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| On the way to Lake Placid |
We all arrived Friday afternoon and stayed at a nice hotel (Golden Arrow) right in the heart of town. Unfortunately, our weekend didn’t start smoothly. Three of us carpooled in Dave’s car with our bikes on the roof of the car. After driving 9 1/2 hours, we were a little brain dead, so we totally forgot the bikes were on top of the car when we pulled under the overhang in the hotel parking lot. As you can imagine, the bikes didn’t quite make the clearance. Specifically, my bike was knocked off the roof. When we heard the clank of the bike hitting the ground, Dave’s first reaction was to back up - thankfully just a little. Seeing my bike halfway under the car, I was a heartbeat away from cardiac arrest but tried to stay outwardly calm. We got the bike out from under the car and quickly inspected it for damage. Believe it or not, the damage was limited to some scuffing on one of the pedals. That just goes to show you how tough a Felt bike is.
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| Welcome To Lake Placid |
The next morning we had breakfast, looked over the map of the bike course, and got ready to ride. The weather for the day was pretty nice, sunny and in the low to mid 80’s. It was a little humid, but nothing like the 90’s the folks back home in DC were experiencing. As we prepared to ride, everyone in the group seemed to have bike issues. Elaine’s tire was rubbing on something, and Dave’s water bottle cage was falling off. Fortunately, I had my trusty little bike tool in my bag which got everyone fixed up. It was funny because my bike was run over, but their bikes were having the issues. (What can I say, they had Cervelo’s.)
We headed out, going the wrong way on Main Street but quickly turned around. As we left town, we hit a bit of an uphill. It wasn’t major but caught us by surprise since we were expecting it to be mostly downhill to the town of Keane. We also noticed that the stretch of road from Lake Placid to Keane was not very well maintained, especially on the shoulder area - lots of gravel, cracks in the pavement and some potholes. Normally this wouldn’t be that big of deal, but this stretch of road also contains the descent from hell. If you ever wanted to go 50 MPH on a bicycle, then I can recommend a road. The descent from Lake Placid to the town of Keane is a very well known part of the Ironman race course and talked about in the annals of triathletes but until you actually ride it, words don’t really do it justice. I’ve ridden down some steep hills in my time such as ones found at the Garrett Co. Gran Fondo or even the 7-mile stretch coming down Skyline drive in Virginia, but none of those descents quite compare to this one. I was staying in the upright position and squeezing the brakes, and I was still hitting 40 MPH at times. If you were skilled and brave enough to ride down this stretch in the aero position the whole time without using your brakes, I imagine you could easily hit 50 MPH and possibly even approach 60. The lack of road maintenance doesn’t exactly help either. I am sure the race officials will have the road swept on race day and hopefully fill in the actual potholes. I would love if they repaved this entire stretch before race day but I don’t think that is going to happen, especially since another rider we talked to who has done IMLP said this was actually the best shape she had seen this road in.
Now if you are doing IMLP for the first time, I don’t want to totally scare you about this stretch of road. On race day, we will have the entire road so we don’t have to watch for cars plus there are no sharp turns to worry about. As long as you don’t try to bomb this stretch and use some caution, I think you will be fine and have fun. Once you get down to the bottom at the town of Keane, it’s time to slow it down some in preparation for a somewhat sharp left turn.
Once we got to Keane, we stopped to regroup and get water at a little bakery store which surprisingly only took credit cards. I’ve heard of stores that don’t take credit cards but never encountered one that didn’t take cash. After a little clip-in mishap with one of the group members involving abrupt contact between hand, knee, and pavement, we continued.
The stretch of road between Keane and the first turn around (a town called Jay, no relation) is great. The roads are well maintained here, the scenery is breathtaking and the course is filled with little rollers and flat stretches where you can really get some speed going. This stretch is my favorite part of the course.
After making the first of two turnarounds on the course, one of the group members got a flat which we fixed then stopped at a convenience store in the town of Jay to replenish our hydration and nutrition supplies. As I mentioned, the temperature for the day was in the 80’s with little cloud cover so it was a bit on the warmish side. Without much shade on the course, nutrition and hydration need to be well thought out for this race. After leaving Jay, we started hitting some hills although nothing too major. We headed down a stretch of road for the second out and back on the course. This stretch of road has shade and is fairly flat.
