Lake Placid Training Trip – Day 1
An up and down (literally) day…
I got up relatively early, packed up the car and made the 300 mile drive up here to Lake Placid. It was a warm, sunny, beautiful day. I got up to Lake Placid at around 2:30 and checked into my hotel – Art Devlin’s Olympic Motor Inn – which I would definitely recommend to anyone making a trip up here. The hotel is nice and clean, the rooms are pretty big. I guess it’s a sorta long walk up to the main part of Main Street, but it’s just a short walk to Mirror Lake.
After checking in and dropping my stuff in the room, I scooted over to the lake for a swim. I stepped into the water to test the temperature and was pleasantly surprised to notice that it was actually much warmer than I had feared. It still wasn’t warm, but it was fine. I was planning on wearing my wetsuit and it was a bit chilly to swim without the suit. With the suit, the water felt totally comfortable. The lake water felt (and tasted!) really clean. I swam out to the first buoy and immediately found the yellow wire that runs under the buoys. The wire is great. It makes swimming in anything but a straight line just about impossible. I swam at a good pace, but didn’t push myself too hard. I knew it was going to be the longest open water swim I’d ever done and I didn’t want to ruin myself for the rest of the weekend’s training. The swim course is a 1.2 mile rectangle, so for the race, we’ll do two laps. That was my scheduled swim for today as well. This afternoon, at least, there was a nice current behind me on the way out and in my face on the way back. Not too strong, but definitely noticeable.
After my swim, I came back to the hotel with the intention of going on a two-or-so hour ride. Coach John didn’t put it on the schedule, but he said that if I had time and was feeling up for it, it would be good to get some extra saddle time in. I had a little to eat and got dressed and ready. When I grabbed the bike, I noticed that the headset was a little loose. So much for my self-congratulations on removing the spacer and putting it back together! Fortunately, High Peaks Cyclery is essentially across the street from Art Devlin’s. I showed one of their mechanics, Kelly, what was going on and he tightened it all up then and there. Huge props to Kelly and High Peaks. Then, I finally started off on my ride.
The ride was going fine. I was planning on doing most of one loop of the race course (there were a couple parts I was going to cut off to keep my ride time at less than two hours). Anyway, I was feeling good and then, about five miles out, I hit a nice patch of loose sand, wobbled, wobbled some more and then BANG! was down and skidding across the shoulder. As soon as I realized I could think and see and was therefore fine, I panicked about the bike. Fortunately, the bike was/is fine as well. A little scratched up here and there – just like me! I knew that was a sign to turn around and call it a day. The ride back was uneventful. So, I’m here with nice road rash on my left ankle, calf, knee and hip, my left elbow and shoulder and both hands. Awesome – I’ll take some pictures and maybe post them once I get home, maybe. Also, my favorite bike jersey is torn at the shoulder and my left shoe got a little torn up. Even better. Bummer, again. I showered and cleaned up my wounds and made a trip to RiteAid to buy all kinds of goodies. I’m going to take care of the wounds and keep my fingers crossed that nothing affects tomorrow’s training…
Speaking of tomorrow, it’s scheduled to be a pretty huge day – 1.2 mile swim, 112 on the bike and an easy 30 minute run. I don’t see any of my scrapes really affecting the training, but I bet I’ll be at least a little sore and raw. I was hoping that today’s ride would prepare me for what to expect tomorrow – hopefully that won’t be the case!!
Now, I’m going to get in a bath to try to clean out the wounds a little better and then I’m going to hit the sack to get a good night’s sleep before tomorrow.
Swim – June 8
Distance: 2.4 miles (4,224 yards)
Time: 1:15
Average heart rate: 128
Mirror Lake swim
Bike – June 8
Distance: 10 miles
Time: 34 minutes
Average heart rate: 131
Course: Lake Placid
Conditions: Sunny, warm