The Season Finale: Lake Placid 70.3 Pre-Amble & Swim

Late season racing in the Northern Hemisphere is almost always gamble in terms of weather.  I find a lot of it depends on the type of summer that it's been.  This particular summer saw below average temperatures and lot of rain.  We had a lovely last week of August in Toronto so I was hopeful we'd have another last ditch run of summer.   Stalking the Lake Placid weather forecast the week leading up to the race told another story.  There was a lot of rain in the days leading up to the race, which isn't totally abnormal for Lake Placid.  It's in the mountains so rain comes and goes.  But the temperatures were dropping by the day.  Having been to Lake Placid before, I knew that you had to be prepared for any kind of weather.  So I made sure I packed accordingly.   The race day forecast was saying that it was going to be 4 degrees celsius race morning and 6 degrees by the time we were going to be on the bike.  As I mentioned in my last post, I was a little worried about how the cold was going to affect me.  I just made sure I had all the layers, from my leg warmers to my rain jacket and full fingered gloves.   The bases were all covered.

We left Toronto at 5:30 am to start the drive.  It's always nice to be on the road that early.  There isn't a lot of traffic and you get to watch the sun come up.  

We hit a few patches of traffic but nothing too bad and we were making really good time until we got to Cornwall.  The highway was closed for construction and the traffic was being diverted to Highway 2.  This ended up adding an hour to our travel time so we didn't roll into Lake Placid until 12:30.  We drove straight to the townhouse we had rented, unloaded the car and then drove into town to pick up our race kits.  It was chilly and windy out and I was quickly becoming disinterested in the swim I had planned.  

We checked in and picked up our kits fairly quickly.   I ran into Irina and got the best hug as per usual.  Registration seemed a little chaotic but I think it's because it had just opened.  We took our bags back to the car and then went off to the expo.  I had been messaging with Keith, one of my athletes who was racing and we had planned to meet up at the 3:00 pm race briefing.  We knew a bunch of people racing and as we walked towards the athletes village, we ran into half of them.  It was the Toronto Triathlon Crew.  We chatted with them for a bit and then I spied Keith and his wife Grace.  I ran over to them and hugged them both and then we went into the chaos that is the Ironman apparel tent.  My goal was to get another pair of Roka goggles, clear ones for the pool so that's what I did first.  I got the only clear pair left.  We then navigated our way through the crowds and checked out the gear.  There wasn't really anything I liked except for a black hoodie with the race logo on the front and the participants names on the back.  Except that they WEREN'T the participants of THIS particular race.  OOPS.  I still bought the hoodie because the price was actually really good compared to the same hoodie with just the Ironman branding on it.  I don't really care if my name is on the item or not.

After our shopping trip we grabbed a bite to eat and went to the pre-race briefing where we met up with Keith and Grace again.  Post briefing we chatted a bit about how they were feeling and I went over race prep with Keith.  The weather was going to be cold.  Period.  So I wanted to make sure he was prepared.   They went off to meet up with their family and G and I went grocery shopping which ended up causing me to miss out on the TTC group pic but about 10 minutes.  Gah.

We unloaded the groceries, unpacked our bags and got settled.  The place we rented was HUGE.  it had 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.  We could have easily had another two couples stay with us.  The place was spacious and comfortable and the hostess left us a beautiful gift basket with pasta, marinara sauce from the local Italian place, 2 packages of pancake mix, maple syrup, olive oil, a couple of nice chocolate covered cookies, tea and some microwave popcorn along with a handwritten card.  It was lovely.  She also stopped by on the Saturday evening to say hello which I thought was a nice touch.  If we go back to Lake Placid, we'll definitely try to stay here again.

Saturday morning it was cool and drizzly so we lounged around inside for a few hours before venturing out on our bikes.  We did a little spin down the run course and up the 3 Bears.  We both got soaked and our bikes got covered in sand and small bits of gravel so we cleaned them off before we went out for a short run.  I felt awesome, other than the cold.   We got ourselves ready, packed up our bikes and walked them up to transition to the bike check in.  After we had done that, we wandered around town, checking out some of the newer shops, grabbing a coffee and then wandering back.  I realized I had forgotten to put my aero bottle on my bike so the plan was to go back and get that and then do a swim.  Then it started raining.  Neither one of us had brought an umbrella so we got totally soaked on the way back to the townhouse.

