I find it kind of funny that each time after I finish a tough race I almost always promise myself two things: 1) I will never do this again 2) I will never race on this course again. And I thought both of these thoughts last year after I finished 4th place with a sprint finish at Ironman Lake Placid. However, as the race drew nearer and nearer I couldn’t have been more excited to race in Lake Placid again this year. So it’s safe to say, as a triathlete, I sometimes either have a short term memory or a lapse in judgment.
After spending four weeks in June back in Hungary training on pretty much a table flat area, I didn't know what to expect for my upcoming hilly race, but I felt confident and mentally ready for a long day. Ok, I might have been a little teary eyed the night before when I looked at the forecast for race day and saw 85% chance of rain, thunderstorms, strong winds, max 20C temperature, but I found the positive in the situation and knew with conditions like this I would at least be able to save some salt caps for when I’m training back in the humidity in TX.
The morning of the race I went through my pre-race morning routine and was excited to go toe-to- the-line at 6:20am, which was probably the earliest start I have ever had. It was a deep water start and I was able to start quickly but reminded myself not to push too hard at the beginning. Shortly after I think Thomas Martinek realized our pace wasn’t too fast so he opened a gap right after about 400m. I was hesitating a bit on how to react but made a commitment to push it for 200 meters and see if I can catch him. Well I could, but I quickly realized the pace I was holding to stay behind him was not as comfortable as I had planned for. I thought to myself, just hang in there it will be easier in the second lap… and of course that didn't happen. It was actually even more difficult to keep up with him, due to the busy traffic of the streamline swim start.
Finally we finished the 2nd loop, got out of the water and started a long run to T1. I tried to run comfortable and just stayed relaxed in T1. Wetsuit off, helmet on, jump to my bike and here we go on a quick 112 miles bike ride. As we all know, Lake Placid hosted the Winter Olympic Games twice, so it’s pretty obvious there are some pretty steep hills around here.
We immediately started to climb a shorter hill just before a long descent. At this point, I had no information about how far the other guys were behind me, so I just held a solid pace that I felt was difficult but still manageable. Due to torrential downpour it was very difficult to see any numbers on my power meter, so the only thing I could rely on was how I felt. And I felt pretty good, despite the continuous rain and thunderstorm that passed over us. It was a bit strange to ride by myself on a race, but once I made the first U-turn I saw Kyle Buckhingham and knew he was about two minutes behind me. I expected him to catch me by end of the first lap, but it actually didn't happen until we started the big descent again on the 2nd loop.
It was really pouring rain this time, but I was committed to go hard on the downhill. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough gear to keep up with Kyle even though my max speed was over 75km/h. Half way on the downhill I dropped my chain and it took a few minutes to put it back on with one hand while I held my aerobar as tight as I could while the rain came hammering down.
I quickly got to 3.5 minutes from him once we reached U-turn again. I knew we still had to run a marathon, on a very hilly course, so I stayed calm and paid close attention to my nutrition and mentally prepared myself to have a solid run.
Once I hit T2 Kyle extended his lead about five minutes. As I started to run I felt the cold weather and rain had taken a bit more out of me than I thought it would, so I quickly started to eat my gels and grabbed a coke at every aid station.
The running course at Lake Placid is as challenging as the bike course. Basically, there aren’t any flat areas on the course and two massive, long, and steep climbs every lap.
It took me about ten miles to start feeling good, but I was still a bit hesitate to really drop down the hammer, as I definitely didn't want to blow up at mile twenty. I chose a conservative pace to run and focused on my nutrition and maintaining my 2nd place spot.
I’ve been thinking a lot over the past couple of days if that was the right decision or not, but knowing that I will race again in three weeks, to try and make it to Hawaii again, I am confident that was the right decision. Of course I did not run easy, but I definitely felt I could have gone a bit faster. Once I made it back to town, I decided to enjoy the last mile of the race, because at this point last year I had started the all-out battle for the 4th place finish. This year I was in a little bit different situation and could afford to relax a bit, and was able to high five with the crowd a bit and really enjoyed that I finished a solid race. I was over the moon when I turned into the oval and got to see the finish line, which I crossed for a 2nd place finish.
Hats off to Kyle Buckhingam who raced very solid all day and to all of the other finishers who made it to the finish line on one of the most challenging courses and in the difficult weather conditions.
A special Thank You to all of my sponsors, my family, coaches and friends for all of your continuous support. I could not have done all this without you guys! THANK YOU!
Now it’s time to recover and do my best to maintain my physique for IM Mont-Tremblant. where I can promise you, I won’t be saving anything on the run!
As I saw on a fellow athletes’ race kit in Lake Placid it’ll be…PR or ER!