Ironman Lake Placid - T-Minus 4 Days And Counting

Only four days from Ironman Lake Placid, I enter the toughest part of Ironman competition: the waiting and mental games. Training has taken you as far as it’s going to, and all that’s left to complete is a few light workouts and waiting. This is when the little voices in your head really start to ramp up with all the self-doubt; where little aches and pains in the body seem to be amplified tenfold; where aching knees after a 45-minute run warn of horrific pain after 26.2 miles; when voices remind you that age 40 is not age 20. 

I had hoped two previous Ironman competitions and 30 weeks of the most disciplined training regimen I’ve completed would silence the voices. I had hoped that meeting all of my race goals this year including the Kinetic 70.3 in under 5:30, a half-marathon in 1:30, and reaching my first podium for an Olympic-distance triathlon would silence the voices.  I had hoped that a frenetic schedule covering the San Diego Comic Con for my job last week would keep my mind occupied and silence the voices.  Here we are, four days before the race and the voices are chattering. 

New Ironman athletes often dread training activities like 5-hour bike rides and 3-hour runs.  The truth is these tasks are easy compared to the mental preparation for race day, especially in the final days and weeks when waiting is the only activity left and second-guessing is a daily chore.  I don’t have an easy answer of how to shut off those little voices in your head other than to constantly chant “Shut the f#@k up.  Go out and do it.”  Scientific it’s not, but it’s the best I’ve been able to do.

To all my friends who are doing their first Ironman this weekend, just know you are more than ready for this and you will soon be an Ironman. For those who’ve done an Ironman before, just tell yourself you’ve done it before and you can do it again. My goal for this race was to complete it in 11 hours or less, but I’ve decided to throw that goal out the window and just go out there to enjoy myself. No expectations. If I do it in 11 hours or less that’s great.  If not, so be it. I hope everyone has a great race, and I will see you at the finish line.

REV3 Williamsburg 70.3 Race Report - The Swim From Hell

This past weekend, I decided to partake in the inaugural Rev3 70.3 Williamsburg race in historic Williamsburg, VA. This was one of those last minute decisions as I only signed up last week. I originally had planned to join some of my MoCo Mafia team members for the Masochistic Metric, a hilly ride that is part of the Garrett County Gran Fondo in Deep Creek, MD. I did the Diabolical Double last year which was very challenging. I didn’t really feel that I needed to prove anything by doing it again and thought the hills were actually a bit of overkill for my Ironman Lake Placid training. With my 14th wedding anniversary this past week, I thought Williamsburg would be a nice weekend with my wife while still getting in some decent training for Lake Placid. Going into the race, everything I had read about the course led me to believe this would not be very challenging. Both the bike and run courses were listed as a fairly fast with some mixed rollers. With a Sunday forecast in the 90‘s, the only real concern was heat.

My wife and I headed to Williamsburg late Friday evening hoping to bypass most the heavy traffic on Interstate 95 - no such luck. Even at 9 p.m., traffic was stop and go and the 3-hour drive turned into 5 hours.  I always dread travel involving I-95 South for this exact reason.  We arrived in Williamsburg just after 10 p.m., checked in and went to bed. The practice swim started at 8 a.m. followed by packet pickup and bike check-in. 

Saturday went as planned.  I met up with my friend Sara who was also doing the race, and we headed over to the James River where the swim portion of the race would take place. The water temp was a nice 76 degrees, and the river had very little current. I was feeling confident about the swim portion of this race, although there still was some doubt if wetsuits would be legal. Wetsuits cannot be worn competitively in a USAT sanctioned race if the water temperature is higher than 78 degrees. If the temperature exceeds 82 degrees, wetsuits can’t be worn at all.  Since I wasn’t planning to place, I expected to wear a wetsuit even if the temperature was over 78 degrees, but it would put me in a special wetsuit wave.

After the practice swim, we picked up our packets, listened to the mandatory race briefing, then I racked my bike in T1. The race had two transition areas. The T1 area was near the swim portion of the race at the James River while the T2 area was located on the campus of William & Mary College. I am not a huge fan of races with two transition areas, but REV3 seemed to have things laid out pretty smoothly especially for an inaugural race.

