A few quick observations from Lake Placid. Did the race in 2001, 02, 04 and 05, so I have some history to compare.
It seemed like there were a lot more people in Lake Placid this year compared to years past. Athletes and family/friends. Noticed this before and after the race. Main street was just packed on Saturday. ANd on race day, the line of people on the bike course stretched halfway down “Big Bear.”
The swim was especially chaotic, even by Ironman-2000-swimmer-mass-start-standards. I started in a semi-conservative position about 40-50 feet right of the line, but I got the crap beat of me. It never let up - I battled all the way through 2.4 miles. And it wasn’t just the inadvertent slapping and kicking and elbows. I am pretty sure someone punched me in the side - it came from above, and it sure felt like a punch. Either that, or someone chose a weird time to do fist drills.
I noticed a lot of dropped gear/food/etc out on the course - more than usual. I guess you always expect to see the gatorade bottles they hand out at the aid stations, etc., lying on the road; but this was stuff like bags of food, tires, countless aerodrink sponges, even an aerodrink bottle. My wife saw a bottle (18-serving bottle) of hammer gel splattered on the road. It was like riding an obstacle course!
Finally, might have been because it was my slowest IM finish ever - 13:09, but it seemed like the suffering quotient was higher than normal. Man that marathon was a tough one. Walking - or at least “walk breaks” was the order of the day. Was everyone a little slower?
A beautiful day, though. Congratulations to all competitors!
FWIW… one of my training buddies had some similar observations. Said the swim was much worse than last year and the run was more difficult.
Despite posting exactly the same swim split and within a minute or two of his bike split he was almost 13 minutes slower over all… but he ended up 6 places higher overall (top 10 in his AG second year in a row). It was just a slower race this year…
I did IMUSA a few years ago and I got the crap knocked out of me as well…much more than other IM swims. And yes I was seeded correctly. I was right by the sign the said my projected swim time (which I did to the minute) and I noticed myself getting swam over by a ton of people freaking out to get to the first turn buoy - also most of the people I passed by the next buoy.
my take on the swim is this: no male pros to start off a big draft for the faster age groupers to latch onto. This resulted in a) slower times and b) more congestion as the field wasn’t strung out by a faster lead group.
My first lap was a minute slower than in training and i felt (and I’m a slow swimmer) that i was actually being help up by the crowd rather than being pulled along by the draft. my second lap was slightly less congested on the way back and i ended up negative splitting.
Totally agree with your feelings on the swim…This was my second IM in LP but lived there for several years so have witnessed most of the swims. in addition my good friend was in his boat on Mirror Lake as a volunteer, as he has been for every IMLP, and said this year by far was the most congested and aggressive swim he has ever seen. He told me he witnessed countless intentional punches and even saw a few people yank other swimmers wetsuit cords down.
It seemed like Haselton road was littered with not only the items Quadzilla mentioned but lots of other stuff as well including arm warmers, several Quick fill mounts, pill/salt viles etc. But by far the strangest was the 18 serving bottle of Hammer Gel that was at the bottom of the first hill…unreal…what the hell was someone doing with that and how exactly were they carrying it my real question? I could understand if it were near the special needs bags area but this was all the way out on Haselton.
However I thought the conditions for the race in terms of temperature and wind were pretty ideal. My biggest complaint of the day was the lack of Power gel flavors especially on the run. I was really only getting handed Chocolate…which i cant stand the consistency of…sooo thick.
PlacidPirate108,
I am with you regarding the power gel flavors on the run (did not use them on the bike)… I had a hard time finding other flavors than chocolate which also I am not a big fan of… Is Powerbar trying to get rid of their chocolate gel flavor stock???
My first LP (though I spectated last year) and my second IM.
Not sure if I agree on the swim. When I did IMC 2 years ago, I lined up way way to the side to avoid the crowd. Just to amuse my idiotic ex-rugby playing self, I decided to line up 5 rows back RIGHT on the marker line. It really wasn’t that bad – yeah I was slapping neoprene for about a hundred meters, but it was good for a laugh, no sharp shots to the head, face or chest. Followed the crowd around the buoys was a bit crowded (did see some panicked swimmers), but I swam on the inside of the line. Plenty of space there, but a fair number of swimmers, nonetheless.
Agree on the TONS of gear on the road. The Hammer gel bottle made me laugh, that must have really thrown off someone’s nutrition strategy.
