I'm in for 2009 Lake Placid !!

Great Weekend But a Wet Race in Lake Placid

Just back from the weekend in Lake Placid. We arrived on Saturday around noon and after checking into our motel in Tupper Lake we headed for Lake Placid. Tupper Lake is about a 40 minute drive, but it was the only place left after I left it to late to get into someplace closer.

We scouted out the bike course and I rode a section on from Jay to Keene. It was hot and sunny and a bit steamy from some rain earlier in the day. It down hill all the way into Keene and after riding back up, I decided to do it again. Spent about 2 hours riding and got good look at that part of the course.

On Sunday morning we got up early and got back to the race site for the swim start, I’ve never seen a mass swim start at an Ironman and since I’m planning on doing this one next year, I thought it would be a good idea to see if it is as bad as everyone makes it out to be. The sky was over cast and it looked like rain. The swim start is fairly wide and it looked like people were lined up 10 to 15 deep and when the gun went off it looked pretty messy for the first few minutes. It seemed that a lot of people held back for a couple of minutes until the melee had passed. The swim is held in Mirror Lake and the conditions are perfect there. The lake was as smooth as a mirror, no waves, no currents, well marked and a 2 loop swim. This is the kind of swim that you will not be doing any off course swims.

That was as dry as those poor athletes were going to get that day. It started raining before most people had gotten on their bikes and it rained all day! Sometimes harder than other, but it was dreary and raining all day. I gotta hand it to anyone that took part in that, spectators included.

45 Days and Counting….So Much to Do!

Wow it is hard to believe that Louisville will be here in 45 days…or we’ll be in Louisville. It’s crunch time! The next 3 weeks will be heaviest training and this is the time to build strength and endurance for the Ironman. Lot’s to do on the bike in the next few weeks. Fine tuning of my position and lot’s of tweaking with everything else.

I’m starting now to formulate nutrition, hydration and pacing strategies for the race. I watched an interesting video cast from Endurance Nation yesterday where Patrick McCann talked about using your Garmin to follow a pace schedule for the marathon. Basically the first 3 to 6 miles are at a very easy pace, an all day long pace as he put it. Once the legs have adjusted to running, use the Garmin to pick up the pace to what he calls an easy pace, a pace that you can run comfortably at and use the Garmin to hold that pace through to the end. The thinking being that although the pace may seem too easy in miles 7 and 8, by mile 18 it will begin to get harder and harder to maintain that pace. That’s the time to use the Garmin to stay on track. If I do well, I’ll pass a lot of runners in the second half of the marathon. It is in the later stages of the marathon, where you see lot’s of people walking and if you can keep up a good pace, you’ll really move up.

Really looking forward to being in Lake Placid this weekend for Ironman USA. It will be great to get out on the bike course and do a loop to see what I’ll be in store for next year!

Ahhh….PEI!

What a great vacation! Thanks Grammie for letting us all invade your beautiful and peaceful Inn for too short a while. It was so great to be in PEI, if you’ve never been, go. It was great to see all our friends on the Island and I was sorry that we didn’t get to spend more time with them. The weather was absolutely amazing for PEI, sometimes with PEI, you take what you get, this time however the weather was outstanding, hot and sunny every day. We even had a humidex reading a few days, very unusual for PEI. It made for some great rides and some great runs. I didn’t swim, but I did get some great miles in on the road.

As I’m writing this, I’m fogged in! I was expecting a sunny morning when I got up, but it looks like we won’t see the sun until the afternoon. So I may need to push my long ride to Sunday. I need to get going on the bike and build up some strength. The countdown is now 50 days to IM Louisville! Yikes, that’s getting close. Basically 7 weeks to go, minus 3 weeks for taper and that leaves only 4 weeks of training time left. I’ve really got to make the best of it to beat my time from last year.

This weekend I’m off to Lake Placid to register for next year’s Ironman USA. I’ll take the bike and will ride one lap of the bike course on Saturday before watching the race on Sunday and then registering on Monday morning.

Happy Canada Day from PEI

We are in beautiful, sunny PEI for our annual vacation. Grammie has never looked better and the Inn is as warm and cozy as ever. It rained like crazy for the entire drive from Toronto, but the weather has been fabulous since we arrived. I was able to get a great run in yesterday; from New Glasgow up to Cavendish and back, lot's of hills! Today I got out on the bike for a 55k ride, a tune up before the real riding starts later this week. We attended the annual North Rustico Canada Day Parade today and will be going back over later for the fireworks.

