WEEKEND IN VERMONT

Beth Lamie – August 2010

Mike and I have been traveling a lot this summer … this whole year actually! We spent this past weekend in Vermont with Team Pegasus XTerra expert Dave DeSantis. Rather than write a long race report (I haven’t even written anything for Lake Placid, yet!), I thought I would let the pictures tell the story:

We were staying in Stowe, Vermont, at the barn of one of David’s friends. This is the barn:

We had a nice dinner in Stowe with David, his wife Kathy, and Stuart Christie (who was also racing) then went back to the ‘barn’ for an early bedtime. Up with the roosters, we headed out to Essex Junction, just south of Burlington for the race. Gotta love XTerra – the races start at 9 am! We didn’t know what to do with all the time, so we stopped off for coffee on the way.

The weather had gone down to the 50’s at night, and at 8 am it was still pretty chilly, but the water was 75 degrees, so it was warm for wetsuits, which were legal for the race. Because it was a small field, it was a mass start and the athletes swam two loops of the course. By the time the gun went off, it was starting to warm up nicely and would turn out to be in the 80’s, with brilliant sunshine and very little humidity.

Our plan was to watch the athletes make the first loop of the swim, then go stake out a place in the woods to watch the athletes come by 3 times on the bike. Dave was in the first pack for the first loop of the swim and as soon as he went by we jumped up and ran to transition to time his T1 (nice job, with a flying mount!) and then we took a shortcut into the woods to wait for him to come by.

Dave looked great riding, and wasn’t far behind the pros. We saw him go by twice, decided this wasn’t for us (at least not the mountain biking part. At least not going FAST on the mountain bike ….) and headed out of the woods to watch him come into T2. Dave had a fast T2 and went off into the trails for the final leg. Mike and I waited for him to cross the finish line – 4^th overall, 2^nd age group – and went for a run while we waited for awards.

 The great thing about XTerra races is that they have great give-aways and the contests are crazy. They gave away a couple of wetsuits and some running shoes. Instead of having the athletes draw a raffle ticket, one of the contests was to see how fast the athletes could chug a Gatorade. Here is that lovely event…..

 When the awards ceremony was over, we ‘showered’ in the lake, then took a short drive over to Burlington for the rest of the day where we walked around the city, had lunch, and even watched  a different kind of athlete spend the afternoon Square Dancing……

THE ROAD TO ST. CROIX

In 2 weeks I am about to do my first triathlon in 4 years. And of course, it’s not just any triathlon. The triathlon I am doing is the Ironman St. Croix 70.3  - a race that’s been on my “bucket list” since I started out in this sport. At one time I wanted to do all the legendary multisport races – Lanzarote, Nice, American Zoffingen and of course, St. Croix - the most difficult ones in the world, simply because they were so hard. I haven’t done any of those races though, and now as I’m about the do St. Croix, I thought I’d write about my training and my thoughts as I close in on the race.

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

The back-story is kind of long – turns out a long explanation was needed. So if you are just interested in my training thoughts, skip ahead....

Because I haven’t raced in 4 years, people have asked me if I ‘retired’ from triathlon. Scott Tinley retires from triathlon. Greg Welsh retires from triathlon. Someone like me doesn’t retire from triathlon – we just stop doing them. But I had no intention of stopping in 2006.

In September of that year I was training to knock off another race that was on my bucket list – American Zofingen, and also for the New York Marathon, for which I was training a charity team. I hadn’t had an epic year since 2002 when I did Lake Placid Ironman, Boston Marathon, Great Floridian and a number of smaller races. After having a great year in 2002, I hired a cycling coaching and signed up for even more races – including Lake Placid again -  because I was feeling so strong and (common mistake) thought I was invincible!

I trained fiercely over the winter. My cycling coach had me doing 12-18 hours of cycling weekly, and I was also training for Boston Marathon again, so I was running ~ 40 miles per week.  In addition, I was swimming almost every day.  Did I get tired? You bet. By I ignored the fatigue and pushed even harder. A couple of weeks before the marathon, I discovered that I had a stress fracture in my tibia, but decided to do the marathon anyway. For the first time in 5 years I didn’t requalify for Boston during the marathon. I was off my best time by about half an hour and missed qualifying by 5 minutes. I was actually relieved, and decided to let my leg heal – no running for a few weeks. Unfortunately, the injury wasn’t healing. In fact, I was getting more injuries that weren’t healing and I was experiencing deep fatigue that a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure.

