My journey from couch to Ironman finisher.
In 2011 I finished three sprint distance triathlons and two duathlons. One of the duathlons was actually a sprint triathlons but the bike portion of the tri was cancelled due to the road conditions. The other duathlon was supposed to be my first Olympic distance triathlon but the swim was cancelled because the river was flooded after a tropical storm.
Things went much better in 2012 and I finished 2 sprint triathlons and four Olympic distance triathlons. I replaced my road bike with a tri bike and set new personal records at my last two triathlon. Since every second counts while racing, in January 2013 I bought Zipp 808 carbon fiber race wheels for my bike.
In my third year of racing I completed ten triathlons with my "A" race being the Ironman 70.3 Eagleman triathlon. The Eagleman triathlon was in late June and I had been dealing with a foot injury since May. I should have put in more time running in preparation for Eagleman but it didn't matter. I did well with the swim, bike and run, finishing the triathlon thirty minutes faster then expected. A highlight of 2013 was meeting Sister Madonna Buder at Eagleman and meeting her again in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Age Group Nationals triathlon. Sister Madonna is an inspiration to many people and you can read about her in this article on Wikipedia.
Some people might be able to finish an Ironman triathlon without the assistance of a coach but I wasn't taking any chances of not reaching the finish line. In January 2014 I started working with Bill Hauser at Mid-Atlantic Multisport. I've known Bill for years and I knew Bill was the guy to get me trained for Lake Placid. We didn't have the best winter for training and many days I replaced swimming and running sessions with snow shoveling. But overall, I finished almost every training session Bill scheduled over those seven months. In March I ran the Love Run half marathon and set a new personal record. Two weeks later I set a new personal record when I ran the Garden Spot half marathon. While not required, I did one 2.4 mile open water swim during one of my training sessions. You don't need to run the marathon distance when training for a marathon but there is something psychological about knowing you can swim 2.4 miles before you get to the Ironman triathlon.
My last weekend for a long training session was the July 4th weekend. One day I completed a six hour bike ride and ran for an hour. The next day I went swimming and then ran for four hours. I had trained as much as possible and now it was time to let my body rest and recover before going to Lake Placid. Those last three weeks before the triathlon are an interesting time. You have lots of free time because you scaled back on the training and you also have mixed emotions about the race. Some days I worried about things that could go wrong and some days I was excited to be racing.
I had already cycled the bike course in May so I drove the course to let my wife know what I would face during the triathlon. It was raining while driving down the hill into Keene and in the safety of the car at 50 MPH my wife was scared. Hopefully it wouldn't be raining on race day. On Saturday we had beautiful weather and I went for a quick swim, bike ride and run. I met Bill and his other athletes at the lake for a pre-race photo. There were lots of other groups waiting their turn for the photo op at the "Ironman rock."
I didn't sleep well the night before the race due to pre-race jitters. When I raced the Ironman 70.3 Syracuse I lost my timing chip. That was the first time I lost a timing chip and while the system works well to get a replacement the clock is ticking the whole time you are waiting for an official to show up with the new chip. It also takes a couple of days for the Ironman organization to manually add the time from the new chip to your race results. I didn't want to lose my chip during the Lake Placid Ironman race so I used a safety pin to secure the Velcro strap.
I woke at 3 AM, ate breakfast, packed my nutrition bags and headed for the field. It rained over night and I hoped that my race clothes were dry. Transitions work differently at Ironman triathlons, your bike is out in the transition area and your race clothes are stored in bags outside the changing tents. When we brought our bike and bags to transition on Saturday I found out many people had little tricks to prevent water from getting into the bags. Some people ran the drawstrings through red solo cups, some people taped the bags shut, some people used the drawstrings to tie the bags shut and some people used a clear bag over the clothes bag so the clear bag acted as an umbrella. I was able to scrounge up a couple of clear bags to protect my clothes. The system worked well because on race morning my clothes were dry.
There was no reason to hang out at transition so I headed to the lake. While I thought my swim would take me 1:30:00 I seeded myself in the group 1:20:00 to 1:29:00. The sky was cloudy but the sun was trying to break through. The air and water temperatures we perfect for a wetsuit legal race. The cannon signaled the start of the race for the pro men. The next cannon signaled the start for the women and the third cannon was sounded for the Age Group athletes. The sun came out before I went into the water around 7:45 AM EDT. I walked across the timing mat, ran into the water and started swimming. I thought it would be crowded with 2800 athletes racing but I stayed wide of the buoys and avoided the other swimmers. I like this photo from the Ironman website that shows the swimmers in Mirror Lake.
When the swimmers return they have to swim around the dock, run across the beach and dive back into the water for the second lap. While I was swimming out on the second lap it started to rain. Then it started to rain really hard. I didn't care and didn't think about the rain. I finished my second lap, ran across the timing mat and headed for transition. It was a raining during that long run on wet sidewalks and about half way to transition a group of runners came from another direction. I'm not sure where they came from but it seemed like there were too many people heading to transition. I grabbed my "bike bag" from the hook and went into the changing tent. It was crowded and the inside of the tent was like a sauna. As soon as I put on my glasses they fogged up and I couldn't see unless I looked over the top of the glasses. I finished dressing, shoved the wetsuit into my clothes bag and ran outside for my bike. I ran the bike to the "mount line" but it was so crowded I was delayed getting on my bike. The race starts with some tricky downhill streets before you make it to the highway.
