On Tuesday morning, we left around 7:30am to start our long 15+ hour drive to Lake Placid, NY. My mom and her partner Alan left around the same time and we kept in touch via text/phone throughout the drive. Our goal was to drive as far as we could and then stay the night in a hotel.
The drive on day one went pretty smoothly. We didn’t encounter any traffic and only a little bit of rain. We were entertained by listening/watching the Tour de France on my phone (Peacock) for 5+ hours. I packed a cooler and two bags of food so we didn’t have to make any stops for food. We brought two frozen dinners to “cook” in the microwave at the hotel (I had a veg and grain bowl). I drove for around 3 hours and Karel drove the rest of the way. It was great having Campy with us as he’s a great travel partner (he mostly sleeps). This was Campy’s 3rd time to Lake Placid and we were excited to add more memories to his 14.5 years of life.
Around 7:30pm, we stopped driving for the day and spent the night at Embassy Suites in Parsippany NJ. The next morning, we had a good breakfast at the hotel and then hit the road for the last 4.5 hours of driving. Karel drove the entire way while I ordered ~$500 worth of groceries on Instacart for our team house. We stayed in the same house as last year (on Elm Street, ~.5 mile from the race venue) and we shared the house with 14 other people (it was a big house!). The last 45 minutes of the drive brought back a lot of memories from our last 4 trips to Placid. We still find ourselves loving the nature during the drive from Keene into the village of Lake Placid and always wowing at the Ski Jumps when we start to get close to town.
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We arrived to the house around 12:30pm and the groceries were delivered just as we pulled in. Thankfully we had a big kitchen and two fridges! The athletes started to trickle in over the next few hours. It was great to see everyone as we had a packed house of spectators and athletes racing.
After we unloaded, Karel and I got on our bikes to shake out our legs from 15+ hours in the car. We rode for around 2 hours (38 miles) - down to Wilmington and then did the Haselton out and back and then back up into town. It felt great to smell the fresh air and pine trees and the views reminded us why we love this place. When we got back, my mom and Alan went for a bike ride around the lake and down to River Road and then back up the “bears.” Several of our athletes went for a jog when they arrived, and a few went for a bike ride to shake out the travel.
I made a big dinner for everyone (rice, salad, tofu, hardboiled eggs) and around 9pm we were ready for bed. Campy slept great.
On Thursday, we woke up around 6:00am and Karel slept in until around 7:00am. The weather was unusually warm for Lake Placid, which was different from the past years when we would bundle up and sit outside in the morning. We walked down to the swim start around 7:45am and met up with a few more of our athletes (we had 13 athletes racing). It was so great to be back at Mirror Lake. With flat conditions (no boats), mountain views and a cable running the length of the rectangle swim course (1.2 miles), this is one of my favorite swimming venues. The water was a bit warm this year (74-75) and it felt a bit warm in our wetsuits, especially swimming at 8am. We swam a loop of the course (29 minutes) and then headed to Bluesberry Bakery for the most delicious bakery goods. For the swim, I swam easy going out and then Karel and I waited for our athletes to get to the 2nd turn buoy and then we all swam back to shore by including a few fast strokes and then easy (ex. 10/20/30 strokes fast, then back down w/ easy between).
On Friday morning, it was back to the lake for another swim. My mom took Campy for a 3 mile walk in the morning. Campy was having a great time with everyone and he was on his best behavior. For this swim, I pushed it a bit more to see what it felt like to be uncomfortable in the water to gauge how I wanted to feel for the race. I swam the loop in 28 minutes which felt uncomfortable but doable to hold that effort for 2 loops. After the swim, we had another stop at the bakery and then I went for a 22 minute run around the lake. Our athletes biked the run course. Karel went for a 38 minute run (almost 5 miles).
Friday was pretty chill. We drove to the Horse Grounds to check in for the race and got caught in a downpour. This was the typical mountain weather that we experienced on Thursday – random short showers. Thankfully we were under the tent when the downpour happened and then the sun came out. After we checked in, we went over to the athlete village to get our gear bags and then I did an interview for Ironman Tri Club as this was the TriClub North American Championship. We also received small bottles of maple syrup as tri club members – yum!
