Ironman Lake Placid 2014 Recap

For the past year we have trained for this day.  I saw we,  because many of my family, friends and fellow athletes have helped me along the way.  One year ago, I was lucky enough to get a spot for the 2014 Ironman Lake Placid.  I wasn’t a volunteer and as of my sign up date I hadn’t even completed a half Ironman yet. 

A year of training went into this.  Some of the highlights were that I was able to hire a Coach to help me figure out how to train.  I didn't realize that my coach would become one of my best friends!

 From October up until race day she was there making sure I would stay on the right track both physically and mentally.  In October, November, December and January I had been training. It didn’t matter if it was 20 degrees out if it was a run day I  went outside and ran.  As training became more intense in January I would watch on youtube.com amazing athletes from all over the World compete in Ironman events.  Few stories had me so inspired than that of Chris McDonnell.

I would watch his story on the 2013 Ironman World Championship over and over.  Chris McDonnell lost his daughter in the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting and his determination and sheer will is awesome.   Chris dresses in a pink and purple race kit and he can’t be mistaken out on the course.  Another story that has motivated me was from  Dick and RickHoyt.   The Hoyt’s live less than a ½ hour from me and their “yes you can” attitude is quite infectious.  I have seen the Hoyt’s finish numerous Boston Marathon’s on T.V. and I have also seen their features on Ironman.com.

I know what you are thinking where is the actual race recap.  Well, although my Ironman was going to be 140.6 miles long, it was the long hours of training that allowed me to get to this point.  Up until race day I Swam/Bike/Ran about 2,800 miles.  To put it in perspective In a straight line from my home town of Leicester, Massachusetts, 2856 miles takes me to Juneau, Alaska.  No kidding, Juneau.  In these 2,800(ish) miles I have contemplated a lot of different things.  One thing that never waivered was that finishing an Ironman needed to be crossed off my bucket list. 

So, now on July 23^rd were are heading up to Lake Placid, NY. I have my longtime friend Bill with me who is riding up in his own truck and I have my camper in tow.  The route is familiar as I trained there in May with a group of 9 other fellow triathletes many of whom I had never even met before.  Now, each and every one of them are my friends and we all keep tabs on each other to this day.  Bill and I ride along Route 87 North for 105 miles.  Once we take our exit to make the left turn toward Lake Placid I joke with him that had that been the Ironman bicycle course that I would still have 7 miles to go.  We both laughed on our little two way radios. 

We get to Lake Placid and set up camp. 

 Wednesday night we headed into Town and the Ironman village was being set up.  We grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to the Whiteface Mountain KOA campground. I would absolutely recommend staying at the KOA.   Thursday, I navigated through athlete check in.  I have to tell you that this whole time I have been nervous that I may not complete this event.  I had made a commitment that I would not take myself off that course.  I didn’t care how much pain I was in it would have to be the medical personnel that would DNF me.  

To spare anymore setup we’ll fast forward to race morning.  I wasn’t  as nervous as I expected and I checked the weather one last time and it seemed like race day was going to be ok with some pop up thunderstorms “mainly later in the day”.   My parents had come up the day before and my Coach was staying in the same campground as me.  At right around 4:15am we had the car loaded up and I have previously been told to enjoy the “fastest, longest day of my life”.  Friends of mine led us the “back” way into one of the hotel complexes so that my parents wouldn’t have to walk very far. 

OK, I can’t really believe that this day is finally here.  I drop off a bag to run special needs on Mirror Lake Drive and then I drop off my bike special needs bag.  I run into a young woman named “Brooke”  who we ran together during the Patriot Half Ironman just 6 weeks prior.  I mean what a small world! We wish each other luck and give out our athlete numbers in case we see each other on the course.  Mine is 1725 and hers was 865.  I get the rest of my gear together at transition and head out to the beach at 6am. You cannot fathom the energy that Ironman brings.  It was the best party atmosphere I have experienced! 

