Lake Placid Epicman

So, Beast, Sausage Tom, Sara and I made our way down to Lake Placid for the Epicman. Epicman is a self-supported long training day six weeks out from Ironman Lake Placid. It consists of a 50 min swim + 112 mile bike (the Ironman course) + 5 mile or half marathon (Ironman course). The day began at 6:00 am and, as you can see from my expression, I was pretty psyched - even though I'm definitely not a morning person.

Here's Beast and Tom prepping for the swim. Tom was already looking for breakfast of bacon and eggs and requested we stop repeatedly in an attempt to wear us all down. We stayed focused on the task at hand and made our way to Mirror Lake.

Surprisingly it was quite warm this early in the morning but we were already five minutes behind as there was no waiting by the group at large. No worries - more free space for us.

In the 50 minutes I was able to swim to the end of Mirror Lake and back, approximately 2500+meters in total. The nice thing about Mirror Lake is the buoy line is permanently fixed with a cable about 6 feet underwater so you never have to look up to see where you're going (if you hit land - STOP).

Here's Beast and I after the ride. Beast made the trek to Bonktown while heading back from Wilmington to Lake Placid but he gutted it out. A combination of a busy work schedule and lack of sleep finally caught up with him. He passed on the run post ride but recouped the following day to run 14 miles with Sara - I think it was the beer that allowed for the positive turnaround.

By the end of the bike and start of the run it started to heat up and it was absolutely beautiful.

Tom, who basically has taken up the endurance craze this season, managed the 50 minute swim, 140k of biking and joined me for 19k of running. At this point I was grateful for the company. Sara snapped this pic as we made our way to River Road at the base of the Olympic Ski Jumps. Tom tried to talk me into going for a swim in the river at the run turnaround but stopping would have locked me right up so we pushed on.

Who's that Hobbit running with Tom?!

Post Epicman, Beast, Sara and I (Tom was passed out) made our way to Adirondack Steak and Seafood Restaurant. If you're ever in Placid, go there - the food is amazing! Here's Sara with my beer, a Belgian Blond. I caption this picture "A Blond With A Blond" (now give me back my beer!).

The Beast was in fine carnivorous form and ordered the Marcy, 32 ounces of prime rib - real Flintsones-style piece of meat.

This is the Beast's plate after - trust me he ate it all! We washed down our meals with some local beers and all was good.

Don't these two look excited? Beast and Sara as they head out on the Ironman run course. They completed just over a half mary and the light rain cooled them as they went. After yesterday's festivities I had the day off.

Here they are on River Road, a four mile out and back on the run course. The course is really beautiful and, as the name suggests, it follows a river. Flyfishing is really popular in Placid.

This magnificent site is most welcomed as it signifies the end of the out and back portion of the run and you get to head back to town and the crowds of cheering spectators. Epicman was an awesome experience and it definitely built confidence towards the big day on July 24th. I must have seen over 400 people swimming, biking, and running this course over the weekend (I'm probably underestimating it). Next time I see this I'll be racing Ironman Lake Placid 2011. Look out!

Cheers!