Ironman USA Lake Placid: What a fantastic experience!

RACE WEEK PREPARATION:

    We arrived in town on Tuesday night, and first thing Wednesday morning we headed up to Lake Placid to check out the swim course. The swim course is twice around a long skinny rectangle in Mirror Lake, with a short (20 feet) run on the beach between the two laps. We swam once around on Wednesday morning, and it felt pretty long, because the rectangle is so skinny, it's basically just swimming 0.6 miles out and 0.6 miles back. But the really astonishing thing is that there is a line under the water in the lake! They had some sort of a cable stretched out about 6 or 8 feet deep the whole way around the course, so one could just swim on top of the line looking down, without sighting any buoys at all. But I figured there was no way I would be anywhere near the line during the actual race, because there would be so many people, so I tried to practice swimming away from the line. The lake temperature was also very warm, 71 degrees, much warmer than our previous lake swim at Wildflower.

    We picked up our bikes at the bike store and headed over to the expo. All morning I was talking to people and trying to size up the field a little bit (i.e. looking for somebody, anybody, who seemed less fit or more scared than I was!) There were certainly some really hard core, intimidating people, but there were also some who seemed mortal, and even some who seemed a bit less prepared than me.

    On Thursday morning, we biked 42 miles of the bike course (i.e. once around the loop without the 14 mile out-and-back on Haselton road). The first 10 miles are rolling, with a couple of good climbs. Then the next 5 miles are straight downhill, a 1000 foot descent, which apparently gets people going up to 60 mph! I had heard lots about this descent, and I was pretty terrified of it. But turns out it just wasn't that steep, and the turns were very wide compared to Berkeley hills. Without pedaling or braking much, I maxed out at 37 mph, which was almost disappointingly slow. After the descent into Keene, there's about 10 miles of pretty flat (slight rolling) into Jay, then uphill 3 miles into Wilmington. Then there's that spur onto Haselton Road, which we skipped that day, then about 13 miles back uphill into Lake Placid. I was also pretty worried about that 13 miles of uphill, but it also turned out to be not so bad. It was so gradual, and there were little downhill breaks the whole way. Overall, I was much less daunted by the course after riding it on Thursday.

    We also registered on Thursday afternoon. It was a pretty long process. They checked about 6 times to make sure that my drivers license matched my face and the name matched my registration name (which unfortunately it didn't, because I'd changed my name since I registered). So I had to go to the problem table a whole lot of times… they are extremely careful to make sure nobody is racing under somebody else's name.

    On Friday morning, we just went running (slowly) about 8 miles on dirt roads (not on the course). I hadn't run since Monday, which felt like a long time, so I thought I'd better get one last run in so that my body didn't forget how. Friday night was the pasta dinner. Again I enjoyed talking to all the different people. I think half the athletes were wearing either Wildflower T-shirts or Boston Marathon gear. I guess everybody is a little daunted, so they want to wear the most hard-core clothing they own.

    All week, we'd been trying to get on a good sleep schedule, going to bed around 9pm and getting up around 6am. But we had lots of catching up to do from some work-induced sleep deprivation over the last month, so we ended up sleeping late on Saturday morning, about 11 hours, until 8am!

    When we finally got up on Saturday morning, I wanted to get moving (to burn off some nervous energy) but I didn't want to do any pounding, so I swam once around the swim course again. This time it seemed a little quicker, maybe because there were more people on the course.

    On Saturday afternoon, we packed all our bags: swim-to-bike, bike-special-needs, bike-to-run, run-special-needs, and dry-clothes. The special needs bags are for the halfway points on the course, and we put things in like a spare tube, ibuprofen, tums, band-aides, sunblock, and snickers bars. We also put our numbers on all our gear (helmet, bike, front and back of shirt). Then I carefully taped 12 cliff shots to the top tube of my bike. I trimmed the edges as close as I could so I could minimize the chance of rubbing them with my knees, to avoid chafing. I cut the litter-leashes, and I checked to make sure the cuts in the sides were at the right places, so they would rip open easily (I had to make some more cuts). Finally, we brought all our gear up to Lake Placid and checked it all in to the transition area.