According to my Garmin my race started at 6:42a.m..  It was cloudy and my plan for the swim was acclimate to the water and don’t push too hard.  My goal swim time was 1 hour 30 minutes .  I finished the first lap in 45:47 seconds which I was quite happy with.  Now, triathletes are some of the nicest people I have ever met but in the water they will beat you up like no tomorrow.  In my first lap I had been elbowed, punched, kicked, slapped and dunked.  No problem, only 1 lap to go and I hop back into the water .  I made it past Turns 1 and 2 and was well on my way to the beach.  I felt my watch vibrate which meant I had already swam 2 miles and knew I had .4 miles to go.  At around 2.1ishmiles  I saw a volunteer on a stand up paddle board point me toward the shore.  I have had this happen before where I have had sighting issues and the volunteers would get you back on track.  When I looked down though I was right above the Swim rope line.  I kept swimming toward shore.  A short time later I heard horns from boats sounding and I figure a swimmer must have been in trouble or something.  Well, I look up to take a breath and see a boat blaring  its horn and a woman frantically yelling for everyone to get out of the water.  I stop and look toward the beach where I am supposed to finish and can’t figure out what is going on.  Then just beyond the beach I see a bolt of lightning.  I don’t think I have ever swam so fast as I did that morning.  I landed at the “boat house” and myself and hundreds of others were standing on the shore line waiting to see what was going on.  “Are they going to wait and put us back in the water after the storm clears”? “Are they going to stop the whole race”?.  These amongst other things were discussed for about the 5ish minutes that we were on the dock.  Somehow we got word that the swim was called off and to start heading to transition for the bike.  I didn’t see anyone running, heck it was a long way to transition anyway from the beach but we had to at least another .5 miles to get there.  Honestly, I felt the mood here change a bit.  You could see the disappointment on all the athletes faces.  From what I was told some swimmers had called it a day right there.  Lots of stuff was going through my head at this point about the race.  I decided that I was going to keep going,  I didn’t care if I swam less than 2.4 my body was still going to finish 140.6 and that was what was important to me.  Plus, I couldn’t tell my two kids ages 3 and 6 that daddy didn’t finish because he was upset about a storm.  Ultimately, there was nothing that could have been done about the weather and Ironman made the right call getting us all out of the water. 

Ok, so now I try to get my head back in the game and start to run down Mirror Lake Drive.   Some volunteers were meeting us there so they could help us strip our wetsuits.  These volunteers where unbelievable.  They were literally running to help us.  A wetsuit volunteer helps me and off I go to tranisition.  The rain is coming down in buckets right now and it is still thundering and lighting.  Mike Reilly is telling athletes that they can wait a bit if they want to.  There was no way I was waiting.  Neither were most of us; I mean it is an Ironman. The changing  tent was absolutely jam packed.   I get my bike gear on and a volunteer hands me my bicycle.

I make it through the first couple turns and take it slow due to the rain.  I am also trying to get myself back into race mode.  In fact all the athletes were.  The first  5 or 6 miles were very quiet.   At around 8 miles in we hit the decent into Keene.  This is a 7 mile long ride of awesomeness to the bottom, Except when it’s raining.  Normally, I could get up to about 50mph on this decent but today I tried to keep it around 30mph to be safe.  The rain felt like needles stabbing you and being wet with the realtively cold air made this decent awfully chilly.  I turned left onto 9N and found myself travelling  close to the stopped traffic  in the other lane. Why, was I so close to them? Well I could feel their engine and exhaust heat and needed to warm up.  Later I was told that over 300 athletes were  pulled at the bottom of the hill due to hypothermia.

I am now in the flat and fast section of the course. From here until the turn up 86 is the time to pedal  in an easy gear at about 90RPM’s.  There were times I didn’t even feel like I was pedaling and it was on this section of the course where I didn’t care about what happened on the swim and that today was going to be the day I get to hear Mike Reilly call my name.   The rain tapered and after the flats we climbed the first of a series of hills up Rte 86.   At around mile 40, the sun is shinning and I made the right turn onto Haselton. This is a quick out and back.  I always keep Ibuprofen on my bike but after the swim my Ibuprofen was disentergrated.  This is now kind of important because I’m getting some tension in my neck from my helmet and it’s giving me a bit of a headache.  Anyway, after the turn around on Haselton Rd. I stop at the aid station to use the restrooms. The volunteers again are awesome and the one holding my bike keeps telling me “suns out guns out”.   I have not yet nor do I ever want to master the art of actually urinating on the bike. I did however, smell some bikers who did do that and found it quite gross.  After turning back onto 86 we take a quick left and head toward Whiteface Mountain.  This section always has a head wind and it is usually fairly strong for whatever reason.  It’s filled with false  flats and false rollers the whole way.   Meaning, this section of roadway looks much easier than it actually is.  I look at my watch and figure I will be done with the first lap around 3.5 hours.  I hit the section of roadway known as the Bears (Mama, Baby, Papa) turn right into town and I’m happy with my watch time.  I stop at bike special needs, refill my water bottles and eat a pre-packed PBJ sandwich.

