The performance of the day was Matt Russell’s 4:27:27 bike split: It was more than ten minutes quicker than any other finisher’s bike split and broke one of the longest standing course records, Steve Larson’s 4:33 from 2001.
Agreed! I spoke with Matt today, and he told me he actually had no idea either what his bike split was, nor how it compared to the course record. He was just running his own race, and was so in the zone that he didn’t even notice his family at one of the points on the bike course where they camped out to cheer him on. He was extremely gracious to tell me that he was proud to have TriRig as part of his journey.
Looking at those results, what jumps out is, “can you guess which year Ironman introduced Mont-Tremblant?” OK, it was 2014, but back then everyone needed to register a full year in advance. I’m not really sure you can compare the DNF results to what LP used to be - it was such a stacked event that did not have as many ‘bucket list’ starters.
The first year of Mont-Tremblant was 2012.
I did Lake Placid in 2006 and went 9:57 for 36th overall. This year 36th was 10:06. Back in 2006 we had crappy rain on the bike and a sunny run and a little under 2200 participants and it was the North American pro men’s championship so no female pros but a strong pro mens field. This year there were 2900 participants. Given that there are way more races in North America now compared to back then when you had to be on site to sign up a year in advance (which might lead to better preparation), I would expect that the field strength was deeper 13 years ago so a 9-10 minute difference in placement times might be expected. All of the extra bodies on the course could account for increased DNFs as well. I can’t remember for sure what the winning time was in 2006 but seems to me it was around 8:29.
I raced on Sunday and it was definitely a tough day out there. I agree with the person who commented that the first lap of the bike was with a tailwind and cool and then it seemed like out of nowhere the temperature increased a lot and the headwinds came.
The swim for us was non-wetsuit so maybe some of the age groupers overheated a bit during the swim? 74 degree water with a wetsuit is borderline too warm.
Personally, I made some rookie mistakes on the bike that I paid the price for on the run, but that’s Ironman! Once my body began to say no, finishing was the only goal I had and I’m glad I did.
I’ve never done a full but did the LP 70.3 last year. It is the hardest half I’ve done to date and I bonked on the run. Run/walked in order to finish. I believe it is one of the toughest courses in the Northeast. I can’t imagine doing that course twice:) And the 70.3 is in much cooler conditions. The bike can be pretty tough after a cold swim, but I’ll take that over summer heat any day. For my race, I trained more than I ever have, and thought I had it in the bag heading out on the run. The tri gods had something else in mind for me, however.
The good news is you are walking away somewhat dissatisfied and with a new goal, to do better. That’s my goal - I’ll be back to LP to conquer that beast. This is one of the things I enjoy about triathlon the most - it keeps you coming back.
It’s interesting to look at the different years and the DNF rates. I have done this race in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2019. I felt like 2019 was the toughest conditions on the bike. I also noticed what I thought was a lot more people walking on the first lap of the run. I didn’t walk, but I could definitely feel the work from the bike hampering my run.
One note, the first year for IMMT was 2012, not 2014.
Can you elaborate on not giving it the training it deserves…?? Just keen to hear what other people have been doing leading into my first IM soon!
I will do a whole hell of a lot more biking, more running, and try to swim at least once a week going forward. But it’s all about the bike.
My totals for 2019 according to strava are:
Swimming: 8 hours
Biking: 98 hours
Running: 60 hours
I ended up going 1:06 on the swim, 6:11 on the bike, and 3:45 on the run with about 13 mins in transition for a total time of 11:15, 25th in my age group and 149th OA.
I started Triathlon at the end of 2017 and previously came from a hockey background. Started to jog because I got fat middle of 2015, taught myself to swim as an adult.
Thanks for that, nice to have something to compare to. I am still 4 months out so yet to start the really long stuff but YTDs at the moment:
Swim: 70 hours
Bike: 124
Run: 46 (injured for 3 months!)
for 2016 jan1>july 30
S=42hrs
B=171 hrs
R-132 hrs
Race day
S-1:19
B-5:47
R-4:32 (crash!)