Lake Placid Transition

At that point, I decided that I wasn't interested in doing a swim and set about packing my bags for the next morning.  Once the rain let up, G drove me up to transition, I ran in and put my bottle on my bike and then he drove me back to the townhouse.  We were staying inside for the rest of the afternoon.  I finished packing my bags and kept stalking various forecasts to see what it was supposed to be like race morning.  Everything I saw wasn't awesome.  But at least it was going to be sunny.

Pasta dinner consumed, I went to bed at around 9:30 pm.  Just like Tremblant, I slept like a log until 1:00 am.  Then I was awake.  G was quasi snoring and someone was blaring Elton John's "Daniel" (seriously?!?!) followed by a series of equally sad songs.  I left the master bedroom and went into one of the other rooms and tried to fall asleep.  I think I dozed off for about 20 minutes.  I woke up again, got out of bed and did some stretching.  Sometimes I find that relaxes me.  I went back into the master bedroom and crawled back into bed.  I could still hear the music but didn't want to fuss with shutting the window so I put a spare pillow over my head.  I started to doze off when G got up to go to the bathroom.  He shut the window on his way back in.  Shortly after that I fell asleep.  I think it was about 2:30 in the morning.  I woke up again shortly before my alarm went off.  I was starting to fall back asleep when the alarm started buzzing and I jumped out of bed.  I was wide awake, despite my less than ideal sleep.  The first thing I did was check the temperature.

  
Good lord.  I looked outside and saw a dense low laying fog.  Awesome.  NOT.  We wanted to leave the house by 5:25 so we could get body marked, get sorted in transition and get down to the water.   I was feeling surprisingly more nervous than usual, probably because I knew it was going to be a somewhat unpleasant morning, ha ha.  We downed our breakfast and coffee, bundled up and headed out.  I was pretty much power walking to transition I was so nervous.  We were told we had to get body marked first before we could go into transition.  The body marking spot was total chaos.   We eventually found a couple of free volunteers.  The woman who was doing my body marking was a school teacher and she had THE BEST handwriting.  My numbers were SO neat.  I thanked her, found G and we made our way into transition.

My bike was still wet from the day before but I didn't really care.  I realized when I got to my bike that there were two other women in my AG that hadn't shown up because there were two empty spots between myself and the next competitor.  SCORE.  So I had more than a postage stamp size piece of real estate available.   I felt a bit discombobulated for some reason so it took me a bit longer than normal to get myself sorted.  I quickly realized that I should have brought flip flops or something else to put on my feet to wear to the swim.  I thought they'd have a carpet like they did in Ironman but they did not so I was going to have to walk barefoot on the cold pavement and ratty make shift carpet they had laid out, over to the swim start.  Awesome.   It was really cold out but I figured my vest, arm warmers, socks, toe covers and full fingered gloves would be enough.  I finished laying everything out, pulled off my running shoes and started getting my wetsuit on.  2 minutes after standing on the grass my feet hurt they were so cold.  The walk to the swim was going to suck.  I found G and he had two plastic bags over his feet and and old pair of socks on.  He's such a smart man.  Being the gentleman that he is, he gave me the plastic bags and I put them on my feet.  I was surprised at how much they helped.  We walked over to the swim start.  G was starting to shake from the cold.  I was chilly but not too bad.  I figured once I got in the water and then got back out, it would be brutal.

The swim start was a gong show.  This is the one issue I have with rolling starts.  Actually let's make it two issues.  The first being that nobody goes where they are supposed to.  The second is that a rolling start allows the race to have more people in it.  Which ends up making the bike portion absolutely brutal in terms of draft packs.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.   They had the corrals all along mirror road and they funnelled you into the swim start.  The warm up spot was off the right of the swim start.  The only way to get to that was to go all the way around to the bottom of the corral and walk through the park RAMMED with spectators.  And even then, you couldn't get over to the beach to walk in, you had to slide in on the rocky side of the lake.  I smacked my foot into a rock.  I slipped on another rock and then my foot sank into the grossest mud ever.  I started swimming out just to get out of the mess.  G and I swam around for a while and it really was quite beautiful with the sun coming up and the mist over the water.  I could see G near the shore and he was shaking violently.  I went up beside him and put my arms around him as they played the National Anthem.  He wasn't sure he'd actually be able to start swimming.  I told him once he got in the water he'd be ok.  We climbed out onto the beach and had to fight our way back through the crowds only to find that we couldn't get into the corral.  The race had started and swimmers were heading into the water.  We saw athletes climbing over the fencing in their wetsuits.  One guy beside me, offered to boost me up so I got on his hands and he helped me up, I stood on top of the fencing and jumped down onto the pavement in my bare feet.  Not awesome but at least I was in the corral and G was right behind me.  We ran into Irina and Zin and wished them luck and then we made our way over to the entrance.   G kissed me, told me he loved me and wished me luck.  The next thing I knew I was walking into the water.