When the symptoms persisted, I went for a check-up and I found out that I was anemic. Iron apparently has several components, and all of my indicators were at rock bottom. This problem would continue to plague me for years. I was placed on prescription doses of iron and made drastic improvements to my already pretty good diet to make sure it included a lot of iron and vitamins. I stopped training with my cycling coach and ultimately decided not to do Lake Placid. Long story …. well, not exactly short, but ……. It took me until 2006 to get my iron stores up and get physically strong enough to race again. This is what overtraining really does to a person.

I had done some road races and smaller triathlons during the summer of 2006 and felt ready to really give it a go again. I signed up for American Zofingen and trained religiously. I got a call from a charity team doing the New York Marathon asking if I would coach them and I jumped on. What a great experience. All-expenses-paid trips to New York every 3 weeks! They even gave me an entry to the marathon. I probably should have given it to someone else, as New York was 2 weeks after Zofingen, but nope. I decided to do it. I had learned a lot during my ‘exile’ from racing, however, and added plenty of rest days into my vigorous training days.

One month before Zofingen, I was on a training ride with Cait. The day before I had done a 17-mile run and she had followed me in the car. Today we had a 2 hour ride and we both felt great. During the first hour we rode around the deserted streets of Hull and then planned to head into Cohasset to work some longer hills. Cait had been pulling for the last 15 mins, so as soon as we crossed the street into Cohasset I planned to take the lead. We stopped in the middle of the road, signaled left and waited for oncoming traffic to clear. Cait turned back to say “let’s go after this car” and suddenly let out a scream! The next thing I saw was my water bottles (that had been in a rear cage) flying out in front of me and I realized I was being hit by a car from behind. Miraculously, Cait wasn’t hit, but I was knocked off the bike and sent flying. Picture someone on an invisible flying carpet and you get the picture. I landed sitting almost upright and in an instant realized 1) I wasn’t dead 2) I wasn’t paralyzed and 3) I wasn’t brain damaged. I would end up with major soft tissue injuries in my back, left knee and right shoulder and 3 fractured vertebrae. As I was being wheeled into the CAT scan to check for further injuries, I started having some serious thoughts about this whole racing/training thing.

Both Cait and Mikaela were shell shocked from this experience and from a couple of other near misses that I had had.  Their father had passed away years earlier, and if I was gone they’d have no one. I knew I was going to have a long road ahead of me to heal from my injuries, but suddenly racing didn’t seem that important if my health was going to be at risk. (If you’ve read this far, you can see why I am so passionate about keeping the athletes I coach from burning out).

After I was released from the hospital I needed to get back to work as soon as possible. Of course, part of my job is sitting at my computer, writing schedules and swim workouts and articles. But another part of my job is teaching cycling and training with athletes. Miraculously, I was able to get back to indoor cycling in pretty quick order as long as I dialed it back and modified my position.

I was adamant about avoiding pain medication – I wanted to be able to feel everything that was happening to my body as I progressed through the healing process so that I wouldn’t reinjure myself. For the first couple of weeks I needed a muscle relaxer to sleep because my back muscles would spasm in the middle of the night. But after that, I avoided even Advil. I had weekly appointments with a chiropractor and physical therapist, and made the rounds to various doctors and x-ray techs. The strengthening exercises were as grueling as any training I had done for Ironman and although I think I was getting stronger, the pain didn’t seem to go away. I didn’t even miss running (at first) because I knew how much pain it would bring.

Months turned into a year, and eventually I started feeling stronger. I still had limited range of motion in my shoulder and was bothered by sciatica, but for the most part, my pain had gone. I was able to start riding outside and although I couldn’t ride for a long time, I rode as often as I could. I was almost starting to feel like my old self again! As the wheels of my bike turned during each ride, the wheels in my head turned as well. I started thinking about longer rides and returning to running and swimming.

My enthusiasm notwithstanding, the road was not smooth. Every step forward resulted in what seemed like 2 steps backward. The take-away was that I had to proceed with my training at a snail’s pace. I spent a lot of time in the weight room and gradually regained the strength in my shoulder. Encouraged, I decided to try swimming. At first, I couldn’t swim for very long without getting shoulder pain, but gradually that improved. Mike and I started swimming 2-3 times per week at a local pond and if I took it easy enough, I could swim for at least an hour.