Muskoka Triathlon 2008

What a great weekend. We headed up to Muskoka for the 2k/55k/15k Muskoka triathlon on Saturday around noon. We went directly to the check in and got all squared away so we wouldn’t have to do it on Sunday am. We met up with our swimming buddy Marty at the check in and he was a little nervous. This was his first try at this distance and it is a tough course with a lot of steep hills on the bike and a few rollers on the run. Saturday night we again, after last year, had the pleasure of staying at Tim’s Mom’s beautiful home just outside Huntsville. Tim’s Sister Chris and family came over for a great homemade spaghetti dinner and we had a great time.

Early to bed around 9:30 in anticipation of a 5:00am wake up! We did the obligatory stop at the Tim’s for breakfast and then off to the race site to set up. We were early and so had lot’s of time to get everything perfectly placed in the transition area. It was a beautiful cloudless morning and the lake/river was very calm. Eventually we made our way down to the swim start and got our wetsuits on. A couple of days before I had tried on my almost brand new 2XU wetsuit and boy, was it tight. I could have done the swim in it, but it wouldn’t have been comfortable. I had given Tim my Quintana Roo suit and it was a bit big on him, so the night before the race I had him try the 2XU and I tried on the QR, much better, the 2XU suit fit him better and I was happy about that.

The gun went off and we were swimming. The swim went well for me, always great to be in a wetsuit! I was off course a couple of times, but I felt good the whole way. I was 39:56 for the swim, about 30 secs faster than last year. Tim was finished in 46:47 which was a good swim for him, especially since it was his first tri, first open water swim and first time in a wetsuit! After a quick transition into the bike we were off. The bike went well for me for the first 10k. At that point I shifted to my small chaining for the first time and the chain fell off and jammed between the crank arm and the frame. Dam…I tried to get it back on by moving the deralllier, but it just would not un stick, so I had no choice but to stop and do it by hand. OK, fixed…not so lucky from that point on the chain was skipping every turn of the cranks and changing gears at random. It was like someone was changing gears whenever they wanted, on top of that it was making noise that was embarrassing, it sounded like I had no clue what I was doing!

I had to ride this way to the finish, twice on long hills I had to turn around and coast to the bottom of the hill after the chain had dropped off again and then ride back up the hill! So much for beating my bike split from last year. I was just waiting for the chain to break for the rest of the way back. I ended up 1:57:46 about 2 minutes slower than last year. I saw Tim on the out and back section and he looked good. His plan was to ride at his target heart rate and stay in his target zone. He did well and finished the bike in 2:01:47.

Finally back at the transition area, I did a sub 1 minute change (tied for 2nd fastest in the race!!) I guess I was just so happy to be off the bike! My run was the highlight of the race for me. After a couple of kilometers of running I caught up with a relay runner that was running at a 4:50/km pace and I stuck with her to the turnaround point. She was leaving for IM Cord A’Lene the next weekend. She sped up for the second half and I kept up the pace for the rest of the way. I finished the run in 1:14:04 and held a pace of 4:57/km, which for me is very fast. Again I saw Tim on the out and back section and he looked good. We quickly said hi and were off. The thought of him trying to catch me kept me motoring for the rest of the way back! He was only maybe a km or so back and knew if he thought he could he’d run me down!! Tim finished in 1:14:49, close. I know next year after his biking improves, it will be a lot closer, and I’ll have to work my butt off to stay ahead of him! With that great run, I ended up with a 3:54:20 finish about 4 mins faster than last year. Tim did a great job and got in at 4:10.

Hat’s off to Marty who finished his first Muskoka Tri and was using this as a tune up for his upcoming half IM in Newfoundland. It was a tough race for him, but he toughed it out and it will make a big difference for him at the Half IM in July.
All in all, a great weekend, with good weather and great times.

The First Hot & Humid Weekend

Well we finally got it, a hot and humid weekend and I made the best of it. Anytime I can get out and bike and run in conditions similar to Louisville, I’m out there. There’s just no way to get used to working out in that environment, other than finding a sauna to work out in. I got the bike all loaded up with water/Gatorade/gels and spares and headed out on Saturday morning. I biked up to Beaverton and back. I managed to average just under 30kph for the trip up to Beaverton, but the wind took its toll on me and I was pushed back to 28kph for the trip average speed. Plus I’m sure the first exposure to the heat and humidity slowed me a bit.

I had a bad case of the drops on Saturday. To start off, I launched a bottle of Gatorade out of it’s cage going over the railway tracks just by the Granite Golf Club on Durham 30. I was only riding for 45 minutes, so I was going to need that bottle, so I had to stop and pick it up. Then about 30 minutes later, I was on a fast downhill just before Aurora Road. I was going about 55kph and I hit a hole that wasn’t there last week. Again I lost a Gatorade, but I wasn’t stopping that time. Five minutes later I looked down to see that I had lost my Garmin 305 out of it’s mount. Great, it could of fallen off anywhere over the last mile or so. I took a good look for it on the way back, but there was no sign of it.