Nate Parady's Lake Placid 2011 RR: First Ironman
Pre Race
Overall, my training had gone really well and arrived at LP feeling pretty relaxed and rested. I had gotten a lot of the race day nerves out of my system during the EN camp a few weeks prior. I was more nervous to ride the course for the first time during the camp than I was for the actual race. Highly recommend to anyone doing LP for the first time to attend the camp or somehow miracle a way up to LP to ride the course at least once before race day.
Arrived in LP on Thursday, checking into the Maple Leaf Inn on Saranac Ave. I would recommend this hotel to other folks. It was walking distance to the lake, rooms were a bit small but very clean and the owners were super friendly. There was a pool on the grounds that made for a great activity for my 3 year old daughter. Mom and Sister Arrived Friday and stayed out of town.
Friday, Busy day, R/S/B in the morning. 30 minutes of each. Met up with a bunch of ENers by the lake for the swim. I was very excited that I put up an easy 33:00 for my loop. This gave me a huge confidence boost headed into the race. I had remained pretty relaxed and calm for most of the day. My entire family attended the EN Dinner.
Saturday- Still feeling calm, UNTIL, as I was literally walking into the oval to check in my bike I discovered my front tire was flat. NOOOOO…WTF…turned around and walked to the bike tech shop. Luckily there was only 1 person in front of me. I had accidently put too much air pressure in my tire and the heat blew the tube. Rookie mistake…lesson learned. Headed out to lunch with the family while they repaired my bike. I had plenty of time to check in after lunch but getting a flat had shaken me up a bit I must admit. I kept telling myself that I just got my “bike issue” out of the way. Met Steve Ross by the tech support tent which was nice and calmed me down a bit. Headed back to the hotel room and layed down watching TV with my daughter and mom by 2pm. I then realized that I should have taken some air out of my other tire and began obsessing about what I would do if I arrived to another flat tire on race morning. The stress level was rising. Ate dinner around 5pm of Salmon and pasta. Watched the Ironman race support setting up the swim course. Was laying down in bed by 8:30 that night.
Race Morning
Slept from about 9:30-midnight pretty hard but then was awake from midnight on. Took down Two 350 Cal Ensures at 2am. 2:30 am Took in a Gu with some water. 4am drank a cup of coffee and another 250 Cal Ensure. Felt Calm. Began walking to Transition around 4:15. Plan was to drop off SN bags then be at Transition by 5am. Luckily I ran into a volunteer right around the lake who grabbed my SN bags from me. NICE!! Sat down right outside transition by around 4:40. Hit the porta potties (no lines that early) and then ran into Keith Wick and his wife which was very nice. Getting into transition at 5am was uneventful, Saw Brenda Ross who reminded me to “smile”. No issues with my bike, put some air in the tires, taped 3 GU packets to my bike, loaded up my 3 hour 750Cal bottle of Infinit, and two bottles of water. At 5:30 I was walking out of transition and what seemed like the entire world was trying to walk in. I was so glad I had arrived early to transition. Low stress event to be early.
By the lake chatted with lots of ENers. I felt pretty relaxed. So great to be part of a team. Drank 32 oz of water by the lake and took another Gu. In the water by about 6:40am.
The Swim (if you want to really call that swimming) 1:09: 07 (Rank 551/Div. Pos 68)
I had read lots of info in the forums about how to approach the swim. I still had no real plan that morning other than assess what I was seeing and make a decision. There was a big group up front, a large gap to the rear, and then a bunch of people standing on the beach. I asked around to a few folks what their swim time was and times were all over the map. I decided to be about 5 rows back 15 feet off the buoy line. I didn’t want to have to swim around lots of people and decided not to be scared about getting some hits. I was still pretty relaxed as I floated around waiting for the gun to go off. Lots of people had scared looks on their face which actually made me relax.