I waded in and then started my watch, knowing I'd be a few seconds off my official time.  This swim start was much more congested than Tremblant for some reason.  I think they were letting 4 people in at a time vs. 3 like they did in Tremblant.  Those first few hundred meters were not fun.  There were limbs everywhere and I just wanted to get out of the crowd and swim my own swim.  By about 400m in things seemed to spread out a bit more.  My breathing was fine but I felt slow.  I did not feel fluid like I did in Tremblant.  I'm chalking it up to the water temperature, which I heard afterwards was a balmy 16 degrees celsius.  The sunrise was blinding me every time I turned to my right which was unfortunate because turning to my left caused my right shoulder to hurt slightly when I pulled down.  This has happened a couple of times when I'm in my wetsuit so there's something going on in terms of restriction.  So I tried my best to alternate between the two.  The low lying fog also did nothing to help my sighting.  I could not see a damn thing.  I could have avoided having to sight at all if I stuck by the underwater wire but, that's where everyone else was as well so I wanted no part of it.  I was swimming quite wide just to be safe.

My Garmin buzzed which meant that I had hit 500m.  It seemed to take forever.  I kept plugging away, my hands feeling quite cold.  That swim out seems so darn long.  I sighted and finally saw the red turn buoy.   I had to swim in at an angle to get there.  I made my way around with minimal contact and swam over to the next buoy.  I really didn't feel smooth at all.  I got around the next buoy and started the swim back to shore.   Once again, I had a hard time sighting.  The sun was almost up but still fairly low in the sky and the low lying fog made it impossible to see anything.  So I just swam and hoped that I was swimming fairly straight.  Obviously I wasn't because I ended up on the wire for a little while.  I stayed there for a bit, as I managed to find some open space.  I quickly caught some people and had flashbacks to my Ironman where I got stuck in a pack of people going slower than me.  I tried to get out but there were people all around me.  So I put my head back down and kept swimming by the line.  I got caught up in a group and ended up getting kicked in the mouth. That made me stop and try to get out of the group again.  I found an opening and swam around the pack.  I put my head back down and kept swimming.  A few minutes later I had weird feeling so I glanced up and saw a kayak right in front of me.  She looked down at me and I said oh hey, she started laughing and I swam around the back of her kayak and swam back towards the pack.

My watch buzzed again and I figured it had to be 1500m.  I had missed the second buzz.  I was wishing I was done.  My arms were tired.  I felt like I was struggling and my right calf was just starting to get that crampy feeling like it did in Tremblant.  So I stopped kicking with that leg and just pulled for a bit which tired my arms out even more.  So I went back to kicking.  I could see familiar buildings coming into view on my right so I knew I was getting close to shore.  All of a sudden I could see the bottom, the next thing I knew, my hands were scraping the bottom.  I kicked hard and stood up and just as I took that first step, both of my calfs cramped.  I hobbled out of the water and glanced down at my Garmin:

36:47.  Actual time:  36:51.   I wasn't surprised.  I knew about 500m in that it wasn't going to be a pretty swim.

The face you make when your calves are cramping

I pulled my zipper down and started to get out of the top part of my wetsuit as I ran down the makeshift carpet into transition.  I wasn't going to bother with a stripper.  I wanted to stay in my wetsuit as long as possible.  I ran into T1 and quickly found my bike.  There were a few other women getting ready to get out on the bike and we all started chatting about how cold it was as we stood there putting on all the layers.  My hands were frozen so I was having a bit of a tough time getting things on.  I had put on my vest and arm warmers and at the last minute opted to put my rain jacket on over everything.  I was cold and I knew I'd freeze as soon as I started riding.  I grabbed my bike and ran out out of transition to start the bike.