    We attended the mandatory race meeting, and heard a lot of talk about drafting. I was pretty scared about drafting, because I certainly wouldn't do it intentionally, but 3 bike lengths is a pretty long distance, and I'm sure I get closer than that when everybody is going up hill slowly. Somebody had told me that the course marshals were very anal and called drafting even when people were going too slow to benefit. The last thing I wanted to do was get disqualified for something that wasn't giving me an advantage anyhow! It seemed that a lot of people had exactly the same concerns, and the race director was getting a bit fed up with people's detailed questions "what if I'm going 7 mph, and I'm behind for 14 seconds, then I drop back…?" (After all this questioning, and all the threats by the race marshals that they were going to call every single infraction, it turned out to not be a big deal. I saw the course marshals a few times, but it was pretty easy to be careful while they were around.)

    We noticed that one of the churches in town had a sign out front saying "Blessing of athletes, 5pm" so we walked over to the service after the race meeting. I was surprised, there were about 30-40 athletes there. It was a very nice service, and very calming to remember to be grateful for our healthy bodies that allowed us to undertake this crazy adventure, instead of being terrified that we wouldn't go fast enough or whatever. The pastor gave out little wooden crosses to each athlete there. I decided to try to carry mine with me through the race to remind me to be grateful and smile a lot.

    The service was pretty long, and we stopped to get an extra pair of goggles on the way home, so we didn't get back for dinner until after 7pm. We practically inhaled about a pound of pasta, we laid out our stuff for the morning, and we went straight to bed.

    We got in bed around 8:30, and set the alarm for 3:45, figuring that 7 hours of sleep would be fine. But we lay there… and lay there… and tossed… and turned… and thought about the race… and thought about the race some more… It turns out that if you sleep 11 hours then don't exercise very much, your body just doesn't think it needs to sleep. I finally drifted off around 10pm, but was up for another hour and a half in the middle of the night when I woke up to go to the bathroom. Daniel and I probably totalled about 8 hours of sleep together. But we were so keyed up with adrenaline, it didn't seem to matter. I talked to another girl in the transition area before the start who said she'd only been able to sleep 2 hours.

RACE DAY:

    We got to the transition area around 5:30am, and made sure our bags were packed, checked on our bikes, put water bottles in our bikes, etc. We put on our wetsuit bottoms, and took our special needs bags, and walked down to the lake. We dropped of our bags, did our last minute port-o-potty runs, and put on our wetsuits. I was so nervous… I'm still so nervous just thinking about how scared I was right before the start! We got in the water with about 5 minutes to go. The water was warm, 72 degrees, so it wasn't too hard to hang out in the water before starting. We noticed another man there wearing jean shorts and a belt! No wetsuit or anything, just jean shorts! Crazy! With 2 minutes to go, I moved forward into the dense pack of people nearer the line. A helicopter was flying very low overhead, and the announcer was saying all sorts of last minute things which I can't remember. Then the gun went, and we were off.

    Edward was watching from the side, and he said he could hear the roar of people swimming like a waterfall or a rushing river! The women were wearing blue caps and the men were wearing green. I realized that there were very few blue caps around me. I knew the race was over 80% men (which surprised me) and I guess many of the women were being more timid and hanging back away from the fray. I'm not a fast swimmer, but I'm pretty strong and confident, so I decided to swim aggressively and stay in the fray. I got kicked a little bit, but I certainly bumped some other people too. Since I was surrounded entirely by men who probably outweighed me by at least 50 lbs, I didn't feel bad being aggressive, and I had a really fun time! Once I got kicked hard enough to knock my goggles off, but I just popped up and put them back on again, and it wasn't a big deal. The first lap seemed to go very fast. I guess the drafting really helped, because it only took me 36 minutes, much faster than my two solo swims around earlier in the week. But the pack was thinned out a lot on the second lap, and I guess I was a little cocky about my fast first lap, because I didn't pay enough attention to trying to draft on my second lap. It ended up being much slower, 40 minutes around. Still, I was thrilled with a 1:16 swim! Two years ago, I couldn't even swim two consecutive laps of the pool, and one year ago, I was still struggling to keep up in the 2:00 lane at the masters swim classes.