Finally, we arrived at an area called the North Pole. This is where the fun begins for this course. Passing the A&W and the little ice cream store means it’s time to prepare for some climbing. The good news is that the climb back up to Lake Placid is far more gradual than the descent out of town - which is good. We’ve been doing a lot of our training on the hills out in Laytonsville and Frederick, MD. Although this stretch of 10 miles back to town is hilly, it’s not horrid bad or as bad as I have seen some race reports make them out to be. On this particular day, the head winds were gusting pretty badly. I am told that having winds come down off the mountain is not uncommon for this stretch of road, but they aren’t typically as bad as they were on this day. You never know in advance the exact type of weather conditions one might encounter on race day, but hopefully wind won’t be as much of a factor as it was for us.
On the return to town, we encountered more hills. Probably the steepest hill to climb is the ones in town. The upside is lots of crowd support cheering which will help get the adrenaline going. The downside is facing these hills twice since it’s a two loop course. Right after the second time, the marathon starts! Pacing is important to have something left after the bike.
We decided to only ride one loop of the course. We briefly thought about riding half the course again since we had more hours to ride on our training plan. The problem is that any route out of town is downhill which means the ride back into town is uphill. The group decided to call it a day on the bike. We did an easy run off the bike around the lake then headed for the water to do some swimming.
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| Mirror Lake |
You hear stories about this lake and how calm and clear the water is but until you actually swim in it, the stories don’t come close. Even though it had been snowing up in this area the weekend before, the water had warmed up enough that you could actually get in without a wetsuit and it felt good to the muscles after riding for several hours. I swam about 1.6 miles, swimming out and back several times to the buoy lines in the water. This lake is unique because they have set up almost swimming pool type lanes in the middle of the lake which you can see above and below the waterline. This is the cable people say can be seen under the water so you don’t really need to lift your head to sight. I had only heard about one line before, so I don’t know if all three will still be there on race day or not. They were nice to use. The water is also totally clear and calm, as in no current at all. I swam around 1.6 miles but could have easily kept going for over 2 miles. I only came out of the lake because the others wanted to get cleaned up for dinner.
I have always dreaded the swim portion of every triathlon I have done to this point, but for the first time I am actually looking forward to this one.
The following morning we got up around 8 a.m., had a light breakfast and prepared for the run course. Like with the bike, it’s a two loop course so we planned to do one loop which is 13.1 miles.
The run course at Lake Placid has some hills. My previous Ironman races had flat run courses. This was the part of the race I was most worried about, with my goal of completing in less than 11 hours.
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| Olympic Ski Jumps |
Just past the 6 mile mark of the course, we turned around to head back towards town. Like with the bike course, the biggest hills are in town. On Friday night, we ate at a restaurant called Lisa G’s. Well, this place is on the corner where the worst hills are located so we dubbed this the Lisa G hill. Boy, does it suck. If you are doing this race and haven’t incorporated hill repeats into your training, I highly recommend you start doing so now. The only upside (no pun intended) to this portion of the run course is the crowd support from being in town. Hopefully, the cheers will help motivate you to keep moving through the fatigue on the second loop.
The course goes past transition and the finish line then goes down a road near the lake to the second turnaround. Back into town to once again pass transition on the way back out of town for the second loop to do it all over again.
The run course will be tough, but most the hills are not horrid. The stretch around mile 12 and the final 1/2 mile to the finish will be tough, there is no doubt about it. But it is doable and worthwhile once the finish line is in sight.
If you read my Kinetic Half race report and as I mentioned briefly above, my goal for this race is to complete it in 11 hours or less. This will definitely be my toughest Ironman race to date. After experiencing the course first hand, I feel very confident in my training and my ability to meet my goal come July. Right now, this is what I am aiming for:
Swim: 1:30 (possibly even a little less if I have a good day)
T1: 0:15 (due to how far the beach is from transition)
Bike: 5:30
T2: 0:05
Run: 3:40
I am sure I will have some nerves on race day, but I feel the most prepared I have ever been for an Ironman race. I think I am looking forward to this one more than any of the others Ironman races I have done. Part of that is because I will have a huge contingent of friends and Tri Club members sharing the experience with me, but it’s also because I feel more confident in my abilities than I have ever before.
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