Lake Placid Recon

Around 1 on Friday, Dan, Jeremy and I headed up to Lake Placid for the Fireman Ironman Training Camp weekend. We got in around 6, checked out Mirror Lake and checked in to the Northway Motel. It was like the Four Seasons of Lake Placid. Saturday morning, we got up early to meet the campers in the Olympic Oval to start the ride. We also met up with Joe who got in late the night before. The IMLP bike course has always scared me so I was terrified to ride. The 20 minute talk beforehand about the "7 mile downhill where you can hit 50 mph" and the "you don't want to crash or you will die" warning didn't help the situation. I left to go out on the course not feeling confident. The bike course was awesome once I got myself started. The course profile on ironman.com makes it seem like you climb a steep mountain twice, but in reality, the climbs are ladder type climbs long but not so steep. I sat back and spun up the hills. The downhill was insane, in a good way. I didn't have my computer on, thank god. I don't want to know how fast I went down that hill.

It started to pour a few miles into my second loop and I made the call not to ride it in the rain. It's not my race, it was a training weekend and I couldn't face that mountain again in the rain. I was disappointed but OK with it. I went back to the hotel, picked up my wetsuit and swam what I thought was the Ironman course. I did one loop, got out, checked my time. 59 minutes for one loop. Hum...Then some girl tells me I did a 2 mile canoe course and not the IM course. So not a bad time!

Dan and Jeremy killed 112 miles and then ran after. I think Dan rode the course in 5:40. The man is a machine and is going to kill IMLP. Then we lounged outside of our 4 star cabin room at the Northway in some lawn chairs.

Sunday morning, we got up and swam the real Ironman course with the Fireman campers. There were about 75 of us out there swimming. I did the 2 loops in 1:25, ten minutes faster than Wisconsin. We'll see how I do at KY. Mirror Lake is gorgeous, flat and you can see the bottom and the famous cord that connects all the buoys. There's no need to sight if you can stay with the cord.

After the swim, Jeremy and Dan ate breakfast burritos (smart) and we went to a Chi Running Clinic by Sherru Fraiser, a million time Ironman from Canada. She gave some great tips for running up the hills on the run course and I really tried to think about them. Then we headed out for about 16 miles. 13 of the actual run course and 3 miles to get there and back. For all the talk of the LP bike course, I think its the run course that is the killer. It's soul destroying and hard. Tons of hills, and a windy, rolling out and back where I'm sure there will be no spectators at 9 PM. The hills back into town are just brutal.

The weekend ruled. I would reccomend that camp to anyone doing IMLP. It was low-key but organized. They had great sponsors, tons of aid and lots of booze after a hard day of training!