Ironman USA Lake Placid 2007 Race Report

Well, I am finally home with the computer to write my race report (at 4am – gotta love the jet lag). We left Lake Placid on Tuesday the 24th to meet our kids in London and travel on to Denmark. While we were in Denmark we visited several friends (20 actually – 4 families) and attended a wedding. It was a great trip and very relaxing so now I feel like the Ironman was a very long time ago. (This picture is before the start – Jen Varela and me!)

So we will go back in time to the beginning of the journey.

The trip to New York was uneventful with a flight to JFK and a rental car to Lake Placid. We stopped over in Lake George and arrived in Lake Placid at about noon on Friday 7/20. Friday was the day the athletes had to check in. That process was a little more involved than a marathon with ID verification, USAT membership purchase (mandatory), individual instructions about the tags, timing chip, and bags (5 of them), not to mention stepping on the scale to be weighed (something I had been trying to avoid since beginning the exercise taper and not being successful with the appetite taper!)

I also had to pick up my bike from Tri Bike Transport and check that everything was working ok. It felt to me like the front derailler was not shifting smoothly and needed an adjustment. We ended up taking it in to the local bike shop at about 10:30pm for a last minute adjustment. They were open all night to accommodate nervous athletes and all their bizarre needs. Even if it was just another “blessing”.

Friday afternoon the team met for a short swim but I opted to stay on shore. Getting into my wetsuit exhausts me (it is very snug, as it should be, and fits fine once it is on but I am not very experienced with a wetsuit so it is a battle to get it on) As we walked back from the lake we got totally drenched. The skies simply opened up and let loose. We were lucky enough to find an EZ up that was set up on the lawn in front of a church with a young family huddled underneath. We ran there to take refuge and were soon joined by others. I think we ended up with about 12 people crowded under there. Of course most of the discussion during that time was what the weather would be like on Sunday. I was quite nervous that we would have rain since I had never really ridden in the rain before. The forecast was for partly sunny on Saturday and Sunday so we were hoping that would hold.

Friday night included a meeting with the team which was a challenge to find and sorting through all the things that needed to go into each bag. 5 bags – it was a bit overwhelming. We had a Morning bag (with the wetsuit, goggles, cap, body glide which becomes your finish bag with the clothes you take off in the morning), Transition 1 bag (swim to bike), Transition 2 bag (bike to run), Special Needs Bike bag (available at mile 56 on the bike) and Special Needs Run bag (available at mile 13 on the run). It is really a good thing that we had a king size bed because laying all this stuff out is a mess. The logistics is quite tricky especially when you don’t know what the weather will be like and I wanted to put in everything I MIGHT want because it is a long day and if you are uncomfortable, it will be a really long day. It is also very likely that you won’t get back the special needs bags so that makes you think a little more about what you want to put in them. All in all, my checklist grew to 71 items. Totally crazy.

Saturday morning we picked up my bike and Skip did the test ride for me. For some reason I did not want to ride it. He said it shifted fine so we took it down to the start to check it into the transition area and get it set up. Shower cap over the seat and plastic bag over the handle bars and it was set for the night. I also had to turn in my transition bags which would normally hang on a rack but mine were in the “overflow” section so they sat on the ground. It might have been a good thing however because they had everything I could possibly imagine needed so they were quite heavy and might not have done well hanging.

The rest of Saturday was for rest and relaxation and trying not to worry about Sunday, which of course was impossible.

Sunday – race day – finally. I think I might have gotten 2 hours sleep but that’s ok. Up at 4am, shower, and prepare the last minute things. Frozen bottles for special needs on the bike so I don’t have to re-fill, re-checking all the food options in the special needs bags, last minute instructions to Skip about what I need at the finish (recovery drinks mostly). And we are off to the start. Now doesn’t that lake look inviting???

There are still lots of things to do… turn in the special needs bags (to 2 different places), get body marked, put drinks and food on bike, stand in the porta potty line for 30 minutes (yikes!), struggle into the wetsuit, and walk to the lake…. All by 6:30. Then it is the time for the final decision about where to start. Most people were hanging out on the shore, some people were in the water. I decided to get in and get used to the water which was actually pretty nice. The course is a double loop of a very long skinny rectangle and my plan was to swim about 10-15 yards off of the buoy line. I positioned myself in the water at about ¼ the distance back from the start based on my predicted speed. Treading water in a wetsuit is easy so I just floated around, tried not to shiver and wished we could just go.

The gun went off and we started. Things were definitely crowded but not too bad for about 15 minutes then I got slammed with a huge crowd that should have started ahead of me but didn’t. It was like swimming in a washing machine and I was thinking that for people who are afraid to swim under normal circumstances it would be a nightmare. Skip said that he could see a big group of guys that started on a flotating pier towards the shore and just mowed people over as they went. For me, I just tried to make sure I did not get kicked in the face and I muddled along with the pack. The first loop was extremely crowded the entire time and the second loop was just very crowded. I rarely had space around me to swim my own way and I even had to use some water polo moves to try to find some space. I had expected to do the swim in 1:20 and finished in 1:17 so I was on track. I do think I could have gone faster with better positioning but it is kind of a crap shoot where you end up.

