Ironman Lake Placid 2013.
This was my fourth crack at Ironman Lake Placid and I was
looking to make it my best one yet. In ’06
I went 11:39 for my first one. In ’08 I
had to stop after the swim due to illness.
That one stung but I rallied in 2011 for a 10:45 finish and a strong
day. So this year I was looking to
improve upon THAT. I felt that my
training would allow me to drop down under 10:30 on a perfect day. As it turned
out I was able stop the clock at 10:37 and I had a tremendous day. Here’s how it played out.
Our trip to Placid went well after we were able to (ahem)
depart. It’s always an adventure
travelling with my girls and due to my genetic make-up I really have to work at
not being a complete jerk about leaving
on time. I’m rarely successful. After I wound the gums to them about how they
had six months to get ready for this $&%*&$$ TRIP I drove out of the
driveway having left the garage door open.
HEheheh….
We arrived in LP and checked in to our “best kept secret
in town” motel. We have stayed in this
same place a few times and the girls give me a hard time EVERY time. It’s not the best of places but it is CLOSE
to the venue and only sets me back about $800 vs the $1,200-$1,500 I would be
paying at a “good place”. There’s really
nothing wrong with the place other than the fact that the owner clearly makes
no improvements and is barely holding the place together. I view it as a place to sleep. The girls, on the other hand are looking for
a little more from their lodging experience than this place provides so I may
be forced to upgrade if we visit again.
Pick your battles, right?
I did all the right things over the next couple of days, got
to bed early, rested, ate right,
reviewed my race plan etc.
Race morning came and I was still on the fence about a
sleeveless vs full wetsuit. I grabbed
the full and headed to the venue plenty early.
Everything went smoothly and I was able to see two of my three athletes
that were racing today. Chris was right
in a lather having dealt with a few curveballs in getting to the venue. Jason was fine and I was able to lighten up
their load by delivering their special needs bags for them. It’s a delicate balance to be wearing both
the COACH and ATHLETE hats on the same day but I think I did a pretty good job
making sure they were all set and staying focused on my race as well. I knew Marc would be OK as he has done this
race before but I was worried about my first timers – Chris and Jason. As it turned out, no worries needed!
The new rolling swim start program at Lake Placid had us
lined up in a chute self seeding based on our projected swim time (see, Beach
To Beacon Starting Line). I was hopeful
this would be a good thing and I would have open water all the way. WRONG. I got POUNDED. I was planning to swim 1:00-1:05 and take
advantage of the work I have put into my swim over the past two years. No dice.
I didn’t get a clean stroke the entire way. I also got punched, kicked and pushed like
never before. Not fun. Ironman needs to figure this out. It is NOT an improvement. And it wasn’t just me. I talked with guys that are faster swimmers
than me (ha, most are) and they felt the same way. I ended up swimming two minutes SLOWER than in
2011. The full suit was a mistake and I
heated up again like in ’11. I recieved
my post race e-mail from Ironman yesterday and I’ll be filling out the survey
and letting them know what my experience was.
Anyway, whatever, that’s racing and everybody had the same crap to deal
with so I didn’t waste a lot of mental energy on it during the race, I just
hung tough and kept my cool. SO, 1:10
swim and off to the bike.
T1 was a little slow but I got on the bike and tore out
of there for my 112 miles. I saw all my
peeps and had good energy. I was soaked
immediately by a steady rain.
Perfect. I will take the rain
any day over the heat. I rode a smart
ride and although I haven’t had a chance to break down the power file with my
coach yet, I believe I nailed it. I
pushed it on the second loop but I felt I could and as it turned out I was damn
close to even on both loops with regard to power output. Solid. My only miscue was that I did not identify
just how cool it was. Given the weather
leading up to the race I was ready for HEAT.
We got COOL. I was losing a ton
of fluids (that’s code for peeing a lot on the bike) and I was worried I was
going to dehydrate. I didn’t realize
until later that I was not sweating as much.
