T -3

We're here. Wendy, Ben and I arrived in Lake Placid yesterday evening and we had a really pleasant trip.

I had an appointment with the chiropractor Wednesday morning and then headed out to BWI airport. We flew from Baltimore to Burlington, Vermont and then picked up a hire car to get to LP. Ben was as good as gold on the flight and even slept through takeoff. The drive from the airport to Lake Placid was beautiful. The easiest way from Vermont to New York state is via ferry across Lake Champlain and it was a lovely little ferry ride. For virtually 45 miles of driving on the New York side of the lake we didn't see a single car and could see the mountains around Lake Placid getting closer and closer - not having seen the bike course I was starting to get worried.

Transition - inside the Olympic Speed Skating loop - before the bikes

Just before you get to the town of Lake Placid you are greeted by the two Olympic ski jumps which I will have to run past on Sunday. We went directly to the hotel and didn't see any of the town and Olympic village until the following day. At the hotel we grabbed dinner and watched the Tour on TV but found ourselves alone in the restaurant at 9:45pm with the lights turned out - they obviously go to bed early here as the restaurant even has a bar and pool table.

The turn around is basically at the far end of the lake

This morning we met up with Mary Lou and headed down to Mirror Lake, the site for Sunday's swim. I was supposed to do a 30 min swim but I was so close to the end of the course at 15 minutes that I kept going and did the full 1.2 mile out and back (you do it twice during the race for a 2.4 mile swim). The lake was fantastic. It was the perfect temperature, not too hot and not too cold and the water was clear with a deep green colour. There were a number of other swimmers about but everyone had loads of room and it is a shame that the swim is not more of an individual time trial rather than a 2500+ person mass scrum.



After the swim we headed to registration. There were big queues but because Mary Lou and I were not on the list of names by the door we grabbed one of the officials who then led us through a back door, neatly cutting out the lines. He took us to a desk marked Pros/Problems. I thought it was a bit unfair to label us problems and wondered if we could fool anyone into thinking that we might be Pros instead but by the amount of time we spent at the desk it was clear that we were problems. The lady at the desk was very helpful and before too long had everything sorted out and we had our Ironman Bracelets on and had all the other 'stuff' we are going to need for race day. As well as the usual swim caps and chip you have a plethora of bags for various stages of the race. You have bags for your transition needs and also bags called 'special needs' bags in which you can put in anything you thing you might need half way through the bike or run, e.g. dry clothes, food, fluid, parts etc.


After lunch Wendy, Ben and I headed out to drive the bike course. The course was not bad but is far from flat. After getting out of town there is a massive descent to a town called Keene which looks like it is going to be very, very fast and the descent goes on for several miles but what goes down must come up. I saw 3 or 4 short climbs which looked a bit tough but the majority of climbing should be pretty steady. The last part of the course back to Lake Placid takes you by Whiteface Mountain and the scenery is absolutely stunning.

Whiteface Mountain

Back in town and having been out on the road for nearly 2 hours you realise you have to do that entire 56 mile drive on a bike - TWICE. By that stage I didn't have the energy to DRIVE the run course. I was ready for a nap but after trying, and failing, to get internet access it was about time to go for dinner and we headed out for a bite to eat with Mary Lou. By now town is buzzing with cars, expensive bikes, fit bodies and deep tans. The restaurants were all filling up rapidly by 6pm and we were glad to get a table. After dinner I met up with Ed from Team Z to get my bike off him and I am now back in the room trying to stay awake and get this post out.


If I were to try and gauge how I was feeling in terms of readiness and confidence for the race I would say that I am not panicking but have some concerns. I swam very close to race pace today and felt great but I have not been for a run for over 2 weeks. The sharp pain in my groin has gone but after travelling for a day my entire inner thigh felt stiff and mildly uncomfortable and I am worried how this might manifest itself on race day. I am fairly content, I know under the circumstances I couldn't have done any more to get prepared for this race and I do feel like I have fitness reserves so we will just have to wait and see what happens on the day.

Even if the race itself doesn't go to plan it is a great experience being here and the atmosphere is great. I have never been somewhere that is so entirely devoted to all things triathlon and it is a very surreal but enjoyable experience.

Ben thinking "Same s#@t different Lake" this will be his 4th Tri in 2.5 months of existence

Hopefully I will be able to update the blog at T-2 and T-1 days to race and I realise that Tuesdays post should actually have been T-5. I am going to go for a ride tomorrow and I think I will go back out past Whiteface Mountain and then I will try and go for a very gentle jog to see how I get on.

Last but not least I now have a race number, 2591 (that's right there are really that many people competing). If you want to follow the race you can use the race number, or my surname, to track an athlete, details are on the Ironman USA webpage and there is a link to the right of this webpage. Just before I go the 3 of us wanted to wish my Mother-in-Law, Janet, a happy birthday.

