Lake Placid

Ironman Louisville was Ironman #1, 2 and 4 (Kona is 3,5). I love the Derby city and everything about that race; even the ridiculous heat that is almost a given, but I knew I needed to do a different Ironman if I wanted to do well at Kona (provided I qualify). There is only a few Ironmans on the East Coast, so my decision was pretty easy when I realized New York did not capitalize on my strengths, and would be ridiculously expensive. So I signed up for Lake Placid. 

I've been nervous about my decision for months. While I'd love to qualify for Kona at Eagleman, I am realistic enough to know I'm more of a plodder and so, Chris and I planned a vacation up to Lake Placid this past weekend to preview the course. I worked a half-day on Thursday and then we made the 10 hour trek up to upstate New York. I haven't been to upstate New York since I was 12 and Chris had never been, so we both enjoyed the scenery on the way up.

We were smart enough to sleep in a bit on Friday morning, eat a hearty buffet breakfast at the hotel, then head out for a tour of the bike course. Unfortunately we did not have a good grasp of the bike course and neither of our Garmins were cooperating with the bread crumb trails, so the 56 mile loop became 66 miles and I think we were both pretty frustrated.

Looking fast in my CTS kit

Chris headed into the hotel for a shower and then was sweet enough to follow me around on the second loop. The second loop went a bit better than the first for me after I realized my back wheel needed tightened, but I definitely have some work on Skyline to do to get more comfortable with descents. The roads are in pretty horrible shape, so I'm praying some patching is done before the race, but the Three Bears are really nothing to write home about. Sure they're annoying to climb at the end of each loop, but they weren't what I was envisioning at all (thank goodness!).  I rolled back to the hotel with a solid 110 miles done for the day and wasn't thrilled with my speed, but I saw the course and knew what I wanted to work on for Sunday and Monday's ride.

Pretty views

Saturday was a fun day.  We ran long Saturday morning on the run course, but spent the afternoon touring some of the Olympic facilities after refueling at Lake Placid brewery.

Pre run

River Road

After much procrastination, we finally went to swim for an hour late Saturday afternoon.  To be honest, I didn't want to swim, I wanted to play in the lake!! I was SO SO tired and burnt out of swimming for so long, but over the last year I've really started to love the water again. I eventually did the two loop course and was very pleased with how comfortable I felt in Lindsay's Aquasphere wetsuit. I don't really understand how people use the rope at the bottom to sight. I guess my body position is too high because as soon as I started looking at the bottom, I felt like my butt was out of the water!  Guess I won't worry about being on the brawl line come race day :) We ate at the hotel bar that night and headed back to the room fairly early so we could be up early for Sunday since the workout on tap was a 3 hour ride / 1 hour run.

Mirror Lake

Sunday's grueling four hour brick turned out to be a major confidence booster for me.  I was much happier with how I rode (well, except for my pathetic descending skills where Chris left me in the dust) and ran sub 8s effortlessly for an hour off the bike.  We ran down River Road (part of the course), which has great views of the ski jumps on the way back. That will definitely be a great distraction come race day!

Afterwards we headed out to High Forks Gorge. They have a .5 mile walking loop of waterfalls that were absolutely incredible. 

I was a little leery of the heights starting out and did not want to stand on the plexi glass, but eventually Chris got me out on the glass.  We headed back to the welcome center via a nature trail.  Fun to do, but maybe I should start packing more appropriate footwear than sandals ;)  We stopped off at a lake on the way back to sit in Adirondack chairs and enjoy the views.  Perfect way to spend the day. My only regret was not having a glass of Chardonnay.

That evening we headed back in town to eat at The Dancing Bears. We were lucky enough to have a lakeside view and had a great meal that was topped off by frozen Greek yogurt by Ben and Jerry's (awesome by the way if you haven't had this!).  It was getting chilly and we had to pack, so we headed back to the room early.

Monday we set out for two final workouts - a 2 hour ride and a 30 minute transition run. I discovered on the descents that I don't properly hold my top tubes with my knees, so once I engaged my glutes, I was amazed how much less my bike wobbled. Chris started feeling fresh about 5 miles outside of town on the bike and  I was pretty confident he was trying to drop me, so I sucked it up and hung on for dear life. I was very relieved when we got back into town and the pace dropped down a bit.  The run off the bike was pretty typical for me (I may or may not had Madonna on repeat on my shuffle), then we finished packing and started off home for a very LONG trip home.

Fantastic weekend of training and fun!