    As I came out of the water, a bit bleary-eyed, I didn't know what to expect at all from the wetsuit strippers. Two big men ran at me, yelling "GET DOWN!" So I sat down, and they yanked my wetsuit, bumping me along on my butt until the thing came off. What fun! That was certainly one of the highlights of the event! They handed me back my wetsuit, and I ran towards the transition area. I still had my swim hat on, and I really wish I had remembered to take it off, because the photographers were right there, and I looked pretty silly in all the photos with my swim cap on… I looked sort of bald, and my head was too small for my body. Oh well.

    The transition area was about 2 blocks away, and the roads had been carpeted so it was no problem to run barefoot. Virgil & Verena were waiting along the way, and they had a sign saying "Go Jenny!" which was very cool to see. My transition was really slow. I felt like I was moving in slow motion, I couldn't find the door to the women's change tent, I couldn't get my shirt on or my socks on, I couldn't fit all my stuff back into my bag, I didn't know where to put my bag, and it took me a while to find a volunteer to put sunblock on me. But I got out eventually (9 minutes) and ran towards the bikes. A volunteer grabbed my bike off the rack and handed it to me, and I ran to the exit and got on the bike.

    The first little bit was downhill, with tons of fans, so it felt good to be on the bike. The hills out of town didn't seem as bad as they had been even a few days before, riding the course with Daniel. I was having fun. I ate my first Ironman bar, and looked at my watch to start off my 100-calories-every-20-minutes eating schedule. About 10 miles into the bike I beheld a strange sight: one of those old-fashioned bikes with the high handlebars, and a high bar at the back with a little license plate that said "RETRO". It was our friend in the jean shorts! As I passed him, I notice 2 things: (1) he had beaten me on the swim, in his jean shorts and belt, and (2) he was still wearing jean shorts and riding on a bike with ONE SINGLE GEAR! Wow! And this was a pretty hilly course.

    Then it was time for the big downhill. This time I tried a little harder to pedal into it, and get going as fast as I could. It was fun, not scary! My bike computer maxed out at 45 mph this time, a record speed for me! I passed some people, but there were some people whizzing by me too. I didn't have aerobars, and I probably didn't have the highest gears out there. At the bottom of the hill, there's a sharp left turn, then 3 miles flat to an aide station where my brother and sister were volunteering. I recognized a bunch of their friends at the aide station, and I got a lot of loud cheers as I went through, which felt good.

    Whoever #191 was, he had the best signs up! There were plenty of good signs out along the road for lots of people, but #191's family was the most creative. They had made the bike course into a Lord of the Rings quest, with signs saying "the quest begins", "Frodo, get off the road!", at the bottom of a big hill: "O Elbereth Gilthoniel", and nearing the end of the course: "Why did the ring have to come to me?" I was very entertained.

    My seat was starting to get pretty uncomfortable, but I was mostly doing ok for the next 20 miles or so. I passed Daniel on the out-and-back on Haselton Road, I guess I was still about 5 miles ahead of him. I saw one bad crash at the bottom of a hill on Haselton Road: looked like a man and woman got tangled up or something. There was an ambulance there, and two twisted up bikes.