Mooseman International Triathlon Race Report

Apologies for not having posted on the blog for a while but life has been hectic. Training has stepped up a gear, Ben is very time consuming (although Wendy is doing the lions share of taking care of him and I would not be able to even consider training at this level if it weren't for her monumental sacrifices,)there seems to be an ever growing mountain of admin to be addressed and I have recently had to submit a piece of course work for my distance learning degree (although I am now taking a break from studying until Oct). All that being said we seem to be just about coping and as Ben gets older hopefully we can start getting our lives back in to some sort of routine. In the meantime here is my latest race report.

Mooseman is a triathlon held in and around Newfound Lake in New Hampshire. There is an international distance race on the Saturday and a Half Ironman distance on the Sunday. My race schedule only features one half ironman distance this year which was Lake Anna. All my other races prior to Ironman Lake Placid are Olympic/International distance. Doing the short course races does not effect the rest of my training and in theory I need little or no recovery time after an Oly race whereas a half ironman does require a bit of recovery. Therefore I was racing the Oly rather than the half this weekend.

With hindsight New Hampshire, from D.C., is a long way to go for an Olympic distance race. We drove a 1300 mile round trip which is probably the furthest I have ever driven in my life and is by far the furthest I have ever driven with a 5 week old baby! That being said the location is stunning and Ben was as good as gold in the car. He also got to go through six different US States and as he is a US Citizen it is nice to be able to take him around the country (even if he has no idea where he is). We also got home to find that his US passport had been delivered which contains some really nice US themed pictures on the visa pages and some classic American quotes. Despite the logistical challenges of getting to and from the race with all the stuff we needed I would probably still do it all over again. Newfound Lake is picture perfect and the race itself is very well run with lots of nice touches and a great scenic backdrop.

Race start was scheduled for 7.30am and parking at the State Park was limited. You need to get to the lake fairly close to the gates opening at 5.30 to ensure a parking spot inside the park. If you cannot get into the park you cannot park on the access road and face a reasonable walk in to the start. We arrived early and got a spot and then linked up with the rest of Team Z for breakfast. The lake was covered in a very thick bank of fog and the weather was mild prior to the arrival of the expected heat wave. A long story short the race organizers decided to delay the swim start but while we were waiting we were entertained by a bagpiper, in kilt, who then played at the swim start as you set off into the lake (nice touch 1).

Swim 16:36 (135/718)

16:36 is a new personal record, I have taken a whopping 11 minutes off my personal best; However before I consider quitting the navy and turning pro I must confess that the fog that I mentioned never lifted and the race organizers cut the swim short. I may never know how long the swim course was but coming out of the water I felt pretty good and my position would seem to suggest that my better swim at Columbia was not a one off.

The lake was crystal clear, but fresh, and despite the warmer weather down south Lake Newfound was only at around 58 deg. I put my face in the water to make sure that I didn’t get any cold shock and after the initial icecream head had passed I felt OK. I may not have put my head in the water as much as I should have which in turn would have kept my legs lower in the water increasing my drag but then again I think I reached a happy compromise between comfort and speed.

T1 1:42

T1 was a short run up the beach and into the woods around the lake. The organizers provided wetsuit strippers (nice touch 2), something you get at a Ford Ironman but not something I have ever experienced before. My T2 was reasonably quick but it did take a little bit of time to get my wetsuit off as the young guy helping me was not used to stripping wetsuits and couldn’t get it over my ankles. To be fair I could have helped out more but I was enjoying the rare opportunity of being able to lie down in the middle of a race.

There was a short 20m run through the woods to the bike mount line. The organizers had put down a green mat to cover the mud and tree roots and the surface was actually much better than many of my other races but that did not stop me from falling over. I was running down the chute with people cheering either side. I was wearing my snazzy zoot cadence race gear and pro looking aero helmet. I was pushing a beautiful bike with high end components and feeling like a million dollars then for some reason I looked down, let my handlebars twist and fell over my bike. I fell quite hard and must have landed on the teeth of my crank as I took a little chunk out of my knee. I also managed to graze my other knee and an elbow on the ‘non-slip’ matting. None of the injuries actually hurt but the fact that I had fallen at the spot with the highest concentration of spectators did tweak my pride.

When I came to get on my bike I found that I had knocked my chain off. I started trying to shift gear and get it back on but was making real ‘pig’s ear’ of it until luckily a mechanic took pity on me and came to my rescue (many thanks whoever you were). A real case of less haste and more speed would have seen me getting away from the scene of my embarrassing fall much more quickly.

Bike 1:22:38 (163/718) (19.8 mph)

Not a good bike ride for me.