For the rest of the day, my wife and I did various things around Williamsburg. Race day came early as transition opened at 4:30 a.m. We setup T2 first then hopped a Rev3 shuttle to T1 roughly five miles away.  I rode over with Sara so my wife could sleep in a bit.  The alarm went off at 3:45 a.m. for a light breakfast of grocery-store pastries.  We were staying at a Holiday Inn Express so I didn’t have access to a stove to prepare my normal pre-race breakfast of eggs and toast, but I wasn’t overly concerned since I wasn’t expecting a super-challenging race. At 4:20 a.m., I headed down to the lobby to meet Sara and head over to the race. I hadn’t bothered to look out any windows and had no idea what the weather was doing. I had listened to a local forecast on Friday which said there was a possibility of rain later in the day so I wasn’t concerned about rain; that was a mistake. As I walked into the lobby of the hotel and got my first glimpse of the outside, I was greeted with a huge rain downpour. My first thought was “What The F@#K!” This was not a good sign for how the day’s race would go. Sara swung around in her car, and we headed over. Neither of us were very happy with the current weather status nor had either of us really prepared for doing a race in the rain. Fortunately, I had put all my gear in three plastic bags which would protect my gear from normal rainfall although not the heavy downpour of the moment. 

Upon arriving at T2, we hung out in the car for 15 minutes or so hoping the rain would subside or at least lessen to something other than a downpour. The weather forecast had definitely deteriorated as now they were saying it could rain off and on for the entire day. The rain finally did lighten to a more manageable rain. We placed our run gear in our transition spots. Sara had managed to secure a plastic bag for her stuff and I had one for mine, so as long as the rain stayed light our stuff had a decent chance of staying dry. The numbers on the bike racks were not faring as well. The number on my spot had started to fall off, so I was a bit concerned that finding the spot during the race would be a challenge.

After leaving our stuff at T2, we hopped on the shuttle to head over to T1 and the swim start of the race. You could tell from the expressions of many of the other athletes on the shuttle that we weren’t the only ones caught by surprise over the morning weather. Some athletes looked quite nervous. By the time we arrived at T1, the rain had decreased to a light drizzle that would pick up in intensity here and there but was a lot better than the initial downpour we woke up to.

After checking my bike and getting everything as ready as possible in the rain, we prepared for the race. I sprayed some sunscreen in case the sun made an appearance later in the day. I also put some Body Glide on although I later would discover it was insufficient to prevent chafing from the wetsuit under my arms (I hate when that happens). I guess I rushed applying the stuff due to the rain.  We headed a quarter mile down to the river where the swim would take place.

The swim course was essentially a big rectangle that you would swim clockwise. There were actually two sets of buoys set up, one for the 70.3 race and another set up for the Olympic Distance race occurring simultaneously. This would turn out to be a pain during the race (more on that later) as the Olympic distance buoys were set up as a smaller rectangle closer in since they didn’t have to swim out as far.

The official race day water temp ended up being 77.6 degrees so we just made the cutoff for wetsuits (I guess the rain had one benefit). By this point, the rain had stopped although no one knew for how long. We got our wetsuits on, and I managed to get in a quick warm-up swim before the race started. The swim would be done in waves based on age and sex. My wave consisting of males between 40-45 and between 20-25 was the third to go. The cutoff time for this swim was 1:10 from the start of the last wave. Originally the waves were supposed to start five minutes apart but a delay to the race start squeezed that to three minutes.  Still, I wasn’t concerned about the cut-off time. I had my wetsuit and no reason to believe I couldn’t have a comparable time to my last 70.3 race which was 48 minutes. In fact, I was really expecting that I was going to be able to do this swim in under 45 minutes.

The pros were the first in the water.  As the second wave hit the water, I headed into the chute.  The race had a beach start with a run into the water. The water was shallow enough to walk practically to the first buoy. I had done my normal buoy count and saw that it was four buoys to the first turn, then six buoys to the second turn and three buoys for the swim back to shore. The sighting buoys were yellow with red turn buoys for the 70.3 race and orange turn buoys for the Olympic distance.