    The last 14 miles uphill into Lake Placid weren't too much fun. It was hot, my feet were killing me, my seat was giving me chafing,… My bike computer had died right after the first big downhill (I guess I must have knocked the magnet out of line) so I didn't even have that to focus on and keep me entertained. I was pretty apprehensive about the idea of doing the whole 56 miles again. But I made it back to the special needs. I had promised myself that I could get off my bike and stretch at the special needs, but I sort of forgot to clip out... so I ended up falling over right in the middle of all the volunteers and bags. How embarrassing! Several volunteers rushed over and asked me if I was ok and tried to make me sit down. I actually felt fine, I just was a bit tired and forgot to clip out. But I did sit down, and I took off my shoes, rubbed my feet, and stretched for a while. Then I went over to use the port-o-potties. I probably spent at least 10 minutes in that area. But finally I got back on my bike, not relishing the idea of the second lap. But immediately I felt better. My seat didn't hurt, my feet didn't hurt. Those 10 minutes were so worthwhile! There was about a mile right through the center of town, and I felt energetic, people were cheering, and I thought maybe the second lap won't be so bad after all.

    As I was leaving town, it was really starting to rain. Not great timing, considering the big hill coming up, but it felt really good to cool things off. I was still on my eating plan: half a bar, other half of a bar, gel, gel, repeat, every 20 minutes. I was taking gatorade at every other aide station, and water at every other aide station, and making sure I drank the whole thing before the next aide station. I felt good. The big hill was still a lot of fun, even in the rain. I don't know how fast I went, because the bike computer was not working, but it wasn't quite as fast as the first time around, because of the rain. Some people were taking it really cautious, and I passed a lot of people (mostly women) braking hard the whole way down. But I felt in control. At the bottom of the hill, my family was waiting at the corner, and they yelled and held up signs. Apparently they had other family friends there to cheer for me too, but I only saw my parents and my brother. Three miles later was the aide station where my sister and her friends were, and they all cheered loudly again. It was still raining and cool, and I felt good and confident.

    But shortly after that aide station, I started to fall apart a bit. The rain stopped, it warmed up dramatically, my feet started to hurt, I had to go to the bathroom, my shoulders were tired from holding myself up without aerobars… I vowed I would stop to use the port-o-potty at the next aide station. But when I got there, there was obviously a line, and I didn't want to wait, so I kept going, thinking I could certainly stop in the woods on Haselton Road. But I had to pee too badly, and I didn't think I would make it. There were too many houses to pee before I got there. So I looked around behind me and didn't see anyone, so I decided to go for it while still on the bike! (In three years of rowing, I never managed to make myself pee in the boat (I certainly did try!) This had been particularly disappointing, because everybody else could achieve this, and at the end of the day when we picked up the boat and carried it overhead, everybody else's pee but mine would come dribbling down on our heads.) But finally, at Ironman Lake Placid, I overcame my peeing obstacles and managed to pee on the bike. But I did have to stop pedaling, so I guess I slowed down, and even though I had looked behind me to make sure nobody was right there, my slowdown gave #261 the opportunity to catch up. I was mortified! I probably sprayed him! I determined that I had to stay ahead of him for the rest of the race to avoid eye contact.

    Out on Haselton Road, I was really slowing down. I decided to get off the bike and stretch again, remembering how much it had helped in the special needs area. I took a couple of minutes, but it didn't really help. I was just sore and uncomfortable, and my feet were killing me. I don't think I was particularly tired, I was just so so uncomfortable! I passed Daniel again (this time he was about 5 miles ahead of me, so he must have passed me at special needs without my seeing). The last 14 miles of the bike were pretty brutally slow… everybody was passing me. I stopped pedaling on the downhills because my feet hurt so much. I was just slogging along at about 60 rpm even on the easy flat sections. I ran out of gels, and couldn't quite stomach my last bar, so I didn't eat for the last 40 minutes of the bike… but that was probably a good thing with the run coming up. Somebody passed me near the end, and she said "It's got to be over eventually... we just can't be out here forever..."

    Finally, finally, I pulled into the transition area, and this time I remembered to clip out. A volunteer took my bike, another one handed me my bag, and I ran into the women's change tent. A girl took my arm, put me in a chair, and said "what can I do to help?" She was so nice! I changed my shoes while she put sunscreen all over me. Then I was out the door again. This transition felt much better then the first one.