On the second lap the decent into Keene was a much faster ride this time but after the flats  I pretty much kept pedaling in the small front cog (I.e. easy gear).  I didn’t want to but my headache was getting a bit worse and didn’t want to aggravate it.  My second lap on the bike was 4:24.  I wasn’t real happy with this but given the factors I was ok with it.  A volunteer takes my bike for me and I grab my run gear bag and head into the changing tent.

Well, I came out of the changing tent and remember saying out loud “ok, only a marathon to go”.  Do you know how insane I would have thought this was a year ago? Anyway, those first 3 miles are downhill so I went “fast” at an 11:37 pace.  I have been out on the course now for around 10 hours.  At mile 3 you are near the turn around on River Rd. and my body is hurting.  My goal when I started out was to alternate a 4 minute run with a 1 minute walk during the marathon. This strategy has gone out the window.  I’m walking/jogging with a young athlete from Texas A&M.  We run and chat for a good 30 minutes and then we part ways.  I was eating at every single aid station. I had water, ice chips, pretzels, an orange, chicken broth, cola.  I steered away from the GU gels because I had a bad experience with them at last years Timberman 70.3.  I had my clif blocks on me but had decided that I would only take them if necessary.  I had only taken one clif block about 1 hour into the marathon.

At around mile 11 I see one of my VMPS teammates Shirley who had been sick for 5 days prior to IMLP.  Literally, she is doing  today’s race on a liquid diet.  I jog past her and offer her some encouragement and keep going.   I am getting kind of worried now because I have slowed to a crawl at a 15:10 pace by the end of mile 12.  I am doing the math in my head and I think I am ok for time but I’m not certain yet.  I know that I can’t slow down anymore.  I see a sign “thumbs up for run special needs”.  I can only muster 1 thumb.  I get to the special needs area and am thankful for the Ibuprofen that I know I had packed there.  Next up, I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I refill my Gatorade bottles on my fuel belt and I head toward the turn around.

I get to the turn around on Mirror Lake Drive and by the time I run back past the special needs station I feel much better.  I get to see some of the VMPS support crew and my parents.  I stop, give Mom and Dad both a hug and say a couple of words to them and continue on.  As I head back down the hill guess who I got to see headed up on his finally lap? Chris Mcdonnell, yup in his pink and purple race kit!  That was definitely a highlight in my race.  I said "God Bless You" and he gave me a high 5. My pace went to 12:31 for the next 4.1 miles.  At this point I ask a spectator “what time of day is it?”. I think this is the only time where you won’t just ask someone for the time but you specifically ask for the “time of day”.  I laughed when I did this but I couldn’t figure out how to get to the time of day function on my Garmin and I didn’t want to mess with it too much!  I am really energized going back down the hill toward River Rd.  There are a lot of spectators out on the course and they really give you a boost.  Previously, I have run a marathon in Washington D.C. and 70.3’s in New Hampshire and Massachusetts but have never felt the energy and excitement from spectators and volunteers as I did in Lake Placid.   I get back onto River Rd and am really happy that I feel good. I’m not sick like at Timberman the year before and I am very certain baring anything catastrophic that I’m going to complete this marathon.  On River Road the crowd of runners is much thinner than on the first lap but no one cares.  After the  turn around and at the end of River Road I make that right turn up the hill for the last time.  The spectators are also much thinner now but they are still saying’ “looking great”, “keep going” “great pace”.  At the top of the hill you have to take a right onto Mirror Lake Drive.  This was an awesome feeling knowing that in only a few miles that Olympic Oval will be in sight.  For the past year I have watched athletes become Ironmen over and over again while seated on my bike trainer.  I have literally dreamed about crossing  this line.  I pick up the run pace as much as I can muster after spending over 15 hours on the course.  I make that final turn around on Mirror Lake Drive and it is literally all downhill from there.  As I approach the Oval I am in a pack of about 3 or 4 other athletes.  I remember spacing out a bit so that we can all have our moment.  I enter the oval and see the huge crowd of people with the music blaring and it is almost the best feeling.  I make that last turn and I can see that finish line.  A year of sacrifice, a year training, long workout after long workout,  a year of dreaming,  and it is here. Mike Reilly mis-pronounces my name but I don’t care.  I get to that finish line, stomp on it and my friend Laura is there to place my medal aroundmy neck.  I am an Ironman, I am a FREAKING IRONMAN!

 

One of the most important lesson today that I learned and experienced today was your mind will quit long before your body ever will.  Hopefully in a few years I can train for another Ironman but until then, Keep training!