The run training didn’t proceed quite as well, but I did manage to start logging about 20 miles per week and even racked up a couple of age-group wins in small road races. But it seemed like each win took a greater-than-expected physical toll and I’d be back to the drawing board. And I couldn’t seem to get my long run past 10 miles. Meanwhile, Cait decided that she was going to race in St. Croix. She knew it was one that I wanted to do so she asked me to join her. I didn’t feel strong enough to tackle that race, but we’d go along and Mike would race, which would bring me almost as much joy.

We had a great time in St. Croix! For Mike, this was his 2^nd half iron ever on an extraordinary course. He had a great race and so did Cait. She ran herself into 3^rd place in a stacked field. I’m sure that being in St. Croix only piqued my interest in doing the race however, and although I didn’t acknowledge it at the time, a seed was planted and if all went well, we knew we would be back the next year.

THE TRAINING

Because the months following 2009 St. Croix were a whirlwind (Lake Placid, Kona, wedding!), I didn’t start training until January of this year. I spend a lot of time on the bike (almost too much) – both indoors and out, but that really leaves little time for running and swimming. Very unbalanced, but it’s what I do for a living. Somehow I was going to have to ramp up the swimming and running. Some weeks I felt very good about getting in one swim and two short runs, but other weeks I’d miss the swim or a run and feel frustrated with my progress.  I applied my “stay in the moment” race philosophy to my training, but as a coach, I knew that this training would be not what I would design for my clients and I would sometimes find myself comparing myself to Mike. He is physically very strong and doesn’t have a history of abusing his body with over-training and repeated races. He is also coming off a great year of training and racing, so of course he sails through all his workouts with hardly an ache or pain and looks forward to the next one.  Also, even though his job has had a lot of ups and downs this year, it’s roughly confined to an 8-hour day.

I am my own boss, so I should be able to take a “training lunch” if I start work at 5:30 am and often end my days at 9:00 pm, but because I spent 2 years not training or racing, I filled it with other things. Now those things are hard to move when I need to get outside at noon to go for a run, or drop by the pool at 3pm. I need to give myself permission to take my training seriously again, but for now, it’s still something that I am struggling with.

In the past few months, I have spent the usual 6-8 hours per week on the bike (mostly indoors), and have added 2-3 hours per week in the pool and 3-4 hours a week running. I am still not able to rack up more than 25 miles a week on the run (mostly a time constraint) but last week I had a very good 2 hour run and was happy with the way I executed the Cohasset 10k after 24-mile bike ride on the same course.   

That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is, I’ve been plagued with leg cramps – calf cramps mostly. Sometimes they come in the middle of the night. Occasionally, foot cramps while running but mostly leg cramps while swimming. I can swim forever if I use the pull buoy or if I back it waaaaaay off, but almost every time I try to push it on the swim, the result is cramping that doesn’t quit. I’ve had it happen before while wearing a wetsuit so I just floated until the cramp went away. This is a little harder to do with a non-wetsuit swim, as in St. Croix. I’ve tried swimming in different temperature pools but that hasn’t helped. I realize that I do a lot of my swimming after I get off the bike, which won’t be the case in St. Croix, but I’ve had the cramping problem even when the swim was the only workout I’d done that day. I’ve also started taking an electrolyte pill every day with my vitamins, and that has stopped the cramping at night, so I might be on to something. I’ll be taking more electrolytes in St. Croix, and my nutrition will be carefully planned, so I might get lucky. If that doesn’t do the trick, the swim will be … interesting.

 Another relatively minor problem has been my position on my tri bike. Last year I had a professional bike fit done and I had one of the best B2B rides ever. This year I have gradually built up my time riding outside and have taken most of the rides at a comfortable pace, but I did a couple of rides at tempo pace (just below threshold) and after one of them I was in agony for nearly a week – mostly my right shoulder. One observation I’ve made is that although a 90 degree bend in the elbow is generally the most efficient aero position, for me, that’s where I feel the stress on my shoulder. For instance, if I were to do ‘side plank’ (a yoga position), I would have to move my hand ahead of my shoulder, towards my head, rather than directly below my shoulder to be able to hold the pose. Last week I brought the bike to Brian Hughes to make some adjustments and it’s a little more comfortable. As we get older, our bodies change a little bit each year so the bike position that worked last year isn’t necessarily perfect this year. Something to think about. 