I truly love that town and race. No, the bike isn’t well-designed for a bigger guy like me, but hey, it’s all about HTFU. As an aside, I laughed my ass off as on my friend’s sign he had out on the race course for me: “Hey #726, quit wanking. Time to HTFU.”
Great race, everyone. We couldn’t have asked for a better day.
I was just a spectator, but it seemed to me that an awful lot of fast looking people did not look so fast on the run. It looked like a tough day for all, and congrats on your finish.
One more observation… when it came to people looking bad on the run, versus people moving through the pack at speed, I’d say it was 95% men who’d had blown up, versus 95% women burning through…
The difference year was that the sun was out all day long. From the moment everyone got on their bike, there were hardly any clouds, and it stayed that way all day. It wasn’t necessarily temperature hot, but I think people just got baked. I bet there were a lot of sunburns out there.
I have been a massage volunteer for 4 years now and this past Ironman was probably the worst I’ve seen competors, post race. I saw a lot of nasty things happening to people, mostly dry heaves, throwing up and passing out. I also saw many war wounds for the swim including many black eyes. I saw one bike crash victim who had road rash on his entire right arm and a good portion on his hip, poor bastard. I’m just glad i didn’t have to run a marathon in that blazing sun!
I noticed a lot of dropped gear/food/etc out on the course
I noticed this as well. Fortunatly NAS and IMUSA have one of the best clean-up crews going and this team spent most of the night into the wee hours of the morning cleaning the course afterwards.
Here’s an idea. Stop loading the bikes down like pack mules heading out for a week in the desert. Clearly much of this stuff is coming flying off and launched off bikes. There are aid stations roughly every 10 miles on the bike course. Use two frame mounted bottle holders. Carry whatever else you need in the back jersey pocket of your top and pick up whatever else you need at aid stations.
I purposely waited in the back for about a good 30-45 seconds after the cannon went off before I started swimming in order to avoid the craziness right at the start. I have a titanium plate on top of my collarbone that I didn’t want to risk getting smacked/kicked in the scrum, so I was willing to give up some time and hang back at the start. I stayed wide to the right and found enough open space that although there was still contact at times with other swimmers, it wasn’t anywhere near as chaotic as being along the yellow cable, which I experienced firsthand the last time I did IMLP in 2002.
I also noticed quite a bit of gear in the road during the bike including gels, bottles, tubulars, CO2 cartridges and arm warmers.
Amen to that. I think those damn rear seat bottle holders are dangerous. Last year at Moo there is a pretty wicked bump right after leaving T-1. The number of ejected bottles was ridiculous, and I almost hit one as it rolled across the street.
I think those damn rear seat bottle holders are dangerous. The number of ejected bottles was ridiculous, and I almost hit one as it rolled across the street.
Required reading for anyone contemplating the use of a behind the seat holder of any sort should be this outstanding piece by one of my favourite triathlon writers - Hurricaine Bob Mina. Outrageously funny but serious at the same time.
a) don’t think this was any different than other lp’s…b) don’t think this was any different than any other imna’s…c) all-in-all pretty good all around…you must not do too many of these things…
Hey Fleck…that article by Hurricane is a classic…yes, required reading. I thought I saw the record when I saw a guy at my hotel at Muskoka for a 2K swim-55K bike-15K run leave with 4 large bottles. I let him know that they even had a bottle exchange but he almost ripped my head off for suggesting that he ACTUALLY use GATORADE off the course. Aparently his stomach could not deal with it. I told him that if he wanted to place well at any race in North America, he better get used to teaching his stomach to deal with Gatorade. Hell, I am sponsored by Infinit, but I make sure that I can absorb Gatorade which is normally found off course…who knows if I actually get my bottles at special needs.
Anyway, Merlin Titanium guy has 4 large bottles for a 3 hour race…clearly P3Carbon guy from Hurricane Bob’s article had it all beaten with 5 bottles for a 2 hour race!!!
I wasnt at IMLP, but I was at IMAZ, There was soooo much stuff on the road, tubulars, bottles, Co2 cartridges, crackpipes, cliff bars, GUs. All sorts of crap, with my already slow bike time, I should have taken the time to pick some of that stuff up, I probably could have sold it later on and made up a good portion of my race entry from the tubulars alone (I think I saw 6 of them).