T1:  8:42.  That included the run up along with putting on all the layers.  One of my Strava pals asked me if I was having a coffee in transition.  I wish!  I would have been warmer!

I'll be back tomorrow with the bike and the run!

Mont Tremblant 70.3 Race Recap: Pre-Amble + Swim

We had originally planned on heading to Tremblant on the Friday but a few weeks ago G thought it would be better if we left on Thursday so we booked an extra night at the Tour des Voyageurs where we had booked the rest of our stay.  That actually worked out really well as we got into Tremblant by about 5:30 which gave us time to check in and pick up our race kits.  Picking up our kit on Thursday meant that we avoided the complete insanity that we saw on the Friday and Saturday.  The line up to get race kits was ridiculous both days, probably due to a few things 1) the fact that there was a sprint and olympic race on the Saturday and the fact that they increased the number of people racing the 70.3.  We looked at the numbers in comparison to last year and last year there was just under 2500 people that finished and this year there was almost 2900.  That's HUGE.

As usual, the check in process was smooth and efficient and the volunteers were amazing.  So friendly and enthusiastic.  This years swag ended up coming in very handy.  It was a small over the shoulder pack which I ended up using pretty much every day.  The race t-shirt was kinda gross and was actually too big for me, even though I ordered a small.  I think they do that on purpose so you go and buy Ironman branded race stuff, ha ha.   We went for dinner and a beer at La Diable and then went and met up with Irina, Zin and Louis at La Forge.  We were sitting on the patio and the bugs were brutal and the temperature really started to drop so we called it a night and headed back to the condo.

Friday was overcast and rained on and off for most of the day.  We lazed around in the morning while it rained and as soon as we saw a break in the weather, we walked over to the swim start and went for short swim to test the water.  It was chilly but once you got used to it, it was lovely.   We swam about 600m and packed it in.   It was looking like it was going to rain again.

After the swim we went back to our condo and got ourselves sorted to head down to do some shopping at the Ironman Village.   I have gotten to the point where I don’t feel I need anymore Ironman branded race gear, I’m happy with whatever swag we’re given in our race kits.  That being said, IF the race shirt design is really cool or I really like the colours, I’ll buy it.  The stuff at Tremblant wasn’t bad but I didn’t love it.   I was happy to see a bunch of Women for Tri stuff there so I ended up buying the trucker hat I had been eyeing on the IM website.  I had also wanted to try Roka goggles and there were a TON of them there so I ended up buying a pair.  I liked them so much I wore them on race day (I did a short swim the day bfore to test them out and I loved them so much I opted to wear them).  We wandered around the rest of the booths that were set up and G scored a sweet pair of Zoot Solanas for $70.  There were a ton of Zoot shoes on sale probably because Zoot has stopped making every model except for the Solana and the Ali’i.  So there were deals to be had for sure. 

We hit up Le Shak for lunch and I got a message from a fellow instagrammer / blogger that she was heading into the Village.  I have been following Nathalie on Instagram for a while (and just started reading her blog a couple of months ago) and we had said we should try to meet up.    So G and I wandered over to the Grand Café for a post lunch cappuccino and she met us there.  What a lovely woman.    I felt immediately comfortable with her.  It’s funny when you meet online people for the first time, sometimes it’s just awkward.  You feel like you know a lot about the person but then when you meet them, they seem different than what you see on social media.  Nathalie was exactly the same as her social media voice.   We chatted for quite some time about where things are at for her in terms of her health.   She wanted to talk to me about the potential of working together once things get sorted out with her health.  I hope that I we get that opportunity.  

We parted ways and then G and I went back to the condo and started organizing our race bags.  This was a new thing for this year.   We had done a couple of races where you had bags for each leg of the race and while it keeps things organized, it was a bit of a pain in the ass having to rummage through each one in transition.   We made up all our race day bottles, lounged around and then went out to dinner. 