My wave started, and I started walking.  I got almost to the first buoy before starting to swim. It was a crowded course with a lot of people in front of me so I didn’t see the point of swimming until things opened up a bit. Things were going pretty smoothly starting out. The announcer had mentioned the current was moving from right to left, so I tried to stay as far right as possible. Due to the number of people with the same thought, this was harder than it sounded. Still, things where good as I approached the third buoy. I was feeling strong and moving well. At the third buoy, I realized that a protruding landmass to our left had been buffering the current.  Once I passed beyond the land, I really started to feel the current pushing me to the left.  Immediately, a swimmer kept bumping into me.  He had opted not to use a wetsuit.  I’m not sure what his challenge was, but he would not get away from me.  In frustration, I decided to swim a bit to the left to get away from him.  Big mistake.  By the time I got close to the first turn buoy, I was much farther out than I had wanted to be since the current was pushing me.  Now I had to swim against the current to get to the buoy. In fact, the longest stretch of the race course was against a very strong current. As I got closer and closer to the red buoy (which felt like an eternity for me), the crowds began to pick back up. I don’t know how many times someone bumped into me or hit me. At one point someone almost knocked off my goggles.  The frustrating part was that I kept swimming and still wasn’t passing the stupid buoy. I swear the thing was actually following me; I wasn’t sure if the buoy had come loose or what. I also had two different times when I actually had to stop swimming as volunteers in the canoes had to cut across our path to get to swimmers who were in distress. The first time it happened I started to get really irked until I saw that they were going to save someone.

I finally got past the first turn buoy and things started to thin out a bit, but I could tell this was not going to be a fun race.  I also knew I had no chance of finishing in under 45 minutes. The current was a real bitch, probably the worst I have ever had to deal with in a race. I constantly had to stop and sight because the current was constantly moving me off course. I can only imaging how much zig-zagging I did. This was only a half Ironman distance race but I felt like I swam a full. The Olympic buoys just added to the pain.  Several times, I swam too far in thinking the Olympic buoys were the 70.3 ones, then I would have to adjust and swim back out to the right ones. It didn’t help that the second red turn buoy was difficult to see and some of the sight buoys for the half seem to have floated out a bit further than others, so it wasn’t a straight line. Endurance-wise I fine. There was never a point were I felt I was too tired to continue, but my frustration levels were growing exponentially as I was having more and more problems trying to figure out where I should be swimming and feeling like I was hardly moving at all. The worst feeling for me in a swim is not being able to tell where I am and that was exactly what I was feeling at this point. There were a few times when I felt like calling it a day, mainly because I was getting more and more frustrated and figured I wasn’t going to make the cutoff time. Nevertheless, I continued on in spite of my flashbacks to the swim at the 70.3 race in Hawaii where I didn’t make the cutoff and had my one and only DNF. 

I finally got far enough so that I could see the second turn buoy and other swimmers in the water. I figured as long as there were others out here with me, I still had a good chance of finishing the race within that cutoff. I knew that once I got around that second turn buoy, the portion back to shore was not that far.  I also hoped that the currents going back into shore would be kinder than the ones going out. As I finally made the second turn, I could see the buoys back to shore pretty well.  Although the chop in the water wasn’t great, I was no longer feeling as if I was swimming in place. I got back to the beach, and my Garmin said 1:18.  So much for having a good race time. Still, I was anticipating a fast bike and run course so I had a chance to make up some time.  I was pretty sure that beating my 70.3 PR of 5:18 (at Kinetic a few weeks earlier) was no longer possible, but I would try to get as close as possible.

My official swim time was a horrid 1:20:25.

I did a light jog back to T1 which was about a quarter of a mile away, shucked my wetsuit, and pulled my bike gear out of its protective plastic bag. After I dried my bike off some, I donned my shoes and helmet then I headed to the mount area. My sock had gotten a little damp, but overall my stuff had managed to remain fairly dry.

My T1 time was 6:35.

I started out on the bike with a goal of 2:30. I had not ridden or even seen the course, but everything I read about it suggested it should be a fast course with no major hills. The bike course was pretty much as billed although there were a few portions with some bad headwinds. I did not like the one lane roads open to car traffic.  On several occasions, this led to sitting behind a slow moving car that in turn was stuck between bikes moving in both directions on the road.  On one stretch, I was stuck behind a slow moving truck for about half a mile. This was very frustrating. Some stretches of road didn’t have very wide shoulders, so we had to be very careful when passing other bikers to make sure no one got hit by cars approaching from behind.

I felt I had a pretty strong bike, although not as good as Kinetic due mostly to getting stuck behind slow cars.

My final bike time was 2:42:54.