11:51:xx
M55
Hopefully you have a coach, a real good plan or both…
Thanks Dale, have both a good coach and a good macro plan!
The run will just be whatever I can get it to by race day unfortunately…been doing alternative work towards it but need to get a niggling injury all sorted. Prior to the latest pause in that I was running close to as fast as I have ever been and that was off a pretty low running base so I have some confidence will get to race day with some decent pace in the bag…
Can you elaborate on not giving it the training it deserves…?? Just keen to hear what other people have been doing leading into my first IM soon!
My totals for 2019 according to strava are:
Swimming: 8 hours
Biking: 98 hours
Running: 60 hours
I ended up going 1:06 on the swim, 6:11 on the bike, and 3:45 on the run with about 13 mins in transition for a total time of 11:15, 25th in my age group and 149th OA.
I started Triathlon at the end of 2017 and previously came from a hockey background. Started to jog because I got fat middle of 2015, taught myself to swim as an adult.
You went 1:06 on EIGHT HOURS TOTAL SWIMMING as an Adult Onset Swimmer ???!!!
I f’n hate you. 😉
PS - decent bike and really solid run, especially based on that training.
What were you complaining about again??
🤔
Well the swim was wetsuit legal and the course was super easy to follow if you stayed to the inside. If I had to swim without a wetsuit I would have probably added 20 mins to that time.
I just realize that I don’t bike like a man. I need to get way better at that so I can run better.
Has anybody seen anything about 2020 registration? It used to be that those would go out Monday after the race for prior year racers and AWA Gold.
Buddy of mine got his AWA invite yesterday, and I got an invite today for being registered to a tri club in my IM profile. Neither of us did the race this year.
FYI we both decided to book hotels as good chance we’ll go next year. Looked like they were already getting quite booked up.
IMLP was also my 1st IM and while I don’t have another IM to compare it to, this one was brutal! I’m a pretty awful AOS, average biker and runner. My times were: 1:19 swim, 5:55 bike, 5:08 run. I was so nervous about blowing up on the run I did everything I could to keep my HR/RPE and nutrition in check on the bike but by the time I got off, despite mentally feeling pretty good, my legs were completely zapped. I do a lot of my training on Zwift and if I have one takeaway it’s that if I’m going to do a hilly race, I need to be outside training on hills (same goes for running!). I had a great time and was completely blown away by the feeling and emotion of crossing that finish line but I was very disappointed that I didn’t really have the chance to “race” the run.
What was the temperature at say 2 pm?
Looks like it got up to about 79 degrees, which was a bit warmer than forecast for the day. I did the race on Sunday and was definitely slower than anticipated. It was my first full, so take that with a grain of salt. The wind did pick up during the second lap and I remember thinking on the first lap of the bike that it was already getting hot. My legs were more shot during the run than after any of my 100+ mile ride then run bricks. I ended up finishing 5th in M40-44 with a 10:15 and many of the people around me during the run were walking. I think the only reason I slid into 5th was because I gutted it out and didn’t walk.
Has anybody seen anything about 2020 registration? It used to be that those would go out Monday after the race for prior year racers and AWA Gold.
I got an email already for early registration (Tier 1) starting Aug 4th.
Now to chime in the OP, I was there and PR’d by 34 minutes but way slower than the OP (I ended at 12:55). Why did I PR? I think it was all about the right pacing in tough conditions (especially headwinds in the 2 bike lap). I think here’s what factored in for some whom I could see on the mid pack (I guess that’s where I was) that either significantly slowed on the second half of the bike or flat out blew up on the run (3rd IM for me and I have never seen so many people walking):
First factor: Tailwind on the first lap and weather: people I could see where going too hot and heavy, many accelerations onto Jay. The first time that I saw people in trouble was on the first loop on the Jay hill. I’m not a particularly good climber, but basically dropped most of the people that I biked onto Jay with, and this is considering that when we hit that hill there was literally a Tour de France like Peloton there (the drafting was pretty bad there but simply unavoidable).
