IRONMAN Lake Placid

It's been a little over a week since IMLP began and ended.  I've talked about it with multiple people, and have no idea how to put it in words, on the internet, forever.  This journey started over a year ago when I sat, laid down, napped, drank coffee, ate breakfast and waited in line for a few hours to sign up for 2012.  It's amazing how many people volunteer in an IM, and then how many do it so they can register for the following year.  So, I paid the fee, and in a blink of an eye, my life would be different.  The day after IMLP 2011, a friend of Steve's sent him a link to this blog entry.  There we have it, the reason why I decided to go with QT2. 

Fast forward to the first week of September and I was starting the training with them.  At the time it was for a marathon and 10 miler.  The official LP training began on October 30.  That's right, 9 months of early wake ups, late dinners, trying to squeeze in at least 8 hours of sleep, work and other obligations that come with life. 

I had my last sip of coffee on October 29, I didn't even have a full cup, just one last sip.  Talk about sad!  Early mornings in the pool, on the trainer and the road were in full swing.  Doing some funky looking swim drills that would make the elderly woman doing the side stroke look like Olympic swimmers.  They were pretty boring, but once Steve and I had a swim analysis done by the wizard, we knew why we had to do them.  So on they went!  There were 12 weeks of base training, slow paces and heavy lifting in the gym.  I saw plenty of sun rises and saw plenty of sun sets.  There are times in the middle of winter at 5 am sitting on the trainer where you get so frustrated because you can't really see if you're getting better, can you feel it?  Not really.  My runs felt painfully slow, there were a few times I would come back from a run in tears, frustrated and angry with my results.  Thankfully Steve was there.  Training for an ironman is not easy, and you cannot do it on your own. You need support from the ones closest to you.  Steve and I have that with each other, always there keeping the other one positive when they were struggling.  I know I could not have stayed with it, if Steve was not there. 

I've already talked about the races that happened before Placid, so I won't get into them again, but I was finally seeing results!

So, fast forward to race week.  That year literally flew by when I look back on it. Oh man, it was almost time for pancakes!  We arrived on early Thursday afternoon, picked up our race swag and checked in!

Part of the check in process at an IM is the weigh in, eww, really?  In the afternoon after we just ate lunch, and fully clothed!  I was 4 lbs heavier than I was before we left 5 hours earlier.  Oh well, just go with it, I guess! 

We walked down to the expo and ran into Tim and Cait, where Cait was getting ready to head out for a bike ride and Tim was with his mountain bike sampling all the foods!  They had delicious kettle popcorn!  We even walked by a tent that was serving BBQ that smelled amazing.  We had none. 

Off to the condo which was a little over a mile from transition, perfect spot.  Close enough to transition but far away enough from all the craziness.  Plus, we had this gorgeous view of Lake Placid.

Friday came and gone, and it was already Saturday.  The day before my first IRONMAN, holy crap.  That's really all I can say.  I wasn't nervous yet, it was more of a oh my gosh, this is it, the last day before an epic day.  Ahhh!  We drove to the Crown Plaza to grab the most important meal of the day, breakfast.  Pancakes, white toast, home fries, eggs, pancakes, home fries and more pancakes.  It was delicious, and we were full!  The Wizard gave a great talk on the IMLP course, you can swim INSIDE the lines in this race, oh boy, that had me excited as I'm a right side breather and in Placid, you can see the cable line from the buoys, so sighting would be less difficult!  You'll see how much that came into play a bit later.  We headed back to the condo to prep our transition bags to bring with us as we checked in our bikes.  After an hour of doing that, since we doubled and triple checked EVERYTHING, we checked in our bikes, and that was it.  The only thing left to do was to snack on pretzels, stay hydrated and keep our feet up.  With that on the agenda, we watched 3 Lifetime movies, all pretty good none the less!  Bed time came, and I maybe got about 5 hours of sleep.

Race morning: here we go, the nerves I had been waiting for.  I felt like I wanted to throw up, legit, throw up.  I was taking deep breaths all morning.  At 3:30 am, we ate our breakfast.  For those of you wondering what you eat the morning of a long distance race, well at QT2 we eat apple sauce (all designated amounts depending on weight), one banana, one scoop of whey protein and one bottle of Perform.  About 20 minutes later after getting it all down, all I could do was sit and wait, and be nervous.  Thankfully I had races earlier in the season where this breakfast was also on the agenda so it wasn't that hard to put it down, it gets a little easier each time.  Off to transition we went, and I threw my nutrition for the day in my fuel belt box, filled up my bottles, and put some blocks in my run bag and pumped my tires.  Well, that was it, the only thing left was to start the race. 

My brother took this amazing photo of the swim start

The minutes leading up to the swim went by so fast.  This video is pretty epic.

There's nothing like the 2.4 miles of an IM swim.  Well, 2.7 if you swam it like me!  The first loop went pretty well considering all the mayhem. After swimming over a few people, who were not realistic with their swim times, I finally had some clear water at about 800 meters.  I glanced at my watch at the beginning of the first turnaround and said, awesome.  Almost 3 minutes later, I was finally getting around that turn.  I got stuck between a few men, one on my right, that was a rather large dude, and all of a sudden started doing the breast stroke.  Not the breast stroke that's done in the Olympics either, the old fashion one everyone else does when they get tired.  Needless to say, I got kicked and punched multiple times!  He saw my pink cap and just kept doing it.  Lame.  Got to shore, ran up on the beach and headed out for the second loop. I wanted to then get inside the line, but saw how far it was and all the people there and said eff that, so I stayed to the right.  There went my dreams of seeing the cable line for 1.2 miles and having a more comfortable swim. Instead I got so far right, and I mean SO FAR RIGHT, I was almost on the shore at the second turn around.  Seriously, Melissa?  What is wrong with you!  2.4 miles was over and I swam 2 minutes slower than I had planned, but seeing how I swam .3 miles further, I was ok with that.  I was not going to get frustrated with myself.  Mike Reilly said one thing that morning that I kept in my head all day.  The only thing you can control on race day is your attitude (at QT2 we also control nutrition), but your attitude is number 1.  I stayed positive the entire day, with one little exception on the bike.