As I rode into the campus of William and Mary where T2 was located, the sun finally came out. Lucky me; just in time for the run. It was also muggy and hot by this point. I managed to find and rack my bike without to much problem and grabbed my run gear from the bag. The bag did its job as my stuff remained fairly dry. I changed and headed out for the last portion of the race.

My official T2 time was 3:59.

As I started on the run, I was feeling pretty good overall.  My first indication of bad chafing from the wetsuit appeared as moving my right arm highlighted the painful raw spot in my armpit.  I poured some cold water on the spot at the first aid station which seemed to help, then I did my best to tune it out.

Unlike the bike course, the run course was more difficult than what I had expected from the course description. The course had a lot of hills on it. Most were rollers, but rollers on a run course aren’t quite the same as on a bike.  The course also had some decent size hills throughout, especially one big one you had to run twice at mile 1 and 9. The course was also tight in a lot of places as they had us squeezed in portions where people were running out and back. When passing folks, runners had to take care not to run into oncoming running traffic at various spots on the course. I felt pretty strong on the run though the mugginess of the day certainly had its impact, especially along the stretches that had no shade. Fortunately the aid stations were well stocked with cold water and cold sponges to cool you down. I was expecting a run course easier than Kinetic but actually felt this course was as tough if not a bit tougher with hills throughout - even for the final mile of the course which always sucks.  Add in the fact it was much warmer than it had been at Kinetic.

My official run time was 1:51:05.


My final official time for this race was 6:04:57. Certainly not my best time, but for a course that turned out to be far more challenging that what I had prepared for, it is a time I can live with. For an inaugural race I think Rev3 did a fairly decent job with it; there are definitely areas that need improvement. I suggest making the swim course counter-clockwise and allowing swimmers to move with the current. I don’t know if I would ever do this race again, but I am glad I was able to embrace the challenges of the day and overcome them.

Ironman Lake Placid Scouting Report - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I, along with several other members (Dave, Joyce, Elaine and Brent) of the Moco Mafia, traveled up to Lake Placid, NY this past weekend to check out the course for our Ironman race in July. Though I wanted to see the course, I was a little hesitant making a 9 1/2 hour drive up for just a weekend.  Now that I’m back, I am glad I went.

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.

Welcome To Lake Placid

After that bit of excitement, we checked in and unpacked. A few more once overs of the bike to make sure there was no damage, then we met up with Elaine and Brent who had arrived before us and were out paddle boating on Mirror Lake.  Our hotel was right next to the lake which hosts the swim portion of the race. We headed off to dinner at Lisa G’s, a local restaurant in town then turned in for the evening. We were getting up early the next morning to ride the bike course.

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.

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.

Olympic Ski Jumps

The first few miles of the run course basically mirrors the bike course. Heading out of town is downhill, then the run course veers off the bike course.  At the huge olympic ski jumps, a left turn heads down a road for roughly five miles to the first turnaround point. This stretch of road has some roller hills but nothing major. There isn’t a lot of shade again, so managing hydration and nutrition well is key. On this particular day, we were hit by a morning rainstorm which actually helped keep us cool.

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.

2013 Kinetic 70.3 Race Report - Redemption

This past weekend, I kicked off my 2013 triathlon season with possibly my best race since starting the sport three years ago. It was my second time doing the Kinetic 70.3 in Lake Anna, VA. If you read my race report for last year’s race, you know it was one of my worst races ever so I feel a bit of redemption transforming my worst race into my best.

Kinetic 70.3 is my second race on the path to Ironman Lake Placid in July, my third Ironman distance and my “A” race for the season.  In my previous Ironman distance races, my goal had been to finish.  This year, I set a goal to finish in 11 hours or less, quite an ambitious time since my PR is 14:43:38 at IM Florida last year, a flat course race. Of course, I had run the Marine Corps Marathon the week before...

Ironman Lake Placid is arguably one of the toughest Ironman races on the east coast due to its hilly terrain on both the bike and run.  Still, I feel I have a good chance of meeting this ambitious goal with a more structured and disciplined training plan in place this year - despite doubts from some of my DC Tri MoCo Mafia compatriots who placed some friendly betting odds on me.  (That’s okay, proving people wrong just motivates me more.  If I were in their shoes, I probably would have similar doubts about my chances.) 