Gun goes off, Total Chaos. Got pushed off to the right further than I wanted to but halfway to the first buoy I started seeing holes in the crowd so I started moving left. By the back half of the first loop I could see the cable line every now and then. I was barely sighted at all. Got a gallon of water shoved up my nose by people kicking their feet so close to my head. Tons of contact the entire way. I just kept swimming. First lap done in 34:00
Adjusted my timing chip which cost me maybe 3 seconds, then headed out for the second loop. Got right on the cable and went stroke for stroke with two other guys almost the entire way around. I’m pretty sure I hit my head on almost every single buoy the second time around. I kept my pace in check by watching my breathing. Breathed every 4 strokes every now and then to see how much stress I was under. Felt easy, I wasn’t really pulling that hard. Kept focused on my head position (one eye under water while I breathe to ensure my head was down) and keeping my feet close together (big toes touching) barely ever kicking.
Out of the water in 1:09: 07 (Rank 551/Div. Pos 68). Keith Wick was right behind me and we ran/walked to transition. Crowd was going nuts…Amazing
T1 9:44-Didn’t seem that long, made a quick porta potty break and took some time to put my arm warmers (old socks) on.
Bike (HR guy/no powermeter) 7:30 (Rank 1880/Div Pos 197)
I knew that based on my swim time and bike ability I was going to get passed by a TON of people on the bike. Headed out of town I was focused on settling in and trying to get my HR to come down. I had two bottles of water on my bike to start with but planned on ditching one of them after the first aid station. During the first climb someone road up next to me and said, “looks like you’ve done one of these before.” I was on the shoulder getting passed by lots of people. He then made a comment on how most of these guys were going too fast. I saw plenty of people crushing themselves going up that first climb. I also some pretty legit riders in their aero bars cruising up the hill. I knew I would probably never see them again. Accomplished my goal of drinking a full bottle of water before the decent and had two sips of infinit. Nutrition plan was on track. Made it down the decent in one piece and ditched my arm warmers at an aid station (old socks). Road with Steve West for a while which was very cool.
Overall, the bike was pretty uneventful for me personally. Stuck to my nutrition plan by having my watch go off every 15 minutes. Drank lots of water and sipped on my Infinit bottle. Took a Gu Roctane at the 2 hour and 4 hour mark. Coach Patrick’s advise to POINT at the volunteer you want to take water from worked great. It really seemed to wake them up from the Fog and get ready to hand the bottle off to you. Dumped lots of water on myself to stay cool. Stopped at SN to switch out bottles and take a salt pill. Also had a volunteer put some more sunscreen on me.
The 2nd time going down the decent was a lot different. The wind had picked up and I didn’t touch my brakes once. I think I only hit 33MPH the second time down. Around mile 60 I started having stomach cramps. I decided to stop at one of the parking areas on the way to Jay and stretch for 20 seconds and actually fully PEE. A little different than doing it on the bike. This seemed to solve the problem. At mile 70ish I saw a really bad bike accident. It had just happened. Volunteers were scrambling, female biker was down and not moving. It was sobering. At mile 80, as expected, my left foot started to throb. This always seems to occur around the 80 mile mark for me. By this point I wasn’t getting passed by many people any more. In fact the course seemed to look different to me in the fact that I was actually passing some people. That was weird. For most of the bike I was thinking about the Run. I really wanted to have a good run. Thought I would go a little faster on the second loop but the sun was feeling pretty strong so I kept to an easy pace just above JRA pace. Probably the best decision I made all day. Road through town with some riders who were totally cooked. Their attitudes sucked. One guy was actually complaining about the fan support cheering for him (WOW really). Was feeling great and so excited to start the run. I had gotten passed by over 1,300 people on the bike and was totally OK with that. I fully enjoyed how nice the day was. That course is very challenging and beautiful at the same time. The mountains and clouds were amazing. The crowd support and random cars parked on the side of the road with music blaring was great. Loved it.
T2: 4:22 Uneventful, found a seat pretty quick, a volunteer sprayed me down with sunscreen and off I went.