So here we are. I had hoped to have the cramping riddle solved by now, but we leave for St. Croix Sunday, April 25 and we will have a week to acclimate. The average daytime temp in St. Croix is 85 degrees and it’s fairly humid, so that will be an adjustment for us. As you may know, the bike course in St. Croix is legendary because of its hills – particularly the first one, nicknamed The Beast. The Beast is so steep that about 50% of the athletes walk up it. I want to take a crack at The Beast before the race, so we will do that on Monday. I hope I won’t have to walk it, but I don’t want to be stupid about it either. This is a triathlon, not a bike race, and I still have more hills on the bike and 13 equally hilly miles on the run after The Beast, so I will pace myself accordingly. By doing a trial run on The Beast Monday, I will have time to rest and recover from any effects that effort has on my legs. We will also, do a little running during the week to get used to the heat and I will swim as much as possible. 

So, I’ve dialed back my expectations for this race. When I originally fell in love with the idea of doing St. Croix, I was young and peaking in my fitness and triathlon skills and I dreamt of spinning up the Beast, handling the hills on the back side of the course and getting off the bike feeling ready to blast through the hilly run. Now I am hoping that Mike has that kind of day and that I can fully enjoy the experience of racing on that very famous course.

For a full report of the race go to St. Croix Half Ironman 2010.

LATEST NEWS: DUXBURY 4TH OF JULY ROAD RACE HIJACKED, OR 'BUSINESS AS USUAL' IN DUXBURY.

In a completely unprecedented move, the Duxbury 4th of July Road Race, which for the past 4 years was put on by Pegasus Elite Athlete Management was the victim of a hostile take-over by the Duxbury Education Foundation with the help of  'senior administration' in Duxbury Town Government. The coup, which was finalized with a permit issued by the Board of Selectmen on February 8th prompted a letter by me sent to the Board of Selectmen and the Town Manager. To date this letter has not been answered.

The move, which has sparked outrage by race directors and event planners across the region has been justified by those who will benefit from this move as a way to "keep the proceeds of this race in Duxbury". Apparently the school children of Duxbury and the 4th of July Committee were deemed charities more worthy than Muscular Dystrophy, Alzheimer's or wounded veterans (problems that DON'T happen in Duxbury?) and the "senior town administration was 'relieved' that DEF had stepped in in our absence" (we hadn't pulled a permit yet).

While there has been a lot of finger pointing and allegations, to date no one has stepped up to take credit for spear-heading the maneuver which we are supposed to believe happened by accident and was completely innocent. And although some members of DEF expressed 'horror' at the way this was handled and hoped that there would be no bad press as a result of the latest actions of an administration that operates behind closed doors, there has been no offer to right the wrong. I was offered an unspecified cut of the race to make me feel better about all this, which I have refused.

Let this be a warning to anyone who has a successful event in the Town of Duxbury that requires a town permit. How does something like happen? In Duxbury, because it can!

(and on a more pleasant note ......) Our Wedding

Mike and I tied the knot on New Year's Eve in front of a small group of friends and family. We had been planning on doing this for a while, but New Year's Eve seemed like the perfect night, especially since it was also a Blue Moon!

  Cait made chocolate Blue Moons for us to serve with the Godiva cupcakes.

Our friend, Chuck Buckley became a Justice of the Peace for our wedding and he performed the ceremony using the vows that we wrote.

Most of our friends were there, and the evening got sillier as it got closer to midnight ....

Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate this most wonderful day of an incredible year!

