RACE PREP
My exact mind-frame, motivation, and rationale for signing up for IRONMAN Lake Placid is lost to memory, but my email tells me it happened on July 30, 2018. I would have still been recovering from a stress fracture in my foot, incurred during my first 50-Mile Ultra Marathon the month before (which is another story to tell). I imagine I was blinded by the anxious energy of not being able to train for anything at all. It was around this same time that I also started talking Jessica into the 12-Marathons-in-One-Year idea, so I was clearly already beyond rational thought, fueled solely by the emotional highs-and-lows particular to the injured amateur endurance athlete.
With a few months of slow return to running at the end of 2018, I entered 2019 with a race calendar that included those twelve marathons in addition to IMLP. I picked up my favorite 140.6 training plan (Be Iron Fit by Don Fink and Melanie Fink) and thought, "I'll just run longer on the run days." I had great intentions. I completely bombed the training cycle. Because here's the thing: you're tired after you run a marathon, and you want to take it easy for a few days. Here's another thing: work got crazy, and I had to choose it over workouts. And here's the last thing: depression hit hard around March, and didn't go away for a very long time.
But this wasn't my first 140.6 rodeo, so as race day approached, despite many thoughts of deferring, I knew I had the fitness to make it to the finish line, and I had done one thing well in training: I found and rode hills like it was my job. I learned to love them.
LAKE PLACID
Lake Placid is gorgeous. Nestled in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York, there's scenery to take in no matter which way you turn. We (my husband Robby, daughter Ellie, and I) arrived on the Thursday before the race to allow plenty of time to settle in, get in some shake-out training, and enjoy some family time in a place we'd never been before.
We stayed at the High Peaks Resort, the "official" hotel of the race, which is about a three-quarter-mile walk from the Olympic Oval (the race HQ and transition on race day). There is, however, direct access to Mirror Lake, where the IMLP swim takes place. Although the race organizers are very clear that there are no sanctioned practice swims prior to the race, the buoys were already set up in the water by the time we made it to town, and there were people in wetsuits out swimming around them at all hours of the day.
Friday and Saturday were filled with Athlete Check-In (an efficient, straightforward process in the Conference Center near transition); checking out the Athlete Village; practice swims, rides, and runs; trips to Lake Placid Pub & Brewery; and a visit from our friend Jared, who had recently moved to Montreal and drove down for the day on Saturday. I did my best to find some excitement - to find something to focus on to mitigate this period of depression, but it just wasn't there. So I just kept moving forward, doing the things I'd done before, hoping that race morning would bring a revelation.
RACE MORNING
Transition opens at 4:30 a.m. (and closes at 6:00 a.m.) on race morning, and my goal was to be there by 5:15 a.m. Granted, there's really not a lot left to do in transition on the morning of the race - you've already checked in your bike and gear bags the afternoon before. But there's still special needs bags to deposit and your bike to prepare (filling fluid reservoirs, loading frame packs with gels, making sure your aren't one of the unlucky people whose tires have blown overnight).
I set my alarm for 3:30 a.m., grabbed the food I'd set aside the evening before (a couple of applesauce pouches, a plain bagel with peanut butter and jelly, and the first of many bottles of Gatorade Endurance for the day) and headed down to the lobby to let Robby and Ellie get a little more sleep. I sat down there for an hour or so, trying to eat what I could, sipping coffee, and doing all of the pre-race pooping I could muster. I slipped back upstairs, changed into my swim clothes, grabbed my morning clothes bag and special needs bags and headed down to the race.
One of the biggest surprises for the athletes that morning was the distance we had to walk to deposit our run special needs bag. They don't gather and transport the bags for you, so you have to walk about a half mile up Mirror Lake Drive to the aid station at mile 12.5/25ish of the run course to drop it off. On my way up to the aid station/special needs drop, I passed a woman around my age wearing an Irish Jig 5K shirt (which is a race that takes place right outside my front door in Grand Rapids). "Hey!" I said. "Are you from Grand Rapids?" She was, and we exchanged the usual "is this your first" and/or "what Ironman races have you done before?" conversation on our way back toward transition. It was her first, and she was nervous. I offered reassurances, told her to focus on enjoying it. When I told her I'd done Muskoka and Wisconsin, she said, "This one should be easy for you."