Second Factor: Headwinds, bad, on the second loop. People burning matches on the first with tailwind, then hit a wall with the headwind. I tried to stay within myself HR wise and did for so the entire bike, posted a 3:11 first half of the course (including a stop on special needs) but a total of 6:29, so the second half was 8 minutes slower without a stop (I would then say more or less 10 minutes slower at same effort).
Third factor: Heat on the run and with factors 1+2 combined you could see many people walking and early. Pacing was a big thing on Sunday. I personally couldn’t take anything in after mile 8 (bad GI issues) and decided to simply jog to the finish line instead of pushing on the run and walk a lot (just walked the aid stations to get a bit of coke, water and ice).
All in all I thought it was a tough race but the reality is that the course and the environmental conditions in LP make it a very tough race anyways. But I’m really surprised about the DNF% this year. I thought it was very tough but not as tough.
What was the temperature at say 2 pm?
Looks like it got up to about 79 degrees, which was a bit warmer than forecast for the day.
I had to check that number. My notoriously inaccurate device recorded an average of 88 and a high of 95 for my run. But I see where at least one source shows a high of 79. That’s sort of crazy.
Third time doing this race and did a mini camp two weeks ago on the course. On both loops there was wind in your face heading out of town to the bobsled facility, that’s not usual and the wind as soon as you turned around at the end of the Hazelton out/back was killer.
I had a mechanical at mile 100, took 20 minutes to sort out, tender hammy that I nursed during training reared it’s ugly head around half way through the run. I was very surprised by the number of walkers out on the first 4 miles of course. Not my best day, but 10th IM finish, and likely I will be back next year.
TriRating had it at 35% of a Kona field strength wise, which I believe is pretty good. //
I’m not sure what that is even supposed to mean, but any way you try and splice it, not even close to a Kona field, not even 10%, age group or pro…
And pros dnf’ing is a pretty normal thing, even in perfect conditions. It goes with there particular type of racing, different from the agers…
Thorsten talks about how he calculates it in the link below. IM Frankfurt had 65% this year, and Roth 52%, for reference.
I raced IMLP this past weekend too, and I was off on my estimated bike and run too, though I am happy with my swim at 1:10.
My first loop on the bike was good (for me) 3:05, but I hit the wall late on the second loop. Started to rain pretty hard on and off, strong headwinds on the last 10mi climbs and the temps definitely started to creep up.
Heading into T2, I had to vomit and felt my entire abdomen cramping, which made for a SLOW start to the run, though was able to negatively split, it, which isn’t saying much, since I pretty much walk/run the entire first half.
All in all, LOVED the race. The support from the local community cannot be beat.
Just wanted to give some props to Brad for standing out in the sun on Friday to hand out medals to the kids at the IronKids races, class act!
It was 79 f and 10 mph winds per almanac. I get that there could be sone funneling effect but just be happy with your tremendous accomplishment and not try to justify it further. US triathletes look for tattoos and bucket lists…nit many europeans do this.
This year was not harder but maybe some just weren’t prepared as well…no???
horsten talks about how he calculates it in the link below. IM Frankfurt had 65% this year, and Roth 52%, for reference.
https://www.trirating.com/strength-of-field/
Ok, I see where such a wrong number came from now. He counts the 4th place finisher at Kona the same as the 45th it looks like? And the podium and winner get almost nothing in regards to their strength. So the guy that wins Kona is worth the same as 50th and 51st combined.
It is very simple, but also inaccurate in evaluating strength of fields. So back to IMLP, it was not a 1/3 of the Kona field strength. Strength in numbers I guess, but that is just raw athletes competing, without really caring how they did…