Even the highway was crowded with bikes, like nothing I had experienced in my previous races. After leaving town we headed down a hill where the state police had stopped traffic. Going up the next hill the police had placed orange cones on the double yellow line. We were riding four abreast with me closest to the yellow lines. I was squeezed as close to the cones as possible and I didn't see the road sign in the first cone until it was too late. My left hand struck the sign which fought back and cut my knuckle. Blood rain down my hand amid the the raindrops.
It started raining harder, with lots of thunder and lightning. I questioned the logic of riding a bicycle in a lightning storm but I continued to pedal up the hill. My next concern was the downhill ride into Keene. In good weather with dry roads it's a ride that will raise your heart rate. In this weather it was scary. I did what I could to feather the brakes and slow my bike down but the wheels were so wet I couldn't do much to slow down the bike. I was surprised how many people flew past me on the bike but I figured I would catch them on the long flat stretch to the town of Ausable.
Professional athlete Balazs Czoke didn't seem to mind the rain as shown in this official photo on the Ironman website. Besides worrying about crashing in the rain I was worried about how cold I felt. Wearing a wind vest wasn't keeping me warm and I had no hope the rain to stop. I wasn't sure how much longer I could stay in the race. The road to Ausable would require non stop peddling and my only hope was to warm up through physical exertion. I don't recall when it stopped raining but it did stop and the sun come out and I warmed up. This photo from the Ironman website showed how some riders decided to stay warm on the bike.
Ironman Lake Placid is a two loop bike course and after 56 miles I made it back into Lake Placid. I stopped for my "special needs" bag, restocked my food and drinks and headed out for my second lap. My hope was to complete the 112 miles in 6 hours but the first lap took me 3 hours 12 minutes. The ride down the hill into Keene was uneventful and less scary since it wasn't raining. There was a small out and back section just before Wilmington. I was following four other riders and we all took the turn a little wide. A rider behind me took the inside turn and distracted me. As I looked over at him my left foot struck two of the cones on the double yellow lines. I maintained my balance without knocking the cones over, avoiding a possible crash. I'm not sure if I twisted my knee in this incident or when I tried to get off the bike at one of the aid stations. My knee was bothering me when I arrived in Lake Placid after riding the second lap for 3 hours, 20 minutes. I dismounted the bike, handed it off to a volunteer and ran to the racks for my running clothes.
After a quick change I headed out to start the 26.2 mile run. I was close to the first aid station when the runner ahead of me decided at the last moment he would like a drink. He fell and nearly took me down too. My goal was to run at least one lap without walking through an aid station but my knee was very painful. I don't think I ran more then three miles before I started walking. So many hours spent training and now my knee decided I wasn't going to finish the Ironman Lake Placid. I was able to run short distances followed by periods of walking. The longer I was out on the course the less I was able to run due to the pain. It was demoralizing to have finished the swim early, the bike close to my predicted time and then give it all up on the run. Bill Hauser was out on river road and his words of encouragement helped me push through. There were so many people cheering the runners and with people calling out my name I was able to push through the pain and finish strong.
I'm glad I was running when Bill took this photo.
After the race I found out why there were so many people running from the lake to transition. And why the road out of Lake Placid had so many cyclists. Due to the lightning storm during the swim portion of the triathlon the race officials cancelled the swim. Everyone that was still in the lake was directed to the closest shore point. Once the athletes reached the shore they ran to transition. Some athletes had to run around a large portion of the lake to reach transition. The race officials decided that anyone who had swum both laps would have the second lap time removed. Since the transition time was based on how far the athlete ran the transition time was also removed.
I was an Ironman Lake Placid finisher with an adjusted time of 12:43:57.
My long day started to take it's toll while I was walking my bike back to the motel. I wasn't hungry, I just wanted to take a shower and catch up on my sleep. I didn't make it back to the finish line to watch the final racers cross the line but I did watch the live stream on the Internet. I watched two of my friends cross the line in the final hour. Congratulations to everyone that raced in Lake Placid and crossed the finish line. You are an Ironman!
On Monday morning we walked out of the motel get breakfast and ran into Herb Brown. Herb was the oldest athlete in Ironman Lake Placid, racing at the age of 78. Before the race Herb told me he would keep entering Ironman triathlons until he failed to finish a race. He finished Ironman Lake Placid but Herb said he had trouble with his back while running. Herb said "he was bent over like an old man" because he failed to do his core exercises. We all smiled when he referred to himself as an old man. Herb is already entered in another Ironman race two months from now, what an inspiration to the rest of us!
We arrived home on Tuesday night and found this sign in the yard. Before we could get out of the car the kids came running over to hear about the race and show me the sign they created. Maybe one of these boys will grow up to be a future Ironman.
Those final days of training in early July really had me questioning the logic of entering an Ironman triathlon. Now that I've finished Ironman Lake Placid I have mixed emotions. Per my coaches orders, I haven't worked out since the race ended. I'm looking forward to training again but I need to let my body recover from Ironman Lake Placid. I have two more sprint distance races scheduled this season but I feel the need to enter another Ironman race.
Equipment used during Ironman Lake Placid
Swim
Bike
Run
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