IM Lake Placid Race Report by Steve Dean

While all the club members were enjoying a well earned autumn/winter easy technique training block, I was trying to fit in 30 hours a week of wet, windy, and cold Ironman training preparing for IM Lake Placid, about a 5hr drive north of New York and the venue of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics, yes lots of hills but not cold in the midst of summer. It's a race that's normally very difficult to enter.

Of the 3000 odd entries available, competitors are able to enter for the following year's race on the Thursday and Friday before race day, taking about 2000 spots. Then the 2500 volunteers get to line up and then, if there's any spots left, you need to enter in person on the Monday after the race. It normally takes about 3 years of volunteering to secure a spot! It shows how lucky we are with Taupo and also why so many US athletes race here. One odd result of this process is huge no show numbers. By entering but not racing you guarantee your spot in the queue to pay another US $1000 for your entry again the next year. There were about 540 DNS along with the 220 DNF. I was lucky as a AWA Gold athlete to be offered a spot about 13 momths before the race and after about 10 seconds of considing a warm New York holiday Jules shouted a resounding "YES".

Jump forward a year and we arrived in Lake Placid on the Tuesday afternoon before the race after 32 hours of travelling. Yes, not a lot of time to acclimatise to the expected 32ºC race temperature. Because of the difficult entry, less than 50 athletes in the field were not US or Canadian so the whole vibe around the town was so very different to any of my previous Ironmans. Having not found anyone who had done the race to ask questions, I turned to the net. The overwhelming advice was how easy and conservative you had to take the ride. It has over 2000m of ascent on the 2 lap bike course versus Taupo's 700m, and the run 500m, versus Taupo's 280m. The only ride I could compare that amount of climbing to was K2 at 2400m. I had only 1 chance to ride the main climb, about a 30km gentle gradient climb which I found pretty easy at my normal flat course IM power.

But I was determined to follow the advice and take it conservative. Race day dawned with fog and 25ºC by 6am and 32ºC by midday. The water was only 1º below the wetsuit illegal temp so the swim was hot and distinctly uncomfortable. My first experience of a rolling start was it's so boring compared to a mass start, and it seemed anticlimactic. Maybe that's why I never got into "race" mode. Long may Taupo keep mass starts. I was allowed in the water maybe 70th place and immediately started the swim alone. No drafting for 3.8km, oh buggar.

I finished the swim in an uninpsiring 1:00 hour, which, in hindsight, was ok as the fastest male swim was 52 mins, but at the time I was disappointed. A good reminder not to dwell on the time as a 100 or 150m long course turns it into a good swim.

Running through tens of thousands of supporters, into T1 and getting handed your bike at the exit was another new experience. The ride really starts about 15kms in with the "Keene Screamers", a 5km descent done at 85km/h. An absolute blast especially when all my competitors were squeezing their brakes and contorting their faces! After exiting the water in about 100th I was top 20 by the end of the fun descent.

The ride then follows a stunning stereotypical Daniel Boone mountain river scene for the next 40kms. It was very easy to daydeam a bit and lose focus in the beautiful scenery and with no riders in view. Then the 30km climb starts and, sticking to my plan, I strictly hold my flat course IM power. I was still passing the occassional rider and no one passed me so all was good, right? Looking back, I really needed to hold more like my Taupo climb power, about 15-20W more, and truly race the ride. Lap 2 was a carbon copy although only 83kmh on the Screamers and the wind was in my face on the climb. I knew I could push a harder power but stayed the course. A field of just under 2500 brings a lot of spectators and the return to town was amazing, Taupo x 3 and they are all loud, sceaming Americans.

The marathon started and I knew I had made a mistake on the ride, nothing hurt! My running felt smooth and relaxed straight away, for me anyway. I came off the bike in about 15th spot overall and 3rd in my age but after a slow 5:16 bike. The 2 lap run is again beautiful, past the Olympic ski jumps, and then out and back along another Daniel Boone river. I had tried and failed pre-race to work out where the turn around was and 6km along the river seemed to never end but eventually did. The marathon just went, not feeling sore at all but just going along slowly. The hill back into town even felt cruisey. On the 2nd lap with about 8km to go I was passed by a distinctly faster runner into 4th and I had no response. I had committed to not looking at my overall time till the hill 4kms to go, I did and I had 23 mins to break 10 hours. Normally easy but the 150m ascent was to come. I upped my effort and raced through the awesome crowds to the finish chute....only to look over my shoulder and spot a runner only 2m behind. He looked old like me! I sprinted to hold him off, what an evil way to have to finish an IM. It was all to no avail though, he had crossed the start line 9s behind me nearly 10hrs earlier so beat me overall by 7s in the final results. Fortunately he wasn't in my age but yet another reason why I'm no fan of rolling starts. I finished in 9hrs58 with a 3hr35 marathon, 4th in age group.

I was 4 mins off 2nd and 2 mins off 3rd so, while I was stoked with 28th overall out of about 2300 finishers, I regret going so conservative on the bike. I'm sure I could have ridden 4 mins quicker without slowing my run. Going easy on the bike doesn't necessarily mean you'll run faster. My last 5 IM marathons outside of Kona have spanned 3hrs 32 to 3hrs 35min despite much more determined rides. The marathon is supposed to hurt but I simply didnt, I just cruised the run at a comfortable pace waiting for the all climbing to catch up to me. The dodgy net advice imbued me with a conservative strategy rather than a "race" strategy. 16 Ironmans and I'm still learning and making rookie mistakes. I'd better enter another to try get it right....