Ironman Lake Placid 2007

I DNF'ed. What more is there to say. Well maybe more, but on another day. Let's just say this one wasn't mine.

Ironman Final Preparations

Wow, I just noticed that it has been over a month since my last blog post. I guess I have been preoccupied with other matters. I just really haven’t felt like blogging for a while. I suppose many bloggers go through periods like that.

Let’s see if I can get my life up to date for posterity. I had to disappear for a while to attend to a personal matter the last week in June. It wasn’t a fun thing, but I came through it ok. I did a couple of long rides the last couple of weeks before IMLP, with the highlight being my solo trip to the top of Bear Mountain. That was a fun day (not). It was a warm day and I really wasn’t in shape to do such a long ride. I went over the George Washington Bridge, down around River Road and then straight up through 9W for the remainder of the ride. I was supposed to go 110 miles for the day, so I figured I would ride out 55 miles and then turn around. However, the 55 mile mark saw me so close to Perkins Drive (the road that leads to the top of Bear Mountain), that I figured that since I was there I may as well climb it.

Really that climb was more than I was ready for, but I just pushed myself to do it. The climb up Bear Mountain is a winding road that relentlessly ascends. About 1200 feet to be more precise. I was tired, thirsty and fatigued, but I forced myself up to the top. When I arrived at the top I stopped to look around and enjoy the view. I drank almost a liter of water on the way up and was suddenly very low on water. There was no water fountain available, but there was a machine from which I purchased two bottles of water. I didn’t hang out on the top for long. I knew it was going to be a long ride home and I wanted to get going. There were a couple of sections on the way back that I thought would kill me. Finally though I made it back to the GW bridge. I considered taking the subway home from there, but it was flat back to the Brooklyn Bridge so I decided to just go for it and ride home.

I made it over the Brooklyn Bridge, but just barely. I feeling wasn’t feeling that well and was suffering from dehydration and/or hyponatremia. I rode about another mile into Brooklyn, until I got to the point where I soon have to start climbing the slope back into Park Slope. I had just passed my subway train so I decided to hell with climbing the slope, I am done with this ride. I bought a can of coke from a corner bodega, and then took the subway 4 stops to my station. From the train I was able to call my wife and tell her that I wasn’t feeling well and possibly hyponatremic. She offered to call an ambulance for me, but I told her to hold off until I got home to see if I would start feeling any better. After an hour or so, I started to come around and told her to go off to work. I then had to force myself to cook dinner for my kids and later play catch with my son.

That ride was two weeks before Lake Placid. Since then I’ve done several swims, one with Larry in the Ocean at Brighton Beach, a 60 mile bike ride with Larry and a 10 mile run on my own. The week before this weekend I took it really easy and today I am feeling pretty good.
Another big event that’s happened in my life over the past several weeks is that my wife and kids have left me home alone as they spend the summer in Spain. As the days ticked off to their departure date, my kids would spend more and more time next to me telling me that they wished I was going with them. I will join them later in August for 11 days and we will all come home together. I sent my wife with one of my laptops, rigged up with a global Broadband (cellular) card that allows her to connect to the Internet wherever she is. She is staying in a small town with my in-laws and no one there has Internet access. So far the connection has worked out and we’ve been talking to each other for free over Skype. We even managed to get a video conference (we both have web cams) going so I am able to see my kids now and then. Only for a few seconds though as the Skype connection tends to cut out when we load the broadband card with the video. We even made a Skype to Skype call while I was driving up to Lake Placid. I have another Broadband card in my laptop and we managed to connect a call while I was driving 75 mph on I 87 and she was in a small house in the hills of Spain. Pretty cool how technology works sometimes.

I’ve taken it easy while up in Lake Placid. On Thursday, my first day here, I ate an early dinner by myself and then saw Live Free or Die, the newest Bruce Willis movie. That was a good flick which I highly recommend. I also registered and toured the athlete village despite the steady rain that plagued Lake Placid all day on Thursday. Today (Friday), I did a loop of the swim course with my friends Larry and Walter. The water was just as beautiful as its always been. We swam easily over the 1.2 mile course in 42 minutes. That included the several times we stopped to hang out and talk. One of the times we stopped to talk was when some guy swam between us so fast, it was as if he were a motor boat. I thought it was Larry since the guy had on the same wetsuit as Larry. I thought to myself, why is Larry swimming so fast all of a sudden? When I looked up, I saw that it wasn’t Larry and he had stopped swimming also as we both couldn’t believe how fast this guy passed us.

After the swim, the 3 of us went our separate ways. I went back to the Bed and Breakfast that I am staying at and did an 11 mile ride over the run course. I timed it perfectly, as just after the moment I returned to my B&B it started to pour rain again. I was relieved to not be riding in the rain (I didn’t want to gunk up my chain) and sat down to eat some lunch.

After relaxing for a while I went to the Athlete’s Village again to grab some more swag. I also went to purchase another tube after discovering that in my flat repair kit, I was carrying a tube with the wrong valve size. I am glad I checked as it would have really sucked to find that out by getting a flat and not having the correct tube.

To top the day off, I had dinner with Larry and his family at a BBQ place outside of town. We met up with Willy and a couple of friends of Larry’s and celebrated Larry’s 50th birthday. Now I lay in my bed typing this entry which for the most part updates everything that’s been going on. I am sure I left out plenty of details, but I supposed if I can’t remember them now, they are not significant enough to warrant writing about. Maybe I’ll make a couple of addendums at a later date.