As a result, I dealt with a quad
cramp after mile 100. I dialed the
wattage back and managed it into T2 where I took a couple extra minutes to get
right. I bent to put a sock on my left
foot and my whole legs cramped. NOT a
good way to be staring down the barrel of an Ironman marathon. Gulp.
I ended up posting a 5:33 bike split.
Pretty solid if you plan to run well after. J
I took off on the run and decided I would take the first
few miles easy and see if I could get by the cramping. I saw Jared and told him what I was dealing
with and he told me to fight through it.
I went into full-on nutrition alert and got my act together through the
first loop. Lots of fluids, salt and
some luck got me headed back into town feeling pretty good. I saw my friend Angela Bancroft and I knew I
had to look tough going by her because, well, she’s tougher than me! Ha!
Thanks for the support Ange. I
always like to run the big hill going into town MOSTLY because very few others
do. I turned the corner and saw my
family and friends and pulled some energy from that. I was now running well and thinking I might
get this thing done without an epic implosion.
I headed back out of town with “only” 13.1 to go and I decided to take
it up a notch and see what I could do. I
ended up posting a solid pace through 16 miles, hung tough through 21 when the
wheels started to come off and then gutted out a strong finish. I saw Ange one more time as I was coming
back and I told her I was hurting bad… I
guess I just needed to tell someone. She
gave me some encouragement and I stopped whining and tried to kept turning it
up.
I saw my friend Sean Snow closing on me toward the
finish. I had no idea who was ahead or
behind due to the swim start but Sean was catching me at the turn around on the
backside of the lake. Damn. I love racing this guy. He never gives you an inch and if you think
you’re going to beat him you’d better have your act together. What I like most is that we swap punches all
day long and then sit down together afterward and swap war stories, eat pizza and
catch up. He’s a class act and I’ve
enjoyed gunning for him over the years.
So, anyway, here he comes in mile 26 of Ironman. Crap….NOW I GOTTA try to drop a fast mile on
this guy to hold him off. Here we go….
I think I ran a sub 8 final mile and was able
to hold off Sean. Don’t get too excited
though. He out swam me but seven
minutes, started well after I did and beat me overall by some 13 minutes! And THAT is what SUCKS about the rolling swim
start. If I am racing I want to know
where I am in the field. Otherwise, it
is nothing but a time trial. I’ll have
my say on it, you can bet on that.
So I had a strong finish.
Wrapping up the marathon in 3:42 or so. Overall time was10:37 for something like 158th place overall amongst 2400 or
so. Not too shabby. Interestingly, my time would have me 24th
in the male 30-34 age group but was only good enough for 38th in my
age group (M40-44). These old guys are
FAST.
I am blessed with great family and friends that came out
to support me. I felt like I had an army
of people helping me get this done.
Thanks to my wife and daughter for putting up with the training and the
unconditional support. Thanks to my
parents who gave me the drive to do this stuff and continue to attend my events
WHEREVER they are. And thanks to all my
friends that travelled out there to cheer me on. The Grover Family, unreal support. Thank YOU.
Love you guys. Jenny, Melissa,
Meg, Brackett, Durgin, Jared, Christina, Stan, Chelsea, Greg, Katie and many
others. Thanks to all you Facebookers
for blowing up my page with support and thanks to my extended network of family,
friends and co-workers for blowing up my phone with texts of support and
congrats. I am overwhelmed.
I also want to mention that my athletes, Jason Stokes,
Chris Ebbrecht and Marc Dupuis all had great days as well. So I double dipped. Had a great day as an athlete AND as a
Coach! Good job guys, proud of you! Last but not least, THANK YOU Jorge Martinez of E3 Training Solutions for both the opportunity to Coach with E3 AND the opportunity to race for the team! Loving it!!!
So there it is. It’s in the books. As they always say, I would have liked to
have been a little faster but hey, who wouldn’t, right? I know there are areas for improvement but
right now those areas are family and work.
Time to right the ship. Ironman
takes a round out of you and those around you.
Balance.
Next up is the Rev3 OOB in August and I have a few people
that I want to “trim up”. Let’s see if I
can get recovered and bring it!
