Since our first Ironman together in Lake Placid in 2013, we have returned to the area four more times. We fell in love with Lake Placid so much that we decided that we needed to move away from the beach, and closer to the mountains. Thus, our move to Greenville, SC in May 2014. We also realized that we love challenging and beautiful courses. Some of our favorite courses include Wisconsin, Whistler, Austria and St. George.
In 2015, Karel tore his plantar a few weeks prior to Ironman Lake Placid and intentionally DNF (did not finish) after the bike. In 2017, we returned again for Karel to race, but he had the flu on race week. Somehow, Karel was able to fight through his sickness and get to the finish line (and then the medical tent immediately after). He got a slot to Kona but he let it rolldown. Finally, for redemption, we returned back in 2021 for us both to race......but unfortunantly Karel broke his hand mountain biking two months before the race so he was unable to race.
And then came 2022. Our fifth attempt on this beautiful and challenging course.
While we were both excited to return to Lake Placid for the Ironman, our focus for training and racing slightly shifted over the past year.
Training for an Ironman while also preparing for an off-road triathlon and a 7-day mountainous cycling event forced us to think outside of the box with our training - especially since we were training for events on three different bikes. And since we had three races in 29 days in May (Ironman St. George, IM 70.3 Chattanooga and IM 70.3 Blue Ridge - plus Karel did an 8-hour mountain bike event a week before Ironman St. George) - something that we had never done before - we knew that we couldn't stick with conventional Ironman training. We spent a lot of time on our mountain bikes and road bikes and very little time on our triathlon bikes this year. We "played" outside a lot. We swam, we biked and we ran but the training looked very different to what we had done in years past in preparation for an Ironman. But the one thing that kept us enjoying triathlon racing this season was not specifically training for any one triathlon event. We found joy in training and it was exactly what we needed to keep us enjoying the journey to one last Ironman event. Going into Ironman Lake Placid with a great amount of endurance, strength and resiliency and a lot of prior race experience, we were able to put together one last successful day of racing. I won my age group (40-44) and finished 2nd overall amateur female and Karel was 2nd in his age group and 13th overall amateur male. We both received a slot to the 2022 Ironman World Championship, but let it roll down to another deserving athlete for their chance to participate on the Big Island.
After a combined 35 Ironman triathlons, we decided that now is a great time to put a bookmark in our Ironman training and racing chapter. We will revisit this Ironman chapter again but moving forward, we are excited to turn the page and start a new chapter in our athletic journey. We love triathlon and will not stop swimming, biking and running. But just like we did for Ironman St. George and Ironman Lake Placid, we will take an unconventional approach to triathlon training to help us prepare for new adventures and extreme/ultra-endurance events.
Race report coming soon......
After a combined 35 Ironman triathlons, we decided that now is a great time to put a bookmark in our Ironman training and racing chapter. We will revisit this Ironman chapter again but moving forward, we are excited to turn the page and start a new chapter in our athletic journey. We love triathlon and will not stop swimming, biking and running. But just like we did for Ironman St. George and Ironman Lake Placid, we will take an unconventional approach to triathlon training to help us prepare for new adventures and extreme/ultra-endurance events.
