I knew going into this that the top guys in my wave were going to be crazy fast. Otho had the top OA swim split (including pros) at this race last year, Chip Berry won the Lake Placid swim with a 47 last year and there were three other guys, including a current AA college swimmer who were just as good as these two. I am not as fast as any of these five and have been left behind every time I have raced one of them.

I decided going into this race that I was going to do anything I could to latch onto these guys.

The swim start was rough and everyone was trying to get away from each other. I took a hard shot to the head and my left goggle filled up but I was still close to the front pack. I went for it, put a full on sprint in and reattached to them. After 400 or so everyone fell into place and it got somewhat easy to just draft. I rarely had to sight and when I did we were on a perfect line. About midpoint in the swim, the college swimmer took off and 1-2 of the guys went after him but I was happy to sit in on Chip's feet.

Best swim in a tri to date. This is the second time (half IM last month was the first) I have really started hard to latch onto pack and both times it has worked.

Nothing.

Nice fast T1 - 33 OA.

Nothing. This was good and only 20 seconds behind the top OA T1, which I was happy with given we had one of the longest runs with our bikes.

Started off just behind Otho, Chip and the other top swimmers. Immediately Otho (big dude) hammers up the first hill. Everyone else followed and I was left behind.

Realistically I need to be biking a lot more. My best rides are when I bike 150+ miles hard/week for 6-8 weeks and right now I have not been doing this. Over the next two months in the lead up to LP, I have 4 200+ weeks planned which should get me where I want to be.

While my bike power was clearly lacking I do have something that really works to my advantage - I am much more tucked than anyone else in my wave. Sure enough every single down hill I would go screaming by everyone and then they would re-pass me going uphill. This happened for just about the entire ride except for the end where I was able to get away from some of them.

I was passed by 2 people (my friend Matias who earned his pro card again here was one of them). In both cases I could have gone with them but I would have ended up walking the run. Been there, done that - no thanks. Some Oly races you can get away with riding close to 100% of your FTP. This is not one of them. You will end up walking.

Did a poor job drinking and only finished about 1/2 my bottle of gatorade. Do not think it affected me OA though.

Avg Pwr: 284

Not much. More hard bike training the 2-3 months before this race would have helped but I can only take so much trainer time.

Solid.

Not much. Pretty good for longish run with my bike.

Started off the run right behind Chip who had passed me in T2. I knew there were 4-5 other guys within 30 seconds of me off the bike and every one of them passed my within the first mile.

But I also know the bike was hard and this run course is tough. I had no upper end speed to run any of them down but also knew I was not going to fade over the course. Training for Placid has definitely helped me be able to maintain my pace and on this course I think it came in handy.

About a mile in one of the guys was off to the side with a cramp. Another mile in and a guy was walking (he would DNF) and finally at mile 5ish another one was walking.

I was able to maintain a visual on most of the guys who had passed me earlier, I just couldn't do enough to catch them.

I paced this right and raced with what I had.

Talked with a few people then had to pack everything up quickly and drive the three hours for my future BIL's college graduation.


No upper end speed on the run. Lack of great bike fitness.