I wasn't expecting an easy race. Based on what I'd accomplished (or not) in training, my goals were to: survive the swim, have fun on the bike, and run/walk it in without any real time goal - just give myself the grace to finish in however long it took me and not injure myself in the process.
THE SWIM
Going into the IMLP swim, I had swum exactly 11 other times that year: two of those 11 swims were in Lake Placid in the days before the race, and two were in other triathlon races earlier in the year. So when I say that I bombed my training cycle, I really bombed the swim training.
I'd read plenty about the IMLP swim and taken a few laps around the course, so I knew about the underwater cable that traces the swim loop: theoretically, you don't have to sight the buoys if you stay on top of the cable and keep your eye on it underwater. I also knew that I DID NOT WANT TO BE ON THE CABLE because that's where it gets super aggressive. I wanted to stay wide and trade a further, slower swim for a lack of face-kicks.
Robby and Ellie found me on my way from transition down to the water to warm up. I handed them my morning clothes bag, pulled on my wetsuit, and splashed around in the water for a few minutes before making my way to the start chute.
All around me was the excitement of race morning: the music blaring, the pre-race ceremony, the excited athletes... and I just felt... nothing. And then I cried. I cried because I didn't really want to be there; I couldn't muster the feeling of excitement about why I had wanted to be there in the first place; I almost just walked off the course. I might have if I hadn't been in the middle of a crowd of people who were most decidedly moving toward the course and the water entrance. So I just let them carry me with them. I hesitated for a moment, about thigh-deep in the water, consciously flipping a switch in my brain, "If you're going to do this, it's time to do it. There's the first buoy. Swim that direction, and stay wide."
I did not swim according to plan. I sighted the first buoy, but did not stay wide. Somehow, what felt like a few strokes in, there I was, right on top of the cable. This is not where I wanted to be. But once you find yourself on the cable, there is no moving off of the cable. There are simply too many people to your left. So I redirected the mental and physical energy I would have exerted on sighting the buoys to swimming as defensively as possible. I got clobbered plenty, but focused on finding any free lane I could in order to pass slower swimmers. IMLP is a two-lap swim with a beach exit and re-entry in between. I made it through the first lap, and recommitted to staying wide on lap two. I entered the water wide, sighted the first buoy to make sure I was going in the right general direction, and DAMMIT THERE I WAS ON THE CABLE AGAIN. Second lap was then much the same as the first - but I survived and exited the swim in a time of 1:23:46 - not my fastest Ironman swim, but not my slowest either. I skipped the wetsuit strippers (no need to add sand to the list of things I had to remove in transition) and headed to the changing tents.
THE BIKE
The volunteers in the transition tent were amazing, helping me through a full costume change (my focus in Ironman transitions is on being calm and purposeful, not on being fast). After a brief stop at the sunscreen station, I grabbed my bike from the rack and headed out. There is a 180-degree downhill turn leaving transition, then a hard right down a steep decline to a sharp left and onto the course - I rode my brakes and felt my first twinge of excitement.
The course takes you out of town past the ski jump, a nice little downhill section as you settle into your saddle. Not too far past the ski jump begins what I found to be one of the two toughest climbs of the course - not because of grade, but because it just seems to go on forever, and I was itching to get moving. I settled into what felt like an easy spin for the climb, but passed quite a few other athletes, making it to the top, then the quick out-and-back at Mt. VanHouvering, which is flat and fast and provided the first bike aid station on the course. I slowed and topped off my Speedfil with Gatorade - which is what I did at every other bike aid station throughout the ride, guzzling and tossing bottles of water at the others. (I also popped one or two Clif Shot Blocks every 20-30 minutes, which is the best I've ever done at taking in calories on a long ride.)