The Run 4:34:26 (Rank 1449 Div. Pos 162) Passed 431 People on the run.
Headed out for the run and all I was thinking about was a forum posts from Coach Rich talking about how you can’t run the first six miles slow enough. I was in full body self assessment mode and was happy with what was going on. My feet felt good and my legs had some step in them. I got right into mid strike form which I was happy with. I was thrown off by hitting the first aid station only a few minutes out of the transition tent. I don’t use a GPS but was using my wrist watch to track my time. Trying to hit the lap button at the end of each aid station. My first few miles were 11:00s then 10:00s. I felt hot and was trying to cool off for the first 5 miles. Lots of ice in my hands under my hat and cold spunges all over. Nutrition for the first 6 miles was good with water and Perform. After mile 6 I ran into some issues with not being able to stomach Perform. I was seeing lots of people puking up Orange Perform and I really didn’t want that to happen to me. My hands were also tingly all over. I had no idea what this was. I asked several ENers on the course what they thought this meant but no one knew. I took a break from Perform and just took Water and a salt pill for the next mile. At mile 7ish I started taking water and flat Coke. I was a little nervous about taking in coke as I had never done this before but Perform wasn’t working. Coke seemed to settle my stomach. Saw the family in town and got a good laugh at my daughter asleep in my wife’s arms. She was DONE…I ran really well until Mile 16 then I hit a serious wall. I wasn’t feeling good at all. I was out on River Road knowing I still had 10 miles to go and I was worried about making it to the next aid station at this point. There were also Ambulances all over the place and an athlete lying in the road from leg cramps. This wasn’t helping my mental state. I was reduced to a walk. I thought of my dad and got emotional and then thought of my army buddy who was killed in Iraq. That got me running again. At the next aid station I switched to Water and chicken broth and that really helped. Made the turn to go back into town and was starting to pass lots of people. They were walking up the hill and I was running 10:00s. Highlight at the end was running up the hill into town and having Coach Patrick run out into the street to shake my hand and smack me on the ass telling me to finish strong. Before I knew it I was making the turn into the oval which was such an amazing experience. I was in a total fog and could only sort of make out the announcer calling out my name and telling me I was an ironman.
Total run time was 4:34:26
Total ironman time 13:28:09
Aftermath: Very sunburn on my back..really gross and painful. Grabbed my bags and had a volunteer grab my bike. I was so out of it I’m pretty sure I left my Tri shorts in the change tent. Met up with the family and headed to the car. Drank an Ensure on the way to the car and had a sandwich and banana in the hotel room. My mom actually hand fed me the banana. I got a serious case of the chills and my wife had to wrap me up in a blanket. I Sat in a warm bathtub trying to recover. I’m sure an Ice bath would have been better but I was freezing at that point. I was wishing I could have made it back into town for the final finishers but there was no way I could make it. Asleep by 11:00pm.
Thanks to all the supporters and EN members. Special thanks to Coach Rich and Patrick.
Not signed up for any future races at this point but I am flirting with the idea of Ironman FL in 2012.
Comments
Great job and RR Nate.
Congrats you are an ironman.
Great Job Nate. I love the arm warmers.
Gordon
Season's Goal: Complete my first IM, Have Fun while working hard
Mission Accomplished. Even THINKING about signing up for another is a sign you had a good race - many people make a pact with themselves somewhere on the run NEVER to do another Ironman.
thanks for all the comments.
Congrats, Nate on a great day! I learned alot from many of the questions you asked throughout the training, so thanks for being so diligent in your prep. I also listened to your podcast, which I though was excellent. I can't believe how well you swim with such a short history in the water. You're a natural. Great, methodical, disciplined approach overall. Must be your army training
. And you had fun, which is key. BTW we both got the horrible, blistering sunburn in the shape of the EN singlet. I'm sure I looked rather frightening at the beach last weekend.