile to get there, and was starting to think I might have a good day if I can just run.

T2

At the dismount line, someone took my bike and I started running with my shoes on, but thought I could care less about the socks I’m wearing, so I took the shoes off and ran in my socks and my feet immediately felt better. Typically, the balls of my feet hurt around 80 or 90 miles into a ride, and today was no exception, but I’ve learned that they will feel just fine once I get the bike shoes off.

Note to self and other people training for Ironman: I would recommend you do some swim/bike bricks that include a rather long swim (say 3500 yards) followed by a 3+ hour ride, so your body understands what it’s like to subject your upper back to swimming and then aero position for a long period of time. While I didn’t have trouble with this, I will say that my upper back could have felt better upon starting the run, so this is just a heads up.

Into the tent, and once again I had a personal volunteer who was AWESOME. She dumped out my bag, I took off my bike shorts, put run shorts on, changed socks (using my bike shorts to wipe the dirt/sand/rocks off my feet first), running shoes on, helmet off, running shoes on, and out I go.

The Run

I tried valiantly to hold myself back but was running about 10mpm right away (my goal pace was 10:53). There’s 3 downhills right out of town, and this year I have really learned how to get downhill fast, and today was no exception. I figured my quads are already beat to shit, so why not keep going on that? I was taking small little steps, and felt like I was barely moving, but I was moving forward, and I was about 1.5 miles into River Road when I saw Brad on the other side. I didn’t expect to see him, and all I said was, “How are you doing?” He replied, “This sucks ass.” I just smiled and said, “I told you it would.” Hey, it’s an Ironman, not a stroll through the park! But still I was sad to see him walking, but continued on my way.

I ran the whole first loop (13.1 miles) pretty well and was feeling strong. I don’t remember when I passed Brad, but he later said he saw me running up IGA Hill and wanted to try and catch me but couldn’t because he was cramping up so bad. As I got into the second loop, my belly felt distended, which again is normal in an Ironman, but I soldiered on through about Mile 17, and then I could start to feel the sloshing in my stomach and it started making me slow down. Meanwhile, I was getting all sorts of love from the crowd because of my pirate garb, which kept me smiling through the rough moments. Sometimes a spectator or volunteer (and the volunteers were AWESOME) would give me an “Argggh,” but I always had to top them with an “ARGGGGGGGHHH!” Also, sometimes a spectator would say, “YOU CAN DO IT!” And my reply would be, “I AM doing it!” There was nothing to think about most of the time except the current moment.

I noticed that I hadn’t peed since about mile 70 of the bike, and that’s not normal for me. I pulled up the pirate singlet and it was then I realized that I never run in clothes like I was wearing! I always have shorts rolled down below my belly button and a bra top and maybe a loose singlet. Still, I guess I figured I should just be able to tough it out, but now I was wanting to puke. I think maybe I was drinking too much, as I typically can manage an hour of running on 12 oz. Of fluid, so I probably overdid it. Still I succumbed to the desire to walk and started feeling sorry for myself. I think it was about at Mile 21 that I decided fuck this, I am making myself puke, so I searched for a suitable hideout, found it and once I started all the liquid came out of my gut and I immediately felt better. Later after the finish, some guy said he saw me puking and that I was running well! How nice!

Anyway, once that was done, OMG my legs still hurt like motherfuckers, but I decided I was running the rest of the way, and I should have counted all the people I passed because I really picked up my pace. And I just kept going, just walking a little on the bridge and up IGA hill because both felt pretty steep at the time, and when I got to the out and back near the finish line, I was like I am just going, and I was getting a lot of encouragement from the crowd because I had my bib up front now, and I just kept passing people and thinking I gotta get my PR. Shortly after I got in there, I remembered I had some of Dad’s ashes in my running shorts, so I took them out and held on because hey, he has gotten me through some major shit in my life, and now it was time to ask him one more time. And just like last year, whenever I would pass someone I would want to tell them, “You are being passed by a dead guy!” But I didn’t. I just smiled and pressed on.

I knew already I would PR for IMLP, but now I needed to go under 13:21, which was my prior best ever which was at Ironman Canada in 2004 (the IMC course is MUCH easier than IMLP). So I was hustling, and seeing that last sign that says “finishers to right” is such a trip, and it was still light out, and now you run into the speed skating oval, and some people were slowing down here I guess to enjoy the crowd, but I was on a mission, so I kept passing people, and into the final turn I could see I had the chute all to myself, and while I don’t remember much about it, I just sprinted my ass over the finish line in 13:14:59! I realized I had blown my “best case” goal of 13:00, and that it was a result of walking maybe 15 minutes total when my stomach felt like hell, but oh well, still got the IMLP PR and felt I had executed a fairly solid race.

I collected my finisher’s hat, shirt and medal, and headed off towards some pizza. I ran into my former coach, Rich Strauss, and he gave me a big hug, I told him it was a PR, much smiling and then he looks at me and says, “Wow are you tan!” For some reason, I couldn’t put this together with just having finished an Ironman. In my head, I was very confused, but in a good way!

I got some pizza and water, then I got my first post-Ironman massage (they had LOTS of therapists working), then went back to get a finisher photo and wanted to see Brad and Shelley finish. But I guess I missed Brad, and then I really wanted a shower, and noticed that my bags were already gone (Steve had picked them up), so I decided I’d just walk home. Right outside the oval, I found Brad and his family, and we chatted up, and then Brad, his Dad and I walked back to my place. Brad needed to leave his bike there anyway, and it was a nice walk and a good thing to do so we didn’t stiffen up too badly.

Back at the house I had 2 beers, some fudge and a few Cheetos and called it a night, but not before Shelley returned (she figured out I had left the transition area), and we shared hugs, and Shelley told her own story on her blog, so I won’t go into it here.

I wasn’t as elated as I’d expected, I supposed because it’s been drilled into my head that Ironman is all about execution, and I did feel like I executed pretty well except for the stupid idea of wearing stuff on the run (which is where you will be most impacted) that I’d never worn before. But I know I was all smiles, and despite all the caffeine I’d taken in, I fell asleep pretty quickly.

The Aftermath

I’m going to stop here, because the next day and drive back are pretty uninteresting. The fun thing is that I am planning my training for Ultraman Canada already! I can’t apply for 2010 yet, so I need to be patient, and I’m really looking forward to Revenge of the PirateMan, since I want to be able to put that (they do ask you about "other major endurance activities" besides actual races) plus my recent Ironman PR on the application form! It is SO exciting to be planning for something where I have no idea how I am going to fit in all the training (well I do have some idea), and to be thinking about how I should structure my training to achieve both the endurance and yet not lose too much speed.

And oh, yeah, I said IMLP would be my last “regular” Ironman, but maybe not so much…I am already thinking about IMFL 2010, seeing as how if I finish Ultraman Canada, doing “just an Ironman” a few months later should be a snap, right?

Thanks for reading!