Saturday

I slept like a log on Friday night.  I don’t think I got out of bed until 7:30 on Saturday morning.  I could hear the  sprint and Olympic distance races happening.    G and I made breakfast, had some coffee and generally lazed about for a couple of hours.  I had wanted to do another swim to test out my new goggles but we couldn’t get into the water until after 11 am so we opted to take the bikes out for one last spin to make sure everything was a-ok.   We rode up Montee Ryan and turned right at the roundabout  and made our way into the old village of Tremblant.   There’s a bike / coffee shop there that does excellent cappuccinos so we stopped to have a coffee on the deck.   We ran into Irina and another FMCT athlete, Mellen.  We chit chatted a bit and then I went out on the patio to sit in the sun.    After our little pit stop we rode back into Tremblant, took the bikes back up to the room, threw on our running shoes and did a 2km run off the bike.   My legs felt good.   4:45-4:50/km pace felt comfortable.  That’s exactly what I was hoping for.    When we got back in, I grabbed all my swim stuff and we booked it down to the beach.  I had to be at the 70.3 sign for 1:30 for the Toronto Triathlon Club picture   I did a quick swim, which totally sucked and put me in a foul mood.  It was choppy and I swam really slowly, even though I felt like I was swimming well.  On the plus side, the new goggles were awesome.   I put the bad swim out of my head and we hustled back to the condo so I could change and run downstairs to join the group.   My swimming had been bothering me as of late, I felt like I was struggling in open water and I was swimming so much slower than I normally would.  I was trying not to let it bother me too much.  There was nothing I could do about it at this point except give it my best.

I met the TTC group and we got our shot done.  It was nice to meet a few more club members and see some familiar faces (hi Brenda, Nancy, Clare & Andy!).    

We ended up winning first place in the Division 1 Tri Club points!  woohoo!

I went back to the condo and G and I got our bikes and brought them down to check them in.   With that done, we were off to the 4:00 pm athlete briefing.  We met up with our friend Deanne and her friend Barb.  It had to be the fastest athlete briefing ever because it was going to POUR.   

We found out that we only had to use the transition bags to bring our gear into transition.   They wanted to avoid having big bags and boxes etc around bikes.  We were allowed to have a mat or towel by our bike with our stuff on it.   WHEW.  With that done, all that was left was a nice dinner at Coco Pazzo and hopefully a good night’s sleep, then it was GO time.   In retrospect, I would have saved dinner at Coco Pazzo for post race.  It was a great meal and one that definitely warranted a glass or two of wine.  Next time, ha ha. 

I was actually pretty tired so I went to bed at 9:30 and fell asleep right away.   I woke up at 1:44 am to go to the washroom and that was it.  I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning.  I couldn’t turn my brain off.  I’ve finally figured out that the stressful part of racing for me is race morning and remembering all the things and making sure I leave myself enough time to get to the start to warm up.  Once I’m down at the start, I’m good.  There is sense of calm that comes over me.  It’s like my brain says ok, you’ve got everything, now it’s time to get down to business. 

The Swim

Despite getting up really early, G and I still had to hustle down to the swim start.  I felt a bit rushed and freaked out a bit about the possibility of not getting a warm up in.  They were singing the National Anthem which meant that the pros were going to start right after.  I was wedging my wetsuit on in the parking lot while G was in the porta potty line.  I ran into Irina, Zin. Mellen and Louis and wished them good luck.  G finished up and we ran over to the last pick up truck and tossed our swim bags in there.  We made our way down to the beach and had to shove our way through all the spectators.  The beach was packed.  This year they had decided to try a rolling start vs. wave starts so there were signs all along the beach where you needed to seed yourself according to your expected swim time.  It was a bit chaotic.   G and I made our way through the crowd.  I wanted to get into the water so I kissed him good bye and gave him a hug and we wished each other good luck.   I went into the water and got acclimatized.  I swam out a few hundred meters did some pick ups, breast stroked a bit, swam some more and then turned around and made my way back.  I ran into my friends Linda and Lois and we swam back into shore together.   As I stood up, I heard my name and turned to see Jody, another friend I’ve met through social media and whom I’d see regularly at MSC races.  I gave her a hug and we wished each other good luck.  I turned to give Linda a hug and high five and I gave Lois a big hug and wished her luck.   Her and I were both injured last year so we sat on the sidelines together and cried at the start.  Not this year.  Both of us were grinning from ear to ear. 