We came out of the park and turned right onto the bumpy road that followed the edge of the lake. The roads had taken a real beating during the harsh winter and out of the entire 40k loop there were really very few patches of smooth tarmac. The course followed the circumference of the lake with a little extra loop going through the town of Bristol to make up the mileage.

When I came to the first hill and started to climb I found that my legs were really tired and I didn’t feel like I had any power in them at all. When I got to the top of the hills I was able to get up some speed on the descents and reel back one or two riders but in general I spent the entire ride getting passed by others. I couldn’t let rip full speed on some of the descents because of the dodgy road surface.

At Columbia I could have taken on the world during the bike leg. I could have beaten Lance Armstrong, I could have used a mountain bike with flat tyres, fitted with panniers full of bricks and still finished in under 1:10. At Mooseman I couldn’t have taken on a troop of Girl Guides. I couldn’t have beaten Chuck Armstrong (for US readers)/ Hilary Armstrong MP (for UK readers), I couldn’t have taken a motorbike, fitted with nitrous and finished in under 1:20.

Aside from my difficulties the signage and support crew out on the course were great and if you could have seen the lake the views would have been excellent too. Sorry to the lady who tried to hand me water at the aid station, I don’t know why I was trying to come through the aid station so quickly when I was putting in such a slow bike split, and kudos to the guy who successfully handed me a bottle it was a great hand off.

So why was I so much slower than at Columbia? What excuse have I been able to come up with on the long drive home? Well my excuse is that I was tired, not waking up 2 or 3 times a night when the baby cries tired, but 2 hard weeks of build training including lots of Lactate Threshold work on the bike and run, tired. My legs were clearly on strike. They refused to work hard day in and day out during the last fortnight of build and then drive all the way to NH and race. They were going to take the day off and enjoy the scenery and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

The only consolation was that my leg was covered in blood so hopefully people that saw me being passed would have assumed that I had been involved in some horrific high speed crash and was bravely soldiering through the rest of the ride in a valiant effort to complete the course. I did come up with a story about being knocked off my bike by an angry moose for when people asked me about my leg after the race.

T2 1:12
A pretty good time.

Run 43:58 (93/718) (7:05 min/mile)

The course took us out of transition and along the beach for 50 yards before we came back out onto the same coast road we had ridden on. The run was then a straight out and back along the lake road with a very neat finish line in the middle of the woods, next to transition.

I got out on the run still feeling a bit sorry for myself and decided that I was not going to push it as this race had already gotten away from me. I settled into what felt like a comfortable jog and decided I would just keep going like I was. By now the fog and burnt off and we were rewarded with a stunning view of the lake as we ran. The organizers had also set up music stations along the run and there were even live musicians at key points including a guy at the finish line (nice touch 3).

I chatted with a younger guy for a few minutes and then started to draw away from him. There were a couple of steep kickers and I even walked for 45 seconds up the steepest one but no one caught me and the guy in front didn’t pull away too much. Near the half way mark the young guy I had been talking to came past me and I let him go. I then found myself catching and passing a slightly older guy that I had been following for most of the run. After the turn around the guy I had passed came charging by me on one of the uphills.

At the 4 mile mark I decided that enough was enough and I was going to put my foot down for the rest of the run. I caught the slightly older guy who I had been changing places with and started to reel in the younger guy. After passing the younger guy I could recognize the next runner as one of the guys in my age group who had passed me toward the end of the bike leg.

I was gaining on him slowly and as we neared the turn back into the park we both passed a taller chap who was also in my age group. With about a third of a mile to go I had to decide whether to charge by this guy in my age group so quickly that I would instantly destroy any hopes he may have of racing me or, take the sneaky underhand approach of sitting right behind him until the last minute and then running past him when it was too late for him to do anything about it. For a second I sat behind him in his draft and then decided that I was being a coward and floored it to go by him. I kept running and never looked back and must have done just enough because he finished 6 seconds behind me.

Crossing the line I stopped and bent over double, a support crew lady came straight up to me asking me for my chip but because I had just put in a little sprint effort toward the end I was starting to dry-retch and thought I was going to throw up. All I could do was hold up a finger to indicate I needed a minute and she got the message and waited for me to recover - last thing you want to do is try and remove the chip from the ankle of some one about to throw up. Very quickly the sensation passed and I felt fine. I got my finishers medal and a Mooseman water bottle which had been filled with cold water (nice touch 4).

This was a really nice race. Great location, great atmosphere and very well organized. Roads were poor and parking is an issue but those are the only slight negatives. Make sure that if you do this race you bring plenty of bug spray. Other nice touches included the printing of you first name on you race number so people could shout for you by name even if they didn’t know you, someone dressed as a Moose going around entertaining people and the inclusion of a nice little Mooseman towel in your transition bag.

Conclusions

Driving for 24 hours or so with a month old baby is a challenge but is doable.