What is different about this year over the previous two? First, I opted to follow a structured training plan from the book “Be IronFit”.  For IM Louisville, I loosely followed a beginner’s training plan to just finish, and last year I sorta just winged it. This year, I have made a considerable effort to cut out junk miles and not overtrain which can be as bad as under training.  Second, I significantly cut back my race schedule this year so I can concentrate on training, at least until Placid. I scheduled races that will help me gauge how my training is coming along and help me determine where I need to concentrate my efforts as the season progresses. (I have one Olympic distance race up in Michigan in late June I plan to do mostly for fun.) First up was the Rock N’ Roll Half Marathon in March to help me gauge where my running was. Originally, I was going to do the full Marathon like the last two years, but eventually I decided it was smarter to stick with the half since my training hadn’t reached longer distances yet. My goal was to complete the race in 1:30:00, which I did.  Next up was Kinetic 70.3, with similar conditions to IM Lake Placid (especially the run).  My goal was to complete in 5 - 5 1/2 hours. 

Last year’s Kinetic 70.3 was plagued with problems, including three flat tires and a run course that caught me unprepared with three loops of hills.  I was determined that this year would be different.  Kinetic implemented a new bike course for the race this year, so I led a 75-mile bike ride on the new course the weekend before the race so I would know what to expect.  (I was already at Lake Anna to support the Peasantman Triathlon where I had the pleasure of seeing my wife complete her first OWS sprint-distance triathlon.)  To my surprise, I found the new course to be extremely fast. While some rolling hills were sprinkled throughout the course, they did not compare to the hills I have been training on for Placid. I also participated in an OWS clinic in the lake to get a feel for the swim and ran the course to remind myself what a pain-in-the-ass those hills were.  I also decided to rent 404 Zipp wheels from Bonzai. I wanted to see firsthand if Zipp wheels really made a difference before I plopping down a large sum of cash to purchase some. I will tell you that the Zipp wheels really do make a difference. It’s up to you to decide if that difference is worth the money they cost but they really do work, better than other race wheel brands I have tried in the past.

After returning home from my training weekend, I was feeling pretty confident about this year’s Kinetic race. In the week leading up to the race, the weather seemed to deteriorate with every day calling for rain including race day. Though on a reduced training schedule the week leading up to the race, I ended up doing most of it indoors on the treadmill and trainer.  That didn’t bother me too much, but I really did not want to race in the rain. I kept looking at the extended forecast hoping for improvement, but it never materialized.

DC Tri Club MoCo Mafia

My wife and I headed down to Lake Anna the evening before the race.  We shared a cabin with fellow MoCo Mafia members also racing the next day.  Friday had very nice weather although it looked like rain would return for Saturday’s race.  Although we had to slog through traffic, we arrived in time to pick up my race packet and join the others at the cabin a pre-race pasta dinner.  We prepped our stuff for the race and headed to bed.  I wasn’t nervous about the race but still did not sleep well.  This is something I’ve become accustomed to the night before a race.   

Eggs, bagels and OJ for breakfast, then we headed to the lake. It had rained some during the night and we saw a flash of lightning on the way to the lake, but it looked like the rain might hold off for the race.  The morning was fairly uneventful; no one forgot their equipment this year (including me) and so far it wasn’t raining.

I used a garbage bag to protect my transition stuff.  While the rain was holding off for the moment, it could start raining at any moment and I didn’t want to come back to find my stuff soaked. I was concerned the bag would blow away if I laid it over my stuff, so I laid the garbage bag flat and placed my stuff inside the bag the same way I would lay it out on the towel.  It seemed to work pretty well. I also added an extra pair of socks in case my feet got soaked on the bike. Nothing is worse than running in wet socks.

After donning my wetsuit, I headed down to the beach for the race start. I was in the second wave, so I wanted to make sure I had some time to acclimate to the cold water before the race start. I had done some open water swimming in Lake Anna the weekend before and the water wasn’t too bad once you got in, but that first hit of the water was definitely cold. Despite the rain, the water temperature had warmed up a bit from the weekend before, from the lower 60’s to the upper 60’s.