Hawaii Ironman 2009

Check out the pictures below and I hope they tell at least part of the story of race day. I thought it would be appropriate for MIKE to write the race report, since he's the one who raced, and you can read that at About The Races. Below, please enjoy a few pics. Click on any of the photos to enlarge them. - Beth

It's always so peaceful just before the race begins   4:30 am at the race start in Kona	Time for some quiet reflection before the race begins   Cait just outside T1 in Kona 09	Let's get this thing done   Mike heads to the water to start the race
These people really know how to put on a race   The Navy was a sponsor and several paratroopers dropped from the sky just before the start.	I've always wanted to do that   Mikaela's vantage point at the hot corner	The hot corner is amazing!   It's SO HARD to get these pictures. There are cyclists coming in 4 directions and they are moving so fast. I'd rather cheer than snap pictures, but I need my memories too...
The amazing Chrissie   We watched the race from Lava Java. The run portion is so spectator friendly. Think Lake Placid ... but with palm trees and nice weather.	Cait matches Chrissie's million watt smile   Cait was "this close" to heat stroke, but she smiled through the whole race.	Mike consults with Mikeala and the coach ;-)   As always, Mike is full of good cheer - no matter what!
The finish area in Kona   It's a zoo, but it's SO exciting!	Behind the finish line after the race ....   It get's crazier as the night goes on and it starts to look like the Gettysburg battlefield after a while .....	The happy finisher and his proud coach   There are no words to describe this feeling

 

Kona 2009 Part I

Thought I would write the first part of my Kona Blog today, even though the interesting part of our trip starts tomorrow! But we are holed up in the hotel room for the afternoon, trying to keep cool and off “our” feet, so time for me to slow down and start writing.

We arrived at the outdoor airport in Kona on Saturday, October 3^rd at 5pm Kona time – 11 pm Boston time.  It had been a long flight, but Mike and I had upgraded our seats and the flight was very comfortable. We changed planes in Honolulu, which is where we met up with Cait and Mikaela and all 4 of us flew to Kona together.  As I could have predicted, our bikes did NOT make the flight from Honolulu (small plane) with us,  and we had our first reminder that we were on “Island Time”.

The line grew as one Hawaiian man slowly took everyone’s information about their missing bikes. While Mike and I waited to describe our bike box, Mikaela and Cait got the car and took the first trip to drop off luggage. By the time Mike and I got to the counter, the next plane had landed with Mike’s bike aboard. We made a few stops – groceries etc. – and then got to our beautiful room at the Sheraton Keouhou Bay around 9 pm. We said goodbye to Cait and Mikaela – they had rented a house with some friends about a mile from us in the hills of Kona.

Sunday morning we got up around 6 am and headed downtown so I could race a 5k. I thought, what the heck – must be a pretty light field with all the studs racing Ironman this weekend. As soon as I got to the race start, I saw Heather Fuhr, Paul Huddle, Mitch Thrower and several other retired pros. Fortunately,  there were no retired female pros in the 50-59 age group and I got the win!

After I picked up my winner’s shwag, we all went to the swim start and went for a 30 min swim, then Mike and I saddled up and rode 3 hours on the course. As always, it was hot and windy and Mike rode like an animal. I had rented a sweet Cervelo P3 from Bike Works and I was really impressed with the way it rode. My next bike might just be a Cervelo!  Sunday night Mike and I went down to the beach at our resort and had a picnic dinner. The picture to the right is our view ..........

 

On Monday, Mike and I biked to the swim start for another 30 min swim. Mike had a short run and I had an even shorter one. Then we rode back to our hotel and hung around the pool area. I should mention that our hotel is just past the end of the run turn-around on Alii Drive and it is in a VERY hilly area of town.  So any time we run and ride around here there is a LOT of climbing involved. Add to the fact that the weather is high 80’s every day and you get that an “easy” workout is almost impossible. I did one of my short recovery runs on the treadmill in the air conditioned gym at our resort – otherwise it wouldn’t have been “recovery”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday was more of the same, but this time Mike rode by himself on the Queen K and then met Cait, Mikaela and me at the swim start. Each day gets busier at the swim start – and basically anywhere on the course – so a little hanging out goes a long way! After our workouts, Cait and Mike went to registration at the King K.  Some of you may have heard that Active.com made a “small mistake” and had entered MY name into the race instead of Mike’s, so bib # 576 was assigned to Beth Kenney. We had been assured by everyone connected with the race that it would be taken care of, but Mike still had a pink swim cap in his bag and as he left registration and checked his chip it registered “Beth Kenney”. We will see what happens tomorrow! I might end up with the race of my life!

I forgot to mention that every day since we arrived, Mikaela has been surfing. She ran into “Kona Mike” (a surf instructor she had met last year) at the 5k on Sunday and they have been surfing together every day since. I tried to get a candid picture of them, but K-Mike and his buds noticed my camera and started a "pose-down"!

