Ironman Lake Placid : Official Thread (Page 89)

He's TJ Tollakson's twin brother!!!!   And don't worry, I'm sure he's in my AG knowing my luck!

Oh no Rusty.  I have no more to go around.  It is all focused on you, friend.  MU-HAAHAHAHAH-HAHAHAH-HAHAHAH-HAHA!!! 

My biggest week will be three weeks out.

I will top out at about 20 hours.

Three week taper for IM (I usually do a two week taper for a marathon).

HAHA-HAHAHAH-HAHA HA HAHAHA

sarc]HOLY !@#%£#! rye11, I don't care how much you weigh, I just want to confirm that you ARE NOT in the 45-49 age group...

Oh, and welcome to the group! FWIW, I am currently 3.7 w/kg. Last year I raced IMLP at 72% of FTP and found the bike to be very pleasant beginning to end and had very fresh legs for the run. For rides/races over 3 hours, after about an hour on the bike i do begin to bracket Power against HR. This year my FTP is up a bit and am tentatively planning to race somewhere between 75% - 80% of FTP. I will be working that out over the next 7.5 weeks. This weekend's brick is all about that...

5"11 - 197 (down 25 since starting training for IMLP)

Any "Finksters" doing the prescribed HIM this weekend?

I am going to Lexington, KY for the annual "Horsey Hundred" bike ride instead.  This course is very difficult (for me) with lot's of hills.  Hopefully, good prep for LP

It's supposed to be 95 degrees around here ~ Woo-Hoo!!  Finally.

8 weekends before the race weekend..... I remember when it was 8 months.... after the intensity at TTT I can say I am ready for whatever Placid has to throw at me... other than the mass swim start. The most I have started with is 200 or so. Maybe while training I should load my girl's kayak up with water balloons, have her paddle next to me and pelt me with them... she would prob like that! lol

I am trying to come up with a 'plan' for the race start since I know I do not want to start out fast. My 'fear' isn't getting hit, my fear isn't the swim distance... my fear is the people who fear the swim, getting hit and the distance. Make sense? I know I will be ok since I will be in my wetsuit and I can absorb hits because of my size... and deliver some good ones too... it is the stories I hear about people actually grabbing onto your legs and arms. There's nothing more dangerous than someone who thinks they are drowning... or actually is.

We swim, we train... but we never train for this....

I will be wading with others,  talking, asking them their projected time... steering away from the visibly nervous ones... most likely starting out to the mid/far right towards the back for the first loop... second loop I will hug the buoys and looking for a good draft...

I know we talked about swim strategy before but with 100+ pages this guy ain't hunting for it... lol.. what are your plans for the mass swim start?

I'm doing the Fink prescribed HIM next week, so gonna have to shuffle the plan around a bit. 

That Bike Ride sounds like lots of fun!

Survive.  Seriously.  Thats it.  Get out of the water without having my eye gouged out or a busted face.  I'd rather be 5-10 minutes slower on my swim in my first IM than have to deal with some freak injury that would make for a really bad day.

I've been thinking starting in a similar place to you - a bit behind the pack, to the right.  It adds distance, but thats ok - fewer people.  My first loop will probably end up being more like 1.4 instead of 1.2 (just a guess) as a result.  The problem I'm going to have is that my swim is decent enough to get me into the bulk of people, but not good enough to be able to forge and stay ahead.

I don't have a race plan yet -- or a swim plan.  And, I've been tremendously derelict in my swim training lately.  But, like some sort of IMLP addict, I plan to get back on the wagon -- starting tomorrow morning before work.  I've tentatively been thinking the following for the swim start.  Take it with a grain of salt -- I've never even seen a mass swim start this large.  The biggest one I've ever participated in was a 4.4 mile OWS with 600+ swimmers broken into two waves.

I plan to go to the first three rows of swimmers roughly in the middle from left to right.  Too close to the markers and there will be a bulb of people trying to follow the line.  Too far out to the side, and there is an unnecessary confusion crossing on an angle for the first turn when people haven't had a chance to spread out yet. 

My experience is that in a road race (running) it is easier to get passed than to be passing people who self seed incorrectly and ahead of you.  In a triathlon, I've never started in the first wave and therefore always had to pass through and around the waves in front of me.  It is quite difficult.  I'm guessing that in the water it will be slightly easier for people who are marginally faster to pass me -- whacking my legs, moving up my torso -- than it will be for me to try to steer around and pass others.  I don't know what my time will be -- for HIM swims, my times are all over the map and might average around 27 minutes.  I'm guessing that I'll finish under an hour and be one of the first 20 percent or so of folks out of Mirror Lake.  I plan to take out the first 400 meters at a pretty aggressive 90-95 percent pace and then settle in for an enjoyable swim at a more leisurely 75-80 percent perceived effort with plenty of breathing and limited kicking until the last 150 meters.