I hoped to complete the swim in 45 minutes.  The run start from the beach took us over some pretty jagged rocks on the lake floor (kinda painful on the toes).  As soon as the water got deep enough, I opted to start swimming to get off the rocks.  The swim course is basically an inverted triangle with six orange buoys going out and a yellow one at the turn. A swim across the lake is followed by another turn back towards shore. With the overcast sky, the sun was not a factor. My swim was fairly uneventful although I probably stuck my head up to sight too much which slowed me down a bit. I finished the swim in 48:26, a little off my goal time but still a PR over my 51 minute swim last year.

Swim Time: 48:26

My T1 time was 4:33.

I was trying out a new aero helmet and the Zipp 404 wheels I rented the week before.  I was going for a 2:30 time on the bike. Up to this point the rain had held off but the moment I mounted my bike, it started to pour. My first thought was “really?” For those not familiar with Kinetic, the bike course starts off at the bottom of a big hill. I wasn’t happy that it was starting to rain just as I was getting on the bike, but I wasn’t going to let it stop me. Last year on the bike I had to deal with three flat tires, so I wasn’t going to let rain affect me. An unexpected advantage of the aero helmet is how it kept rain off my face and glasses.  By the time I had gotten to the entrance to the state park, the rain had pretty much tapered off. The roads were still wet though, so some extra caution was called for. From riding the new bike course the week before, I knew there were no bad turns and that overall it was a pretty fast course.

I ended up passing more people than passed me. For the first half of the course, I ended up passing and getting passed by two other guys. We all traded off for awhile. Eventually one of the guys dropped back, and the other managed to get a substantial lead. For the last half of the course, I ended passing and getting passed by another guy in green. We ended up joking with each other as we kept passing each other so much. In the last 14 miles of the course, we hit some pretty hard headwinds.  By the time we got back to the park, I was ready to get off the bike. Up to this point, I was still doing the whole pass and getting passed by the guy in green but finally managed to get a good lead on him heading back into the park. I did the bike in 2:33:12, a time I was very happy with.

Bike Time: 2:33:12

Once back in transition, I discovered the guy next to me had left his wetsuit where my bike goes and his bag was laying on my stuff on the ground. I grumbled, moved his stuff over, and got ready for the run. My socks had gotten soaked, so I decided to take a few extra minutes to change them so I didn’t get blisters. The garbage bag worked, and all my stuff was still dry.

My T2 time was 2:35.

I headed out for the run with dry socks and ready to take on the hills. The run portion of the race is a three loop course filled with a lot of hills including the big one from the bike course.

Last year, I didn’t do my research and the run course caught me off guard. Not only did I remember the hills from last year, but this year I ran the course multiple times the weekend before the race. I was hoping to do the run in 1:45. As I started to run, my lower back was bothering me quite a bit. Sitting in the aero position for 2 1/2 hours had taken its toll. Still I was having a good race, and I wasn’t going to let the hills on this course to mess that up. Even if I wasn’t going to be able to run my fastest, I refused to let the hills beat me and cause me to walk. A lot of fellow DC Tri Club members were out on the course during the run, and everyone was very supportive of one another. During the second loop of the run, the sun finally started to come out. Unfortunately, multiple portions of the course had no shade and it was already a bit humid, so the sun beating down on me was not something I was happy about. By the time I started the third loop the sun had gone back behind the clouds, thank god. I got up the big hill for the third and final time and my back started to feel better, so I started to run as hard as I could. I didn’t want to look at my watch to see how much time had passed in case it was bad and would discourage me. I just ran and planned to check my time after crossing the finish line. As I approached the finish line, I saw the race clock which said 5:22. This meant I had accomplished my goal of finishing the race under 5:30. My official finish time was 5:18:59. Not only a PR for Kinetic (which wasn’t saying much since I had such a horrible race last year), but an overall 70.3 PR for me. For my division I came in 14th out of 46.

Run Time: 1:50:04 - Overall Time: 5:18:59

I didn’t have a perfect race and I didn’t meet all my time goals, but I did meet my main one. I know I need to continue working to improve my swim times and I also need to work on riding in the aero position to strengthen my lower back muscles so they aren’t so tired when I get off the bike for the run. But this race has given me a renewed confidence in my training and ability. When the year started I thought it may be possible to do IMLP in 11 hrs or under, but now I know I can do it.

Red Rockette With Her New Zipp 404's

Oh and I decided I liked the Zipp wheels so much I went out and got my bike it's own pair. I have given my bike a new name. Red Rockette or Red for short.