On Wednesday, Mike, Mikaela and I went snorkeling at Turtle Beach. It’s not really called Turtle Beach. The real name has an H, a K, and L, six vowels and two apostrophes, but we call it Turtle Beach. Cait had meetings with Oakley and Power Bar while we were playing.  Turtle Beach is loaded with all kinds of tropical fish and of course, sea turtles.  Mikaela is very funny when snorkeling – she floats along the top like a water bug – but she was thrilled to finally swim with a sea turtle. Wednesday night Cait and Mikaela went to a Saucony party, and Mike and I wandered around downtown. We had dinner at Lava Java’s (great for any meal), went to Borders to browse through books and came home for an early night.

  

Yesterday after the workouts we went to the expo and hung around while Cait signed autographs at the Triathlete Tent (with Cameron Brown and Luke MacKenzie). This is a really cool expo for anyone who is truly into triathlon. All the famous names in triathlon then and now are here, either giving speeches, signing autographs, or offering last minute tips. Each day we bump into more friends that we know from the mainland as well, many who we only see at triathlon, and also many from Massachusetts. Last night Mike and I got his bike and race bags ready and went over last minute details – especially the nutrition. We piled the bags and bike by the door for check-in the next day.

Today the girls met us at our hotel and Cait and Mike had a carbo load breakfast, while Mikaela and I had normal breakfasts while marveling at Cait and Mike. Mike then went to hang out with the girls while I did a 3 hour ride on the course followed by a 15 min run. I was amazed at how many people who are racing tomorrow were out there hammering on the course. I knew they were racing because they had their numbers on their bikes. Not a strategy I would employ, but to each his own.

The course was still hot and windy but I had a delicious tailwind coming back into town and hammered  away, enjoying one of the last long bike rides I’ll have in summer-like weather this year. I finished my ride at the King K, where Cait and Mike dropped off their bikes and bike bags and took a tour of the transition area. Slowtwitch and Triathlete were taking the usual survey of bikes (I think Cervelo is going to come out on top, with Specialized coming 2^nd).

We are now back at the hotel laying low. Dave DeSantis just flew in. He is racing in Maui on the 25^th, having qualified for XTerra Worlds and is here to watch the Ironman World Championship. He has been texting me each time he sees an Ironman celebrity in town. We have been getting “good luck” texts and emails from all our friends and we are remarking how lucky we all are. I never like to wish any time away, but I can’t wait until tomorrow. Take care and I’ll talk to you all soon.

Until then, Aloha and Mahalo for your good wishes!

Beth

 

 

 

 

____________________________________________________________________

A typical training weekend .....

I happened to have the camera with me one weekend, so I thought I'd pass along a few photos taken during our training  ...

Little Pond This is what our morning swim looks like 3 times a week.

Mike heads out on a 20-miler The final stages of Ironman training can be brutal, but Mike did it all uncomplainingly. You have to love the process if you are going to be successful.

Doesn't everyone's car look like this? Sadly, the back of our car looks like this more often than not. The good news is, if we ever break down in the middle of nowhere, we should be good to go.

Two degrees of separation .... I'm just saying ........

                          Beth with Kevin Livingston (left)

Kevin Livingston with Lance (below)

   

 

B2B 2009

Well, what can you say about B2B? First of all, for the uninitiated, it's a bike ride with 150 miles of climbing that starts at the Harpoon Brewery in Boston and ends at the Harpoon Brewery in Windsor, Vermont. I started to write about the day, but by the time I was done, it would have taken you as long to read it as it did for me to ride it, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves ....

All this will not be enough This is the food Mike and I brought for the ride. Tucker was blown away by how much we had, but we still had to stop for coffee and donuts, Fritos, rootbeer and Twizlers!	Jimmy, Mike and Beth post-ride Odd that you can't take pictures DURING the 150 mile ride ... we must have had both hands on the aerobars, but this is us at the BBQ after. I look pretty serious about that food.	Mike and Beth Mike does a fine job representing the team in his Pegasus shirt. I'm still working on the food.	No relation John Buckley and Chuck Buckley looking pretty mellow at the post-ride barbeque	Did we mention the free Harpoon beer? Neil Withington, Jim Schraeder, and Tucker Withington relax after the bike ride.
These guys go back a long way And I'm not just talking about today's ride. Dan Martin and Tim Walsh have been friends, teammates and training partners for years.	What were YOU doing when you were 25? I know I wasn't riding 150 miles as part of my training. Colleen Shores relaxes after the ride. She brought homemade cookies too! Jill has her back to us.	Don't believe a word of it Dan Martin and Jimmy Bunnell trade war stories	The bus ride home Chuck Buckley, Neil and Tucker Withington are all smiles	Shag holds court Scott Shaunnessy is always entertaining on the ride back. Although you can't see it in this picture, I believe he is showing one of the many ways to open a beer without a bottle opener.