I scuttled off to try and find out where I should seed myself.  I wove my way through the dense crowd on the beach.  It seemed so much bigger than last year, especially when you were looking at it from the water.   My plan was to seed myself with the 32-35 minute group, towards the back.  Well, there was one problem with that, I had no idea where the back of that group was.  So I pushed through a few people along the shore until I could see the 32-35 minute sign, I then stopped and asked a couple of people around me what they were planning on swimming.  One person said 36 minutes, someone else said 35 minutes so I thought ok, I’ll just stay here.    The next thing I knew I was being funnelled into a smaller chute and we were making our way to the edge of the water.  We stood under and arch and there were three openings that looked like subway turnstiles.   There were two volunteers with long flags that were letting people through.  Before I knew it I was standing there waiting for the flag do be raised.  1-2-3.  Go.

The two athletes with me took off into the water.  I waded in and started my watch.  Once the water got up to my waist I started swimming.   I gotta say, the start was very civilized.  Yes, there were people around me but not once did I feel like I was caught in pack or boxed in with slower swimmers.  I got into a good rhythm right away.  I was remarkably calm which made me smile.   Of course I had a Rush song going through my head – I had the chorus of Roll the Bones on repeat  .  Those of you that follow me on Strava were probably wondering WTF I meant with my post titles.  Those were the lyrics I had on repeat throughout the swim and the bike.  “We go out in the world and take our chances, fate is just the weight of circumstances, that’s the way that lady luck dances…”  I can honestly say that was probably one of the best swims I have ever had in a race.  There was ZERO panic.  None.  I was relaxed, my breathing was regular, there was no gasping, nothing.  I was really surprised when I started catching people.  I can only assume that people didn’t really seed them selves all that well.  Realistically I probably should have seeded myself a little further up, but, I never felt like I got held up by anyone slower.  It would have been nice to have some fast feet to follow though.  My watch buzzed signalling 500m and it seemed be really fast.   I wanted to look but that would have meant stopping.  So I kept motoring on.  I didn’t sight much because we basically swam up inbetween a row of boats.   I would sight every so often to see how far the red turn buoy was.  As I got closer to that buoy, I could feel the chop in the water increase.  I’m not sure what was going on there but I was getting smacked in the face every time I tried to see where I was going.  I slowed down a bit here to get my bearings.  I got around the buoy and got back into my rhythm.  I was staying a bit far out from the buoys.  There were a few other folks that were out with me, the majority of people were sticking closer to the buoys.  My watch buzzed again and I couldn’t believe I was already at 1000m.   I came up on a guy that was breast stroking and as I passed him he decided to start swimming.    He swam right up beside me and got right in my bubble.  He then started swimming at me.  I don’t think he had any idea that I was even there.  I stopped, popped my head up and waited for him to pass then I went around him and settled back into my groove.  I felt like I was swimming really well.  I felt strong and I felt in control.  I’d feel the occasional twinge in my right calf but nothing major.  My last long open water swim at Barrelman, my right calf cramped so hard I had to stop swimming.   I could feel that starting to happen when I swam at the quarry the week before so I was a bit worried that would happen again.  I stopped kicking with my right leg for a bit and that seemed to help.     My watch buzzed again to signal 1500m.  Only 400m left.  I started working a bit harder.  My right calf started to get crampy.   I stopped kicking and just started pulling to try to hold off the cramp.  I could see the shore and hear the announcer.     I started kicking again and my calf cramped.  Not super hard but enough that it hurt and I couldn’t kick with that leg.   I could see the water was getting shallower.   I was so close.  I could see people starting to stand up.  I felt that the water was still too deep so I kept swimming until my hand almost touched the bottom.  I stood up but it was still a bit too deep so I did a dolphin dive and that caused my right calf to really cramp.  I stood up and started to unzip my wetsuit.  I glanced down at my Garmin as I touched the shore and I saw 34 minutes and change – YESSSS!!!!  I got the wetsuit off my arms as I came out of the water and luckily got the first two wetsuit strippers.   They yanked it right off me and I grabbed it and ran.   I sprinted by so many people on my way into transition.   The hard part was over and now the fun was going to begin.

Official swim time:  34:56  1:48/100m - squeaked in just under my goal time of 35:00 minutes!

I’ll be back tomorrow with the bike and possibly the run.  We'll see how long winded I get!

Thanks for reading!  

~ Coach PK