    During the last 20 miles of the bike, I had been promising myself that I could walk the first mile of the run. But the first little bit was downhill, there were many spectators, and I saw Verena & Virgil right away cheering. I felt so good that I ran the whole first mile around 9 minute pace. I just kept going at that pace, amazed at how good I was feeling! Many people were walking, but I didn't feel tired at all. The sun was out and it was warm, but I had a lot of energy, I had a permanent smile on my face, I was so glad to be done with the bike. I had to stop and use the port-o-potty again (this time to take care of some more serious business) but after that I felt great. I wasn't sure whether I should be drinking water or gatorade at this point, or what I should be eating. I had thought so hard about what to eat on the bike, but I hadn't given the marathon very much thought. I decided to eat one gel an hour, just like a regular marathon. And I finally settled into a drinking routine: evaluate how my tummy is feeling (a slight bit queasy) and evaluate how my head is feeling (a little bit light-headed). If my tummy is more queasy than my head is light-headed, then drink water. If my head is more light-headed than my tummy is queasy then drink gatorade. This seemed to work pretty well, and it turned out to pretty much alternate between water and gatorade.

    My parents were waiting at a corner about 4 miles into the run. I was surprised and glad to see them there, as I thought they would head directly from the bike course to the finish line. I had forgotten to take my bike gloves off at the transition, but I didn't want to lose them so I had been carrying them. But when I saw my parents, I threw the gloves at them.

    I had a great first half-marathon, 1:56 overall (not including the 4 min to go to the port-o-potty once). I even ran up the two big hills into town. I was passing everybody. I was amazed at how good I felt. I didn't need my run special needs bag. It was a real thrill to run through town again with everybody cheering. Around mile 16, I started to slow down a bit, and walk about 100 feet past the aide stations. But I was still happy. The next few miles did seem a bit longer, and around mile 22 I started to really fade. My knees were doing that almost-buckling thing, and once I thought I might puke. I thought to myself "How much would it suck if I fell over or puked here, so close to the finish line?" So I slowed down and walked a bit. I walked up the two big hills this time. But I kept running. I walked some more between 24.5 and 25. But around mile 25, a man was walking a few hundred feet with me, and as he began to run again, he said "come on, you've looked so strong for the last 10 miles, have a strong last mile". So I started to run with him, and I ended up going pretty fast, probably 8 minute pace for the last mile. I was almost disappointed that I couldn't find that energy a bit sooner. But I was so happy with the run overall.

    Coming into the track, I passed a few people and managed a decent sprint finish. I was right behind another man, and I realized I wouldn't be able to quite catch him, so I slowed a few steps before the finish line to make sure I got my own finish photo. I was still too close to get my own finish tape, but I was so happy to be done! "Jennifer Hoffman, you're an ironman!" said the announcer. Volunteers grabbed me to make sure I didn't fall, and somebody took off my chip and somebody else gave me a silver blanket and a medal. I saw my brother and sister just on the right, and Daniel was there in the finish chute too, so we paused for another photo together. Then began the process of refueling (chicken broth and pretzels, and finally forcing down some pizza). We also went in and got free massages. Usually I'm a bit squeamish about this kind of thing, but it was really fantastic, and the volunteers giving the massages were so wonderful!

    What a fantastic experience! A week later, I'm still on a bit of a high from the race. I would love to do it again some day. But the one thing I learned is that I have to take the bike more seriously. My bike just wasn't set up well for a long ride: bad shoes, bad seat, no aerobars... I hadn't put in the time to anticipate how much those things would bother me over a long ride. I know now that if I decide to do an ironman again, I will have to spend the time and money to fix all those problems. I know I won't have that kind of time in the next year. So, as sad as it makes me to watch the race registration fill up without me, I'm not going to sign up for next year. I hope I can still be there as a volunteer and share the experience, and help some other athletes have as good a time as I had this year. But it'll be a few years before I try something like that again myself.