The next stretch of the course takes you past some beautiful scenery - burbling streams and green mountainsides - on your way to the Keene Descent. The Keene Descent (the 6ish downhill miles into the Village of Keene) is a little scary and totally rad - I was up on the horns the whole way down, alternately crouching and coasting, feathering the brakes when it got a little hairy, and at the steepest grade, hit about 43 mph. There were some big dudes down in their bars that came screaming past me, but I was happy to maintain a more conservative speed and keep myself upright and alive. The cruise from Keene to Jay was flat, fast, and beautiful, followed by what I found to be the other tough climb into Wilmington. There's more gorgeous mountain-and-stream scenery on the back half of the bike course, which includes a number of rollers as well as the "Three Bears" that you'll hear a lot of people talk about as a series of tough climbs. To be honest, I wasn't even sure I was on them until I noticed "Goldie Locks" spray painted on the side of the road when I passed through on the second loop. Somewhere in the midst of the rollers on the way back to town on the first loop, I dropped my chain in the middle of a climb. There was nowhere to go - car traffic to my left and a pack of cyclist to my right - and I couldn't unclip my cleat fast enough, so I just fell over. It was a pretty slow, gentle fall, but I heard someone yell hysterically, "Are you okay? Do you need medical?" I started laughing as I unclipped, pulled my bike off of me, and got up to reattach the chain. "No," I laughed, "I think I'm okay. Didn't I look as graceful as I felt?" I was pedaling back up the hill within a minute or two - just a little chain grease on my leg and hands to show for my struggle.
I got my first glimpse of Robby and Ellie on my way back into town from the first bike loop. They had volunteered to work the run aid station at mile 12.5/25 (the aforementioned run special needs location), which is also on the bike route into town. I was wearing a huge grin, and Robby yelled some encouragement about my progress that I couldn't quite make out, but I was having an amazing ride and was excited to be headed out for a second tour of the course. There was a little rain, and the wind picked up a bit on the second loop, but there was no part of the ride that I didn't love. I hadn't looked at my watch to check my time or my pace the entire time - my goal was just to have fun on my bike, and I nailed it. I also turned in a 15-minute PR on the bike in the process, finishing in 6:28:38 (averaging about 17.3 mph). As I crossed the dismount line and unclipped, a volunteer came up and said to me, "You're doing great! How do you feel?" I felt happy, and that felt indescribably good. "In by 3 p.m.!" I responded, "I can walk this whole marathon if I need to!" As he took my bike from me, he laughed, and so did I.
THE RUN
I did have enough time to walk the marathon, but after another full costume change in the transition tent, I took off running. I say running, but I never have any sense of how fast I'm actually going right off the bike. Turns out "running" meant about a 10:40 pace for the first mile - and that would be as fast as I would move for the rest of the run. While I did my best job ever on bike nutrition, I had only a very loose plan for the run - and didn't really commit to any execution of it whatsoever. The main problem was that I just didn't feel like eating anything. I could take sips of water and Gatorade at every aid station, because the day got pretty warm and I wanted and needed fluid whenever I could get my hands on it. I walked/ran the first run loop, averaging about 12-to-13-minute miles. Robby's and Ellie's aid station location meant I got to see them four times on the run course, which was, by far, the highlight of the marathon.
Which is not to say that I suffered - I just spent a lot of time out there. At the aid station just past the 13.1 mark, I decided to take and eat whatever sounded most palatable - I couldn't face another gel but knew I needed calories to stay upright. This turned out to be a potato chip, which turned out to be a bad idea, which turned into me walking exclusively from about mile 14 to mile 25.5. Those last 11-12 miles were an exercise in staying positive, moving forward, and not getting sick to my stomach while sampling from the aid station buffets. I was buoyed by the knowledge that I was going to finish. Dusk was finally setting in around the time I hit mile 24, and as soon as I passed through Robby's and Ellie's aid station around mile 25, they took off to watch my finish. I started to jog when I hit the short downhill on Mirror Lake Drive to the Oval (and could fully hear the noise from the finish line), and by the time I hit the outside of the Oval itself, my legs found the ability to run again. When I turned the curve to the last few hundred feet and the finish line, I gave it a kick and raised my arms in a genuine triumph. I was beaming. Glowing. I finished. I felt happy. These were equally huge achievements. I'm fairly certain that at a time of 5:52:23, this was my slowest Ironman run. But it's the most accomplished I've felt at the end of one.
The depression didn't go away when I crossed the finish line, but I look back on that moment as the first flicker of its abatement. I don't subscribe to the belief that running or triathlon are "better than" - or even a substitute for - therapy. Therapy is my therapy. I didn't learn anything new about race performance at Lake Placid. I did learn about the power of the sport to provide 14 straight hours (plus five minutes or so) of meditative opportunity - to focus on and give myself grace for whatever was happening in each moment of all of those hours. And in each of those moments, I found out something new about my own strength.
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