 

 

Weekend in Lake Placid

This weekend was actually a typical summer weekend for me in that it was spent watching clients race, and training with clients.  It started very early (4:30) on Saturday morning when my daughter Mikaela and I headed to the Cape from Duxbury to volunteer at the Hyannis Sprint Triathlon and watch Keryn Murphy and Rachael Desantis race.  The Hyannis Sprint gets nearly 900 athletes and about 850 of them are new to the sport, so it’s always a good check on the state of the sport.  

Even though the water was nearly glass-like, the race director, Rich Havens had shortened the swim to 1/8 mile due to cold water. As everyone in New England knows, we have had a very mild (read: cold) spring and the water temp was probably about 65 degrees. Not everyone who does the Sprint wears a wetsuit and since many are beginners, he was probably concerned about people getting hypothermia.  

Anyway, it was a good chance for Mikaela and I to see athletes we hadn’t seen in a while and Keryn and Rachael had great races and were very happy with the way things went. After the race, I met Mike at the basketball clinic he runs on Saturdays and we headed up to Lake Placid for our annual training weekend. This year Neil and Tucker Withington and Charles Williams were joining us. Lake Placid is a 6-hour drive from Duxbury, but it’s a pretty straight shot, and because Lake Placid is home to 10 year’s worth of happy memories, I never mind the drive. 

We got into town at about 6pm and checked in to the Golden Arrow. I can never get into the Golden Arrow during the Ironman because it’s always sold out well in advance, but we always stay there during our training weekends. The hotel is one of the “greenest” places I’ve ever stayed. One of their roofs is covered with plants,  and the beach is made of crushed limestone, which protects the pH of Mirror Lake.

We had an early dinner with Neil and Tucker and left a message for Charles and then headed off to bed. Neil, Charles and Mike were doing a half marathon in the morning and we wanted to get to bed early.

The Lake Placid Marathon and Half Marathon started at 8 am in front of the Olympic Oval so the 5 of us met in the lobby and walked down the street at 7:30 am. WAAAY more low key than the Boston Marathon! Tucker and I were on our bikes as we planned to bike around the course while Neil, Charles and Mike were racing.

The marathon and half marathon course is essentially the same course that the Ironman marathon is run on, which means there is only one hill, but it’s about 3 miles long! The race starts with a slight uphill and then around Mirror Lake and proceeds downhill for about 3 miles and then flat, flat, flat until mile 10. It’s such a pretty town and there are views of Whiteface Mountain and the Olympic ski jump along the way. The final 3 miles are uphill into town and then up the back way to the oval (the same way you go down on your bike out of T1).

While the runners were running, Tucker and I scooted around the course on our bikes and got some good hill work in. I am an expert at zipping around this course from years of practice, so we got to see our people at the beginning, half-way through the race and at the end. I actually saw Mike at mile 10 as well as I was able to get around quicker than I thought.  The weather was absolutely perfect for running and was just starting to get warm at 10 am, and by then everyone from our group was done. Everyone did great and Mike got a real chance to preview the course he will run in July. Charles has done Lake Placid a couple of times, so he’s an old hand at the course.

