We arrived in Lake Placid on Friday around 11:00am and met with TOMb, who not surprisingly, was waiting for Mrs. Schulte to arrive at the Lodge. She left a note saying she would be right back, though.
Once we settled in we walked into town to Register and check out the scene. Friday night we had a cookout which was a lot of fun. Everyone got together and we had some laughs.
Saturday morning we woke up and went to the pancake breakfast in town. We met up with the Team Irontom volunteers working the breakfast and Kasia gave me about 10 pancakes…so I didn’t leave hungry.
TOMasz and I went for a swim after breakfast-we did one loop of the course. In the afternoon I had the opportunity to meet the guys from Elite and they offered to tune up my bike which was nice of them.
We just made the deadline to rack our bikes and walked around the Expo and took some pictures.
Saturday night TOMb held a cookout-luckily for all of us he brought his grill, after dinner we started up a fire and made smores.
By this time I was getting anxious thinking about the big day coming up. This was my first Ironman so I really wasn’t sure what to expect and I just wanted to get the race started. I went to bed at 10:00pm and woke up at 2:00am. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I just laid there until the alarm went off at 4am. Got dressed ate something and then laid back down for awhile.
We were running a little late so Leslie was nice to get up and drive a bunch of us up to the race start. By this time I was getting pretty nervous – missed body marking, screwed up my special needs bags, and had trouble pumping up my tires. Lesson learned – read the athletes guide.
Thankfully, I found TOMb and we started walking up to the Swim start. He calmed me down a bit and we waited a little while before getting in the water. I think the air temperature was 49 degrees. TOMb and I swam a few times back and forth and then I looked around for him and he was gone…, so I was all alone with about 2,300 of my closest friends getting ready for the swim start. I picked a spot right in the middle of the pack and about 100 feet to the right of the buoy line.
The cannon boomed and it was pretty unbelievable-I don’t think that you can truly know what the Ironman swim start is like until you actually are in it and experience it. There is nothing you can do to train for it.For you first timers next year - remember this. When the cannon goes off you are committed and no matter what happens keep your arms moving forward and you will be fine. I pretty much had a full escort of people on the whole first loop. On the second loop I chose a line about 20 ft from the cable and had open water until I hit the turn around. By that time I was just looking to get the heck out of the water and I didn’t care who was around me.
I made it into the transition area and changed up for the Bike. I took my time because I knew I was going to be spending some time on the bike and wanted to make sure I was comfortable.The Bike course at LP is really nice. I was glad that we did a recon ride last fall so I knew what to expect.
At one point my bike speedometer registered 77 mph but I don’t think I was really going that fast. I think it accidentally converted to km. I tried to eat as much as I could on the bike. I felt really good on the first loop but on the second the wind picked up and sun started baking down, which began wearing me down. You really see some weird
things out there on the bike course (ask TOM-A-Lot) but I think one of the funniest was some guy pulling over to the side of the road, getting caught in the sand, stopping, and falling down still clipped in. He had on one of those aero helmets and I just couldn’t help but to chuckle a little at his expense. The bike course has a way of taking your energy away, particularly that last 10 miles into town on each loop.My only moment of despair (really the whole day, other than wishing the helicopter had a rope on it so I could have pulled myself out of the swim start), was realizing at the end of the second loop that I still had to run a Marathon. I thought at that point that it would have been a good time to stop. But, needless to say, I quickly put that thought out of my mind and changed into my running stuff and got on the course as soon as possible.
For me I learned that Ironman is all about the run. At this point in the race I knew for sure that I was going to finish before dark. The aid stations, every mile or so, were fantastic and the support from Team IRONTOM Iron-maniacs was tremendous. It was a big lift when going by our support squad during the run.
The second loop was a lot harder than the first but I continued on and made it to the Finish. When I entered the oval I heard the announcer say that I had a chance to finish in less than 14 hrs if I started moving….., and then I heard him say that I am an Ironman!It was an incredible day. While I finished the race on my own, I couldn’t have done it without the support of my family, teammates and friends. For that I thank you all. I didn’t realize that I had about 20 people back home tracking my progress, which was really cool.
I learned a new formula that day. Planning+Support+Training+Sacrifice+ Glory = Ironman, and when you reach the finish line you certainly earn the title of an Ironman.
Thanks for reading and as of right now I am looking forward to Ironman Florida in 2009.
