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Lake Placid Ironman |
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Written by Jerry Hughes
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Friday, 08 August 2008 |
2008 Ford Ironman USA
Lake Placid, NY
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
I still can't believe it poured the entire time.
I did the Ironman in 2006 and swore I wouldn’t do another one….2 years later, there I was; floating next to my brothers Jim and Joe in the crystal clear water of Mirror Lake. The 2008 was truly epic – with hard pounding rain hitting us from the first stroke to the last step. Here is how it all went down…..settle in, grab some Jo’ and enjoy the read – sorry for the length but it is a 140.6 mile race!
I drove up the Lake Placid with my brother Jim on Thursday. The weather leading into the race was sooo nice - sunny, 70's - just perfect. We spent a couple of days just doing odd things - registering, getting some final swims in, final bike mechanical tweaks and just generally soaking the atmosphere all in. Every day we got a nice 30-60 min downpour which we knew we would probably get on race day – we were just hoping that it wouldn’t come on the steep descent into Keene where speeds on dry roads usually climb into the low 50’s. My wife, Ally, got up there on Friday and it was nice to have some time together and for everyone to get in some QT. Saturday night…
We all walked to a 'blessing of the athletes' ceremony that was at a local church. This was really cool! 1/2 way through the priest's homily, it became obvious that HE TOO was racing in this thing! He had written his homily on the back of his race number and as he spoke his racer's bracelet peaked out from under his black robe. At one point he even showed us his shaved legs! It was nice how he connected the struggles of the Ironman experience with the struggles of the ups and downs of life. I also liked how he spoke about being aggressive and letting your 'sinful demons out'! ... After that we all headed to dinner. The ‘night before dinner’ was perfect. We had a big table sitting right on the lake so we could look out over the swim course ~ our first battle field of the day…as usual I didn't sleep much but that was ok because I got in a solid 8 the night before. Sunday morning - Race Day!
 The alarm sounded at 4:50am and we were quickly up and eating. The weather at this point was perfect. We left for 'body marking' (they write your race number on each leg and each arm and put your age on your left calf) at 5:15am and did one final touch to the bike to adjust tire pressure and to drop off nutrition (bars/gels/drinks). We headed back to the hotel (very short walk but somehow I managed to tweak my neck a bit giving a friend a high-5 which had me stressed a bit but it went away soon after the start) put sunscreen on (boy was THAT not needed!) and squeezed into the wetsuit. My father led us in a group prayer and after a few quick pictures, we started our march to the battle field……
The Swim (2.4 Miles)
Psychologically, It was much different doing this race for a second time. I just calmly treaded water, sitting 2-3 rows front line. I knew how bad and chaotic it was going to be so I seemed to just be waiting for it - just knowing all I had to get through was 1 hour of that mess - then on to the bike. Well, no such luck…for some reason, the 1st lap of the swim was far worse than in 2006! I got hammered, punched and kicked much more frequently and found it hard to get in 10-15 strokes of solid swimming before I was forced to stop, adjust and start again. My second lap was much better as the crowd thins considerably. I ended up with a 1:12 - which was a couple of minutes off my goal time of 1 hour 10 mins but I was just glad to have it done. I ran out of the water and pulled my wetsuit 1/2 off. I managed to get a 'wetsuit-stripper' with no strength so it took her about 5 tugs before it came off. I was up and running to the first transition area through the streets of downtown Lake Placid. It was then that I noticed how hard the rain was coming down - the streets were like rivers already - I knew the bike leg was going to be nasty but I figured the rain would last AT MOST 1 hour - perhaps 2 - oh boy…was I wrong….It was nice to see and hear my family cheering for me.
Swim to Bike Transition
I got to the bike transition and they must have heard my number wrong as they handed me the wrong bag so I ran to the transition bags and grabbed my own. I looked in the changing tent and it was wall to wall crowded. I decided just to sit in the mud and change outside. In all the chaos, I forgot to put on my socks so I had to remove my shoes, put socks on and then re-shoe up. Tick tock tick tock – I knew my T1 wasn’t going to be blistering. We then had to run another 1/4 mile to get to the bikes and FINALLY exit onto the course. My transition time was over 7 mins! That is slow - I was planning on being sub 5 mins. I was happy to finally be biking!
The Bike (112 Miles)
 Wow - the rain was really coming down now. It seemed like every 30 mins it would get harder and every 30 mins I would think 'well, at least it can't get any harder'. I had abandoned the glasses due to visibility issues. On the steep Keene descent, at speeds of 45+ mph the rain felt like someone was throwing chards of broken glass at me. Nice. My first bike leg was very fast - perhaps a bit too fast but I felt good. I did lap one in 2 hours 35 mins which would have been a 5:10 total time. Given my goal time was 5:25-5:30, I knew I had better chill out a bit on the second lap. I had a container on the bike that held my cliff bars. It had literally filled 3/4 with rain water so it was more like cliff bar soup. I would try to reach in and grab some cliff-mush from time to time. I hydrated a ton on the bike and felt really good. I had to pee 9 times on the bike! (and yes, I did it on the bike - the heavy rain had a nice cleansing effect). I ended up with a 5 hour 30 minute bike - right on target and with the monsoon I had biked in, I was happy with that time. It had poured like cats and dogs the entire time – or as my 3 yr old daughter says ‘it had poured like bow-wows and meow-meows.
The Run (26.2 Miles)
 The bike to run transition was uneventful - just ran in and slapped on the shoes, stocked my shirt with more gels, put on my hat and headed out. I immediately saw my family cheering - that was nice for moral. I knew it was smart to get right into my IM marathon goal pace (8:30/mile), which I did. There is a huge descent from the transition area and it is hard to not sprint down it but I knew that would kill me later if I did that. Mile after mile, I sloshed down the streets - basically rivers at this point - unreal. At the 13.1 mark I was exactly where I wanted to be - averaging 8:30/mile. They say that the Ironman is all about the last 1/2 of the marathon. I unfortunately really had to slow my pace. It was about then that I noticed a sharp pain in my heel. I thought it was just a blister or a toe nail that had detached and made it's way back there so I decided to just keep running. (After the race, I had a pee sized stone removed from my heal - it had imbedded itself 1/2 inch into my heal - ugh.) So, I basically just survived the last 13 miles, walking the aid stations and enjoying the nice warm soup broth. I was really getting cold at this point and shivering more than I thought was healthy. I had enough energy to pick up the pace a bit on the last mile and when I turned into the home stretch and saw the timer display 10:59:20, I knew all I had to do was sprint a bit and the sub-11 hour finish was mine. Final time: 10:59:32 - about 14 mins off target but with the weather and mishaps, I am happy with this finish. In 2006, I was top 18%, this year I was top 11%.
 Final Thoughts…..My WIFE is a rock star for standing in the rain for 11 hours! Seriously, the racers were doing stuff all day that kept us relatively warm - we weren't just standing in the rain. The support of the spectators and volunteers at this event was unbelievable. I saw friends running into the road to cheer me on - it was great. I am definitely done with Ironman events for a long time. I think I am going to switch to smaller off-road triathlons for a bit but for now, I want to enjoy the rest of my summer….
Thank you everyone for your support! Congrats to my brothers Jim and Joe as well. Jim crushed this thing and finished with a very fast 10:31 and Joe completed his first IM with a solid 11:18.
I still can't believe it poured the entire time.
Jerry
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