On to the bike.  According to my watch, the run from the swim exit to the bike is .41 miles.  Good times!  I ran to transition, grabbed my bag and threw on my helmet, shoes, race belt and a superb volunteer shoved my power bars into my back pockets!  Then I ran and got my bike, as much as I yelled my number and heard someone yell it into a megaphone, no one grabbed it for me.  Oh awesome, the bikes were so jam packed here, I yanked it out and probably scratched mine and the other girls bikes next to me, but whatever.  It took what felt like to be 5 minutes to snap my watch onto my bike, and someone was yelling GO QT2, GO GO GO.  Finally, my watch snapped on.  Off on the 112 miles of the bike!  I got ahead on my fluids as instructed sucking down 2 bottles in 45 minutes.  Ate all my nutrition, peed on myself.  I came back into town after the first loop and saw my mom, younger brother and his girlfriend Jess.  I was feeling pretty good despite my ridiculously slow time.  I knew it would be slow, and it was the same time as it was a month earlier at camp.  Oh well!  Off on the second loop, was feeling really good.  I peed some more on myself, which will happen after 14 bottles of Perform.  The last 10 miles heading back are uphill, not too steep, but a relentless climb.  The second loop there was a glorious headwind to go with that.  The last 5 miles were pretty awful.  I wanted it to be over, I was pushing hard but with the headwind I felt like I was going nowhere.  At every aid station I was also grabbing a bottle of water and putting it on my head, which helped tremendously as I get pretty hot easily.  The weather that day was unexpectedly hot!  High 80's with heat index in the 90's and pure sun!  On the bike I saw what looked like a rain cloud and got all excited, but it didn't even come close the Placid.

Finally, after a long bike ride and the exact same time as it was in camp (frustrating!), I was on to the run!  I tore my shoes off, helmet and threw my run sneakers on.  Again, I had a splendid volunteer, and actually two of them this time that were taking my things out and handing them to me.  I asked one girl to squirt my water bottle on my head as I was getting ready.  This water bottle was solid ice in the morning, it was now luke warm.   I ran out of transistion eating my banana and grabbed some ice water and threw it on my head.  There I saw Tim who was yelling at me like a mad fool!  That was nice to hear and see.  I had scheduled walk breaks at each aid station, which were every mile.  Some might think, well that's pretty weak of you.  Not really, it sets you up for a more enjoyable 26.2 miles.  I stopped at a port-o-potty after mile 5 and made a quick stop, my paces were actually pretty decent given that I was speed walking every mile through the aid stations.  I saw Steve a total of 3 times, twice we stopped, gave each some words of encouragement and a quick kiss.  At Placid, the run is also two loops, so you can hear the crowds with about 6 miles to go back into town, and it's pretty amazing.  There's no other word to describe it.  Coming back on the climb, the QT2 people were set up where they again were cheering like crazy people.  If you saw this, you would probably think they should be checked into a mental health care facility, but it works wonders for racers on race day.  WONDERS!  I saw my family again coming in and heading out of town.  Headed out of town, was feeling pretty good.  Then at mile 17, you hit that wall.  The dreaded I'm running a marathon wall, but it's even more so in an IM.  It's at this moment where you have to dig deep and fight through the physical and mental pain and get to that finish line.  It's at this moment, where you begin to rely on all your training, those long days, the run/bike/runs, etc.  Here is where you can become an IRONMAN.  Miles 17-23 were pretty ugly, I saw people puking on the course.  I turned away as fast as I could, because seeing other people puke, only brings me to puke.  Sick.  Again, with 6 miles to go, you can hear the crowds, you can even hear Mike Reilly saying to people, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN.  Somehow, this picks you up and you realize, wow, I can do this.  So many emotions go through your mind as you turn to make the long climb back into town.  Once you get back into town, I saw Cait yell GO MELISSA, YOU'RE GOING TO BE AN IRONMAN.  I smiled, big time.  I smiled the remaining 3 miles and picked up my pace and ran that sucker all the way home.  Once you get into the Olympic Speed Skating oval, the music and crowds are SO loud, you can't even hear yourself.  I sadly did not hear Mike Reilly tell me I'm an IRONMAN, but I finished, so I know I am! 

Finishing an IRONMAN is the absolute most amazing feeling I have ever experienced.  There is nothing like it on earth.  Nothing.  I saw Steve and since he was a finisher they let him back in and we hugged, cried, hugged some more.  I saw my mom, who was crying as well.  My younger brother Alex came at some point later, and we hugged.  After a slice of pizza and a chocolate milk, we grabbed our stuff and headed back to the condo.  If you ever get to experience being a spectator at an IM, do it, there is nothing like the finish line at an IM.  It will probably make you sign up for the following year!

2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run.  I'm an IRONMAN and I cannot wait until next year to do another one!

Steve had a PR on the day, I was so happy for him!  We did this journey together!