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!

Training Update: Muskoka Weekend Pt 2 and Lake Placid Weekend Pt 1

Check out the view Friday morning at Clyffe House - eerie eh? The sun burned it all off by lunchtime and it was sunny and warm for most of the weekend.

This family called Clyffe House home as well.

Despite already swimming 3200m, running 5.5 miles and biking 25 miles, Logan had scheduled a little interval work on the paddle boat. After all the day's activities I found it tough and had a sweat going. The picture shows how beautiful Mary Lake is, especially without fog.

Logan's becoming quite the outdoorsman. Paddle boats are fun but he really enjoyed kayaking and took to it quickly.

This is basically the same shot I took that was covered in fog this morning. Now it's sunny skies!

Dork!

Here Logan and I are enjoying a paddle together. It would definitely be cool to live here.

After our huge ride that ranged between 75-112 miles we had our annual Saturday night potluck. As usual it did not disappoint and there were some happy bellies post meal, all washed down with beers and wine - the recovery drinks of champions!

Logan and I dockside enjoying the end of an awesome day. Next on the Road to Ironman Lake Placid is the Lake Placid Epicman. Epicman is a grass roots training day the starts at 6:00 am with a 50 minute swim, followed by 112 mile bike (the Ironman course) and finally a 5 or 13.1 mile run all in one day. The Lake Placid event took place on June 10th.

We checked in to the Crowne Plaza on Thursday and in the lobby was an old bobsled that actually participated in the 1932 Olympics. I just had to check it out - Dork!

Here's a nice view from the Crowne Plaza looking down at the old church and Mirror Lake.

Sara and I got a shuttle from the hotel and had dinner at the Boathouse Restaurant on Mirror Lake. It was good food with a nice view.

Here's the Boathouse Restaurant from the other side of Mirror Lake - it's quite the spot. Next post will highlight our training day - it was quite the adventure.

Cheers! Oh, and by the way - HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

Need Motivation?

 
If you need help with motivation please check out the link below and, do yourself a favour, play the video. This guy is inspirational!



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/nyregion/cyclists-embrace-a-handless-cuban-who-wants-to-race.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=damian&st=cse

Muskoka Training Weekend

A awesome weekend of training, drink and weather came together for Victoria Day weekend. Our long bike was memorable for many reasons:

We rode the majority of the ride, 120k plus, with the group intact. We had one rider, Evan, top out at 180k. We had four riders complete 166k, and the rest of the spandex army got 120k plus in. We had a nice break at Robinson's General Store in Dorset where we refueled on bananas, powerbars and yuppy mix (popular item with the group). We had 2 wipeouts (courtesy of Tom or "Sausage Tom" as he soon became) - not to worry, though, Tom came out unscathed,

Here's a game - take the picture to the left and above and spot the differences.

Here's Logan at the Port Sydney waterfall - it's supposed to be a lot of fun sliding down when warm enough. I'll have to try it when it's less frigid.

Cute geese family at the Clyffe House.

We had dinner at the Eclipse restaurant at Deerhurst Resort, site of last year's G8 summit. Our waitress, Denise, actually served the President!

Here the boys are looking after their recovery with an "ice bath" and ice-cold beer(s)!!

The gang enjoying the fruits of the labour and more beverages!

Next stop - Lake Placid Ironman training weekend.....

Cheers!

Hey Rob, Where You At?!!

It's been a busy few weeks and I haven't put out a decent post in a bit. So this is what I've been up to......first off, I turned 45 on May 6 so HELLO new age group!! Here's my opportunity to appear fast with the old boys. My birthday landed on a Friday and a rather busy workday. I flew up to Thunder Bay for the day and never stopped moving until I arrived back home at 7:30 in the evening. My present to myself was coming the next morning at the Personal Best long distance triathlon training day. The day would consist of a 75 min swim, 3.5 hour bike and 1.5 hour run back to back to back. John "the Beast" Ceko and about 25 others signed up for the fun.

The home base was the David Braley Centre at McMaster University, an awesome facility.

We had the full 50 metre pool to ourselves. John and I, however, mistakenly assumed this segment would consist of a 75 minute continous swim. Instead we were put through a gruelling workout by Andrew Cole, the McMaster swim coach. Our main set consisted of 2 x 50m all out, 2 x 50m easy, 150m all out, then 100m easy - we kept repeating this until our time was up or our arms fell off. Both John and I could hardly move our arms by the last 150m interval - it was not pretty!

Swim now over we gathered for the bike. The plan was to make our way from Mac to Flamborough where we would do 20km loops, some in pacelines, some individual time trials and some pursuits. It was a lot of fun despite the ever present cool weather we've been having.

Now on the bike the Beast was one happy camper as evidenced by the giddy look on his face!

The guy with the yellow jacket is Hans Porten. He's in the 50-54 age group and is an amazing athlete. He also has a very sterotypical German accent. During a paceline where we were in pairs I had the pleasure to ride with Hans and he repeatedly told our group to "stay togezzer!!" I was expecting the followup "we have vays of making you tawk" to come out of his mouth. He routinely wins his age group and I would kill to be in the shape this guy's in.

Beast getting antsy because we stopped for a pee break - "when are we going?!!"

Pro Karsten Madsen guided us to the run loop.

A shot of the group running - it was tough running and taking pics but I'm such a dedicated blogger and I told myself to HTFU. Incidentally, the runner in the white shirt is retired NHLer Scott Thornton who's right into triathlon now and I believe is gearing up for Ironman Austria. YouTube his name and MTV Cribs and you'll see his sweet indoor tri-themed workout area in his house - very cool.

This was part of the run loop near Cootes Paradise. By this point it started to warm up but this stretch of trail remained nice and cool.

I thought the Beast was going to hug high performance member John Rasmussen when he arrived with water as the Beast was a little parched. How John (not the Beast) rode with the case of water on his handlebars I'll never know. All the pros were great and totally supportive.

Another pic of the Beast and I.

The following Friday I took advantage of the nice weather and set out for a long ride. I started riding at 6:50 am and went to Brantford and back for 61 miles (Go Imperial Man Go!). I came back and headed out again with Sara to Grimsby and back for some more riding fun. By this time it was 23C and 30 with the humidity - it felt great!

Sara slicing through the wind. If only we had race wheels.......it was amazing to not have layers of clothes on.

Nice Face!! I took a picture of myself while riding no hands - probably not smart but I'll do anything for my craft! All in all I covered 102 miles on the bike (163km for you metric folk) - my first century of the season. John and I met up the next day and banged off 16 miles (26 km) of running with lots of hills. I felt pretty good so my training must be on track. We have our Muskoka training weekend coming up this Victoria Day weekend so I'm looking forward to another smashfest. That's all for now and remember "if you can't be good, be good at it!"

Have a good one - Cheers!

Inspirational - A Perspective Review

http://www.penmachine.com/2011/05/the-last-post

The above link is from a BC man who recently died of colorectal cancer and was a frequent blogger. This was his last post that was sent out following his death. It is estimated to have received 8 million hits. Makes me rethink about the whining over gas prices!