In the afternoon, I laid out my gear on my gear bags in the garage and then around 5:15pm, I took Campy for a walk around town. I met up with Kathleen and Morgan who were picking up my pizza order from Bazzi’s for our team party around 5:45pm and got a ride back with 11 delicious smelling pizzas in the car. We had all our athletes and spectators/friends/family over for our traditional pre-race pizza party and then a pre-race motivational chat and group pic. We went to bed around 9pm and tried to sleep in as late as possible. I made it to 6am, Karel slept in until 7:30am.
With one more sleep until race day, the focus on Saturday was to carb-load, shake the body out, and rest. However, Karel spent most of Friday and Saturday working on athlete bikes, including putting on new Tubeless tires on my bike as well as tubeless tires on another athletes bike. He was on his feet a lot.
For food on Saturday, I consumed:
-Bagel w/ PB and yogurt before a 80 min spin w/ a few short hard efforts on River Road followed by a 8 min run. Skratch during the ride and run.
-Glass of milk and 3 pieces French toast, yogurt, bananas, butter, brown sugar and granola.
-Bagel w/ butter.
-Pringles and pretzels.
-Yogurt w/ blueberries and granola.
-Amy’s No chicken chicken noodle soup (with pasta added).
-3 small sweet potatoes and tofu.
-2 brown sugar poptarts (an hour before bed).
We packed up our gear bags and rode down to the oval (transition area) around 12:30pm to check in our bikes and gear bags. With one of the coolest Ironman transition areas (and finish lines) in the Olympic Oval, I found myself nervous and excited to race. We walked back home and laid in bed (and ate) the rest of the day. We watched the PTO women’s race from Edmonton which got us excited to race on Sunday. We went to sleep around 7pm and as usual, it was a somewhat restless night of sleep before the 3:45am alarm. Campy, however, had a fantastic night of sleep!
Race Morning
After waking up at 3:45am, I had a cup of instant coffee and had my typical cinnamon raisin bagel w/ peanut butter, banana, granola and syrup. I had a little yogurt on the side and a glass of water. After eating (which felt like it took forever), I put on my race outfit, did some foam rolling and went for a short jog up and down the street to get the systems going. I was expecting to get my period on race morning but thankfully it held off until Monday (as soon as I woke up the morning after the race). Karel had his typical oatmeal concoction and espresso from his espresso travel machine.
I gave Campy a big kiss and said good-bye to my mom. When she spectates, she has a piece of paper with our predicted times (give or take a few minutes) as well as my suggestions for where to stand for each portion of the race. We left the house around 4:50am and walked to the Oval.
I felt very nervous. Even after 18 Ironmans, I know that the Ironman is a long day and it requires so much mental energy. Plus, having raced her twice before (and just last year), I knew how much this race would hurt. In my opinion, this is one of the hardest race courses (bike and run) as you have to work for every movement forward. There’s very little “free speed” to rest or make up time on the course. Plus, with it being warmer (in the mid 80’s for a high on race day) and no rain predicted on race day, alongside the wind, this race course is very challenging. The good thing is that I was sharing this course with our athletes and we were all racked next to one another. I felt a lot of good energy from them. Plus, we had 5 of our athletes volunteering on the course, which was awesome to see them throughout the day.
After putting our frozen flasks in our run bags and then our nutrition on our bike (fluids), Karel pumped up our tires with his electric pump and then we walked to the swim start. We needed to go to the bathroom again but with the lines being long, around 5:30am Karel and I decided to jog back to the house to use the restroom – which meant one more kiss for campy. We then jogged back just before 6am. For some reason the morning clothes bags were left by our bike and run bags but thankfully, our athletes who were not racing held on to our morning clothes bags so we didn’t have to walk back and forth after changing into our wetsuits.
After putting on our wetsuits, we went into the water for a warm-up swim. It felt good to be in the water (75 degrees, air temp was upper 60’s) to shake out some of the pre-race nerves. I found myself in a really weird mental space as I wasn’t overly excited to race. I think I was most nervous for how much this race would hurt physically and I wasn’t sure if I was prepared to suffer. I was most worried about the marathon as I knew how hard it would be. I found myself feeling waves of emotions as I stood in the corral before the start. I knew this was my last Ironman for a while which made me want to put together a good race but I couldn’t shake the feeling of how much the run would hurt. I found Karel in the sub 60 area near the front of the swim corral and I told him that I was nervous. He told me I have nothing to be nervous about and that I would have a great day. After the pros went off at 6:25 and 6:27, it was time for the age groupers to start rolling in at 6:30am. Shortly after the race start, I lined up just ahead of Karel and with the sound of the beep, I ran into the water to start my 19th Ironman.