Weekend in Placid

So, the weekend in Placid over Memorial Day went a little better than anticipated. I came into the weekend with horrible images in my mind about the infamous “hills of Lake Placid” and was even thinking about changing the gearing on THE BEAST because everyone was telling me horror stories about these hills.

To sum it up, this course was not as bad as everyone told me it was going to be...

Now I do not fancy myself a climber. I do not climb well on the bike and I think this stems from my physique from years past (three years ago I was pushing a DEUCE on the scales. Almost 200 lbs…) Good climbers are generally rail thin and scrawny little guys that can bounce up the hills just because they have monster quads and have no weight up top to slow them down. I have slimmed down a bit since college and lost some of my bulk from up top but I think I had preconceived notions in my head about the course and it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Saturday we headed out for two loops on the bike course and most everyone in our 6 person group was just going to do 1 loop. I did the one loop with them and even had on Excalibur, but in retrospect, X will probably not be worn for the race. IT was too hot and the decent into Keene was a little hairy as I felt like the Rocketeer (see below) going down the hills and at one time when I looked over my shoulder going about 45 mph, I felt like I was going to fly off the bike. The second loop I rode with T$ and J. Fish-Hunter, and after like 3 miles, I began feeling really good and wanted to see how fast I could do the entire course. I finished the 56 mile course in 2:50 and was feeling good about it. I was sitting for almost every climb and since the hills are long and very gradual, it was much easier than Canandaigua Lake . All in all, this was a nice and very scenic bike course. I even went out for a 2 mile T-run after the ride and it felt ok…my legs were a little shelled at that point though…

Sunday started at 7am when everyone decided it would be good to get up REALLY early and get the long run over with. Most people were hitting up 1 loop of the run course (13.1 miles) – I, of course, wanted to do 18 miles…
There is one LARGE hill on the run course, that you have to do twice, coming down from transition and it will hurt the quads in the race, but it is do-able. (My HR was 142 going up it during the run…my hill training must have paid off!). The run course will be a little different than IM FLORIDA, but it is do-able.
I’m getting stoked about doing this race as the scenery is AMAZING. It is SO much nicer than Florida and will be a blast to do as a bunch of my friends are going to do it this year too.

We all ended up climbing up Porter and Cascade on Sunday as well after my 18 mile long run and that was a challenge. I will have pics of the summits of those in another post later on this week.

This past weekend was more monster miles with a 113.12 mile ride to Buffalo, NY and back from Rochester, NY and Sunday was a 21 mile run in Webster, NY. I have the Keuka Lake Tri this upcoming Sunday and that should be a fun little speed workout. (My 10k there last year at the end of the Olympic tri was a 37:29, so I’m hoping to repeat that) Last year was also my very first podium finish overall in a triathlon so Keuka holds a special place in my heart. (It was also the very first TRI I ever did….thank you Philly VP for creating the addiction!)

I will report on that later after the weekend and I will let you all know how I do. I’m shooting to break 2:10 there and I think it MIGHT just be do-able considering the results from last year (2:14:26 finish) so we’ll see what happens. It will be a good show-down.

I hope you all are hitting the roads hard and they are not hitting back too badly, see you out there, the season is finally here :)