After the race we went to Charlie’s for a huge breakfast and then a little relaxation before meeting on the beach to swim in Mirror Lake.  By this point in the day it had really started to get warm (upper 70‘s?) and we knew it was pouring back home, so we were really getting cocky and taking pictures of the brilliant sunshine and thinking we were the luckiest people in the world to be swimming in Mirror Lake. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, the lake is usually smooth as glass and it’s only open to swimming and non-motorized boats. There is a cable that runs the length of the rectangular Ironman swim course (2-loop course) so you virtually never have to sight. Tucker got in the kayak, and the rest of us got into our wetsuits to swim. We all went off in different directions. I decided not to follow the cable and to just shoot off in random directions, since I always swim following the course. After about 20 minutes of swimming fairly close to shore, I decided to swim the course in backwards direction hoping to bump into one of my training partners. As it gets closer and closer to Ironman, more and more people will be swimming in the lake, but on this day there were only two other people besides us.  I bumped into those two, but could only see the kayak at one end and Mike’s arms at the other end of the lake.  We had been swimming about 40 minutes when the sky got dark and the lake actually got a little choppy. It was fun swimming in the chop, but I was a little worried because I couldn’t see where everyone was.  Mike knows that “mother hen” side of me, so he swam quickly over from the other side of the pond, checked in, told me not to worry and took off again. I then saw the kayak and two sets of arms – Neil and Charles, so all was well.  All in all we spent about an hour swimming in the Lake and really tired ourselves out, so by this time a nap was in order. Hey, no one said these training camps aren’t grueling!

After a nice long nap, we met for an early dinner at The Carriage House. This is a place that we found along with Tim Walsh last year when we were up here training. They have a really nice outdoor patio with a view of the lake and patio heaters because it gets cold at night in LP. After dinner we walked back to the room and collapsed into bed after agreeing to meet for breakfast at 7:30 with plans to be on the bike course @ 9 am. 

Morning rolled around and it was back to Charlie’s for breakfast and then out on the bikes to do the entire 2-loop 112-mile course. The course starts with a bit of a climb out of town, and then a really long down-hill before heading east on route 79 towards the town of Jay. When we were driving into town we noticed the condition of the roads was not good, and because the course was open and we’d be in traffic, we had planned on taking the downhill very cautiously. Neil and I let the guys go on ahead of us because they were going to descend faster than us no matter what. Just as we got to the beginning of the long descent, we noticed signs for road closures as they were working on the roads. Only one lane was closed however, so we decided to give it a try. Neil and I ended up getting stopped for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only 10 minutes as the line of traffic coming into town was allowed to pass. While we were waiting we talked to the flag man who told us that they were paving ALL of route 87 (yeah!) and would be done in time for Ironman. We also got to see two bald eagles soaring above us. When it was our turn to go, he let the line of cars go first and then Neil and I. So cool! We had the entire descent without one car as traffic was stopped in the other direction now, waiting for us! On our way down we saw wild turkeys slowly making their way across, and two white tailed deer quickly making their way across.  It’s so hard to describe how beautiful that ride is. We met the guys at the bottom of the hill and took off towards Jay. This is a very flat section of the course and even though this time we had a head wind here, it’s usually quite fast. It was really getting warm as we started to climb out of Jay and towards Hazelton and the out-and-back. For some reason the ride really seemed to be going fast, and we made good time on the out and back too, which was good because at this point we were starting to notice darkening skies again.

 

 We told the guys to head back to town and start their second loop and Neil and I were making plans to take a different route the second time around. Right at the bottom of the final assent into town (the section know as The Bears) it started to sprinkle. By mid-way up The Bears it was raining pretty steadily and we saw cracks of lightening in the distance. Neil was starting to get a little cold although for some reason I was not cold in my cycling singlet. My only concern was that it was white – not a great choice in the pouring rain! Oh, well. 

The rain got heavier and heavier as we continued to climb and now rivers were running down past us and my Oakley’s were working overtime to stay clear. I was hoping that the guys hadn’t made it into town yet and started the gnarly descent in this weather! My plan was to make it safely to the car and go out on the course and fetch them as it was not showing signs of letting up. When we got to the top and the final turn into town we saw the guys standing under the overhang of the roof of a log cabin! They were waiting to make sure we made it safely up the hill and they had wisely scrapped plans for a second loop.

The rain was relentless as we made our way into town and we were riding through nearly pedal deep water if we stayed to the right. We rode as fast as we could back to the hotel and our cars, and got off the bikes just in time for the HAIL to start pounding us. 

 We all sat in our cars with the heat on high, trying to dry off and warm up. When we were dry enough to get out of the wet stuff, we changed clothes, waved good-bye from the safety of our cars and headed out of town.  As much as I love that place, the weather can be crazy and unpredictable! Let’s hope that the unseasonably cool spring gives way to a blazing hot summer and we have nothing but blue sky the next time we are in Lake Placid!