My swim is still on track. I suspect the pace was similar to what I will need to do at IMLP but obviously over a much longer distance.

Transitions were both pretty good but there is always room for improvement.

I have come to terms with my bike. Rather than panic because there is only a month and a bit until IMLP I can accept that this was a C race (one that I have not tapered for and am not concerned about the result). I may not have accepted this before the race and had visions of putting in a great time and finishing toward the top of my age group but back with my feet back on the ground I know that all my training is geared toward one race and that is the only time I will find out whether or not it has all worked out.

Although I felt like I was jogging the run and only running the last 2.2 miles (including a short walk) I still averaged 7:05 min miles and had the 93rd fastest run of the day which is not a bad result considering the lack of taper.

Before I sign off I want to say well done to all my teammates who raced the half ironman distance on the Sunday. By then the heatwave had really hit and temps were in the high 90’s. I went for a ride around the lake at 9am and it was already very hot, it must have been brutal out on the run late in the morning. I also want to say well done to Chris who came second in his age group at Eagleman and could well have secured his slot at Kona if it weren’t for a knee injury he picked up whilst I was riding with him a week ago and well done to Jim, a friend from work who got into Escape from Alcatraz via the lottery and after a break from Triathlon of many years has successfully completed a particularly tough triathlon course.

2008 Race Schedule

I have posted my 2008 Race Schedule on the sidebar. You can visit the relevant website for each event by clicking on the individual races.

The schedule is not set in stone and there are a couple of other running races or relays that I might try and fit in. I have already registered for the races that have sold out with the exception of the Ironman events i.e. Cherry Blossom 10 miler (sold out in 4 hours) and Columbia. I have also registered for the Nation's Tri which is close to selling out and is a race which I really enjoyed last year.

Please note that I still do not know for sure if I am going to Lake Placid. I am not registered for the race, which is sold out, but I hope to compete as part of the Cadence Kona challenge. That being said, as I understand it, not all six of us 'contenders' are going to be able to go.

Participation in the Hawaii Ironman Worldchamps is obviously dependant on me getting to Lake Placid and then putting in a fast enough time to qualify.

I am also hoping to do the Escape from Alcatraz Tri which looks like a lot of fun but that is dependant on a lottery draw next month and would also mean that I would have to drop Mooseman.

It should be a really great year for racing and I am looking forward to getting going. I want to make the most of my last full year in the US and to sample some of the great North American triathlons before I go back to Europe.

Now that the dust has settled.

It is has been a couple of months now since the Cadence Kona Challenge weekend in New York and I finally have the chance to draw breath. It has been a roller coaster of a ride so far. My initial application was a ‘fire and forget’ email and I really didn’t expect to hear anything back. The selection weekend in New York was amazing. The Cadence facilities and staff were both top notch. I got the opportunity to meet Sam McGlone straight off the back of her fantastic second place finish in Hawaii and we were wined and dined at a swanky SoHo hotel penthouse bar – very cool.

My fellow finalists are all really great people and I look forward to reading their blogs. I have been assigned my new coach, Holden Cameau, and been expertly fitted for my new Cyfac bike by Colin Sandberg at Cadence’s Philly centre (also very nice). I am now four weeks into the new training program. So what have I learnt so far ...?

… although I was very happy with my old Felt S22 the new Cyfac le Mythique is in a different league. It looks stunning in its deep blue and black paint scheme and after a few rides I find it very fast and stable. The Zipp 606 wheelset and Vuka bars are beautifully engineered and I cannot wait to race them next year.

… Ironman training is hard work. I am really tired at the moment and I feel like I did 9 months ago when I first started training for triathlon. I have gone from a 2:1 build to recovery ratio to a 3:1 ratio and I have also seen a significant increase in training volume. At the moment my body is in the process of adjusting to this increase in training.

… I do not photo well. I have just received January’s copy of Triathlete Magazine and I look as if I am half asleep in my photo.

… I still benefit from group training. My new coach has kindly tied my new routine in with that of my local tri teams (www.triteamz.com) program as much as possible. This allows me to keep in contact with friends and team mates that I have made over the last year and also to benefit from mutual encouragement that naturally occurs during group training. As an added bonus many of my team mates are training for Ironman Lake Placid so I get to train with people who have the same goal.

… my age group (30-35) is very competitive. I have had a quick look at some of the qualifying times for Kona and they are fast. Although I find this a little intimidating I take comfort in my fellow finalist Randy’s blog, “failing”, and I have cut back on my part time studies to devote as much time as I can to triathlon. I will give it my best shot and I know I will never regret this experience.

Whatever happens I am looking forward to the ride. I am very grateful for this opportunity and for the continued backing of my wife who supports my efforts despite the long hours involved.

The cheesy photo is of me and my new bike.