Lake Placid Training Camp

So on Thursday night I left to travel to Burlington, Vermont to spend the night with my friends before heading up to Lake Placid to get a good solid weekend in of training. Got a good night sleep and headed up in the morning. The weather was great, sunny, 60's, perfect. The camp I signed up for is the Multisport camp which is run by, Heather Fuhr, hawaii ironman winner and 5x winner of Lake Placid, Paula Newby Frasier ( need I say more), Roch Frey, Paul Huddle and other amazing ironman athletes. Anyway, doing the camp was the only way I was able to get into ironman this year but I'm so glad I got to go because the training and the experience you get from these guys is amazing. Our schedule for the weekend was this:

Friday- swim in mirror lake, ~ 5000 yards, did 7 x 500 yd repeats in the lake as the main set, using the buoys as our guide it was great practicing siting, and just plain awesome to get into the lake. The water was super warm and I was glad I had my short sleeve.
We then had a little snack and headed out on our 25 mile bike ride. Roch and Heather put me in the lead group of men, the only woman, I was so nervous because my friend Bob and all the other uber guys with all their ironman gear on were in the group, I was so sure I was not going to keep up but unlike last year I decided not to bag the group because I was nervous I stayed to see what I could do. It was great, we biked out of town and then climbed back of the 3 bears for good practice and was never dropped, I held my own.
We got dressed had a good lecture and then to dinner.

That night I rented," The Hangover", so funny, I just needed to relax before going to bed because I knew that I was riding the two loops tomorrow with the same men and 25miles is a bit different then 112 so in my mind I just didn't want to get dropped, I didn't want to kill myself either to keep up and blow myself up for the rest of the weekend, so I just needed to relax.

Saturday- got up had breakfast, had all my nutrition ready ( tried Carbo-pro for the first time) instead of a lot of solid nutrition with the hopes I wouldn't bonk and or get some GI distress which I normally do. We were the last group to go out because technically we were the fastest group. It was rainy and wet and a bit windy but not too bad.

***** The course has been changed since previous years, the old out and back is no more because the bridge is out, so before you head out to wilmington ( which I think is the hardest climb of the ride) you go straight for 5.7 miles and then turn around. You then climb the hills to wilmington to the old out and back and you do 1 mile in the old out and back and then back out. The new out and back is a bit less hilly and has some good flats to build up some speed and rest the legs before heading back to town. The first loop we covered in just over 3hrs, which I was psyched about. On the descents on the wet roads I let the men take off but on the climbs and flats I was right there, I think ( except for Bob) they didn't expect me to be with them but I was. The second loop we didn't do the new out and back and just went into town, we were definitely faster the second loop and all in all I averaged 17.8mph for the 100 miles and 171watts average.

When we finished we went for a 5 mile T-run, I struggled a bit, it got a bit warm and humid but I made my way through and finished. No-one wanted to swim in the lake that night so I opted to go to bed early instead after dinner to rest up for my long run in the morning.

Sunday- long run with the group was on the schedule today, however Bob and I had to do 20 miles, so we got up early at 6am and headed out to the turn around on the run and ran back into town ( 6 miles) " Thanks Bob for picking the hillest section of the course to start my run). I initially felt good but over time and especially when we met up with the group to do the entire 13.1, I was getting tired. I knew I just wanted to finish the run with no stopping and to watch my fuel intake. It was pouring rain from the get go and it was cold. I only made it through 18 miles and my legs said enough. I knew when I started to chill and my HR was low that I wasn't able to keep my body warm and all I was going to do is beat myself up more to finish a lousy 2 miles so I called it quits and headed back to the room for a hot shower. I averaged 9:10 pace for the 18 miles, I was very depressed about that and it brought back a lot of emotions for me on how I felt on race day last year. The marathon in ironman is no joke and its the hardest thing for me, I only hope with a good taper and some fresher legs I can embrace the marathon and at least just feel a tad better when running it.

The end of the camp had a little lecture on race day happenings and then it was awards time. I got a pair of Oakley sunglasses and Bob won a new Xterra wet suit. The amount of free stuff I got this year and last completely pays for the camp, its absolutely crazy. Multisport does a great job with its camps and I would highly recommend them if you ever want to do one.

Anyway, with being wet pretty much the whole weekend and on my bike a ton I developed a UTI, not fun when your driving home and with traffic and bad weather and needing to go pee every few minutes it took me over 6 1/2 hours to get home. I called my MD on the way home and was able to pick up antibiotics before I got to my house, hopefully I'll feel better soon.

I'm a bit tired today but may head to the pool for a few laps just to flush out my body a bit. 48 days and counting, its crazy, I can't believe its almost here.