Out of the water and to the wetsuit strippers. Yes, they have people there to strip your wetsuit off for you…. How would you like to have that job?? Now you know why I wore a one piece suit!
It was a pretty good distance to transition and I decided to walk because I was a little dizzy. I got into the changing tent area and it was very crowded. There are people in there to help but imagine having all your bike stuff (helmet, clothes, shoes, etc) in a plastic bag and your wetsuit, goggles and cap in hand. You have a folding chair to sit on so for a while I kind of sat there trying to figure out where to begin and how to juggle all the stuff. In most triathlons you set up your own transition area with all your gear laid out next to your bike so that you can logically get changed for the next phase. Working out of a plastic bag with no room to set anything down does not make for a fast transition. And unfortunately I needed to use the porta potty before heading out and there were not very many so I had to wait in line…… 18 minutes after leaving the swim I was ready to move on.

On to the bike. They were very good about getting your bike off the rack and ready for you to take out. We mounted outside the Olympic oval next to the giant Gatorade bottle and were off to a downhill start. I let myself settle into biking for a while before trying to drink and eat. I had set my watch timer to beep every 25 minutes to remind me to take an endurolyte tablet (electrolytes) and I quickly got on track with that.

First of all let me say that it is a beautiful course! If you ever have a chance to do some biking in that area, do it. Of course I LOVED the fact that the road was closed to auto traffic so I never had to worry about that. It was not too crowded with cyclists either so I could really just bike at my own (slow) pace and not worry about anyone else….. unlike the swim. Oh, I forgot to mention that the weather definitely cooperated and we had sunny skies all day!

The description of the course says that it is downhill to Keene. Well, that section ends lower than it starts and there is a great long sweeping downhill right before Keene where I managed to get up to 39.4 mph which is a new record for me but it is definitely not all downhill. It was a really nice ride and I was able to use the aero bars much more than I though I would. At about mile 30 I was averaging over 17 mph which was very fast for me. I was wondering if I was just riding faster than normal or if the course was fast to that point. Unfortunately it was the latter and by the end of the first loop my average was exactly 15mph. I hoped to come into the ½ way point at 12:30 and I did, so again, everything was according to schedule. I felt that the course was very do-able and was ready to tackle the second loop.

Of course the second loop was a bit more difficult. It is funny how I did not notice all the long uphills on the first lap, but really noticed them the second time around. The long sweeping downhill was still great except that we slowed down considerably in the middle because someone had crashed and was being attended to by paramedics. I tried not to look or think about what had happened, but sent mental good wishes to the rider as I continued on.

Somewhere between Keene and Upper Jay, about mile 75, I started feeling lonely and slow. I needed all of you then. I started thinking about all the honorees that have struggled with chemotherapy, surgeries, and other treatments that were certainly not easy, as well as all of you that had wished me well and were tracking my progress on the computer. It helped me keep up the pace. Thank you to all of you!

I finished the bike in 8:10 and was very happy to be under the cut off by about 45 minutes. That was my biggest concern on this adventure. I have only been cycling for 1 year and since this course is so hilly (over 8,000 ft of climbing) I was worried that I might not make the bike cutoff. After the first loop when I knew that I had enough time to complete the bike I really started to enjoy the scenery and the beautiful day. I played leap frog with Jenny and Celeste from our team which was also fun because it gave me someone to connect with during the course. It was also great to do everything in double loops because we got to see our friends, family and coaches more often that way.

Back into transition and then out to the run. I started the run exactly 10 hours into the event (5pm). That made it very easy to keep tabs on whether I was going to make my 5 hour marathon goal. I say goal very loosely because I really did not know what to expect on the marathon. I have run 20 marathons in the last 6 years, but none of them were after 10 hours of working out so my 5 hour estimate was really a shot in the dark.

The run went well. I was pretty conservative (surprise surprise) and used my normal routine of walking at each mile while I drank. I also walked the significant uphills to give me a little more recovery along the way and try not to tax my legs too much. The course was 2 different out and backs twice so we came through town a lot. It was good to see the spectators a lot, but bad when you had to leave town again while others were headed to the finish line! I got to see lots of my teammates during the run because of the way the course was designed so that was great. It is also the easiest of the three activities to talk so we visited a lot along the way.

I completed the run in 4:46 so I was under my 5 hour goal by quite a bit. I was pretty happy about that. Overall I wanted to finish under 15 hours and my total time was 14:46 so that was good too. I was very happy to really enjoy the course including beautiful mountains, rivers, and lakes. I saw a gorgeous sunset and enjoyed looking out over mirror lake to the lights in town during the last loop of the run. I think I would do this one again if I have the chance.

I must admit that everything went pretty much according to plan so really I should never do another one because the odds of not having any issues again are pretty slim. No injuries inhibited me, no mechanical issues, no stomach issues (well, just a couple of extra porta potty stops but that is ok), and no weather problems. So as I said before, an Ironman is a 2.4 mile open water swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, followed by a marathon – 26.2 mile run. And that is all there is to it!

Thank you again for all your support!!!!! And let me know when you are ready to join the team – IRONTEAM that is!