I too will be looking for the good draft but I don't plan to look for it until after the first turn.  Grabbing a good lift from someone else is wonderful but in my experience it requires either a tremendous amount of open water around you or an overwhelming amount of mental focus and constant positioning/repositioning as you pass others.  I know this sounds crazy, but my swim goal is to come out exhilarated and fresh.  I want to get my mellow one-with-the-water mindset on and not worry about lots of decisionmaking and mental taxation.  There is going to be a flood of adrenaline already, so tactics of a draft will be tempting but less valuable, I think, over the length of the day than a good old fashioned smooth Sunday swim.

Go ahead...tear this apart.  I'm a rookie and don't really know what I'm doing with the start. 

Good luck this weekend.  The hills are just a chance to practice going downhill.

I'm doing my own modification of the Fink plan; missed the HIM due to an illness a couple weeks back and now don't have any races until IMLP. 

Oh, and for all you power junkies.  I too ride without a meter.  I rely on a HRM and simply try to measure out my efforts so that I'm even keel throughout my long rides.  Not significantly faster or slower throughout the day.  I'm about 6'1.5" and this morning I weighed in at 189.  I want to get to Lake Placid below 184 which happens to be the lightest I ever was during college (although most of those years were between 195 and 210.) 

For the wheel junkies -- I'm still debating whether to buy a real wheel disc cover.  Not much else is in the budget this year.  I ride Mavic Askiums.  They are bomb-proof for a big guy like me (I weighed 212-215 when I bought them) but have no profile to speak of.

Make sure you let me know where you are going to be, I think I want to draft off of you .  I have non idea what to expect.  I was there last year to see the swim start.  I tried to envision on where I would want to be but once the cannon goes off it didn't seem to matter where you were, it looked like a National Geographic Episode of Wild Seals, you know the ones being chased by sharks.  All I could see what arms and legs flapping all over each other.  All my wave starts had about 40 people max, though thinking about it only so many people can be near you at one time.  I'm not worried about people swimming over me I'm worried about how the water will go from a nice looking mirror to straight up episode of Deadliest Catch.  All my swimming up until this point has been in the pool with little wave action.  So I plan to get all my water hydration in the first two laps of the swim   I think I'm just going smack dab in the middle, if I'm going to get swam over and drink water I want the best of it.  I'll be doing some open water swimming shortly so hopefully that will get me more prepared for the waves.   

No race for me this weekend.  I'm doing a later one in June so I have pushed around my training.  Plus I have been putting in longer bike times on Saturday (Have done 2 century rides already)  So this weekend will just be another long training day.

I won't be doing anything fancy for the wheels.  I'll just be using some round ones.  The ones that came with my bike are Bontrager Aura 5.  I'm thinking about doing a disk in the back (From wheelbuilder.com)  I'm not sure if my bike can do it (I thought I read somewhere about the Trek Speed Concept bikes have some kind of clearance issue with the disks.  My extra funds went for the aero helmet. 

What are people doing for Hydration systems.  I'm still not sure what I'm going to do.  I think I'm going to go with TorHans Aero 20, but I'm not sure yet.  There are so many options and I just think I don't drink enough so I'm thinking the straw in the face will allow me to do that.  Right now I just have the two water bottle cages on the frame.  It works I just think it's not the most efficient for me. 

In one week I will be in LP for training camp!!  Hope the weather is as nice as it has been this week.  We have had a sudden onset of summer.  Spring....pfffhhhhttt....who needs it?

So this saved my butt today....ugh! Not something I wanted to deal.  I jerked around with the problem for about an hour before I realized I can't be the only one to do this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TB-zjDDaP_Q

The Placid run course is not that hilly. You may be better suited walking ALL the aid stations, taking in your fuel and getting back into pace after the aid station. This will give you 26 'breaks'. The oreo is a great idea, they had them at TTT and the sugar push was awesome. Make sure you have some dry socks in Special needs as well, just in case. It's not fun running in wet socks. Also people had a bunch of different things in the special needs run bags when I worked there. sneakers, red bull, pbj, gu, socks, etc. I think I yelled,"If you want your special needs bag point to your number" about 1000 times that day through a megaphone...

I am not sure when they start with the coke but I would think they would be at all the stations.

Smart to start at a 'slower' pace. We have to remember this is an IM marathon not an open marathon.