LP Race Report part 1 - Pregame

I headed up to Long Lake, NY on Thursday morning to stay with my aunt and uncle and two cousins. Long Lake is a town on a lake (yes, a long one) south of Lake Placid by about a 45 minute drive. I was planning to stay there and make the run up to the race site as needed with my uncle Eric who was my designated sherpa for the week. Eric has done a few sprint tris and the Mooseman Olympic distance triathlon, and so he knows a bit about what needs to be done.

The schedule for the rest of the week was to head to LP on Friday, scout and ride a little bit of the bike course and then register for the race. We got up and left Long Lake by 7am and drove up to Lake Placid. The area was already pretty busy and of course most of the tents and racks were already setup. You could see the barriers near where they would close off the streets and you could definitely feel some electricity in the air.

We headed out of Lake Placid on the bike course and scouted out the big hill. The start of the bike course drops down out of town, then up a hill for a mile before heading down a loooong steep hill for 6 miles into Keene. It's hard to really get a feel for the hill, but here's a picture we took out the window on the way down.
It's tough to really get a feel for the hill, but it's big enough that I hit 50 mph on the way down. Much nicer than climbing it that's for sure. There was one tricky spot towards the end where there is a little bit of rough pavement on a curve, but overall I felt I could just let it fly during the race.

After the hill is the turn towards Jay and the course is flat and "fast". This is the area where everyone recommends you get in the aero position and cruise. It was also a very pretty area!

The next section starts with the turn towards Willington, and immediately the road rises. There's a long uphill section that turned out to be one of the more intimidating in my mind since it was straight and you could see the whole thing in front of you. After that is the turn onto Haselton road for the out and back section.

We parked and rode this section to get a feel for it and also to loosen up the legs a little bit. There's a decent hill on the way back, but mostly an easy section and it was nice to get out of the car and onto the bike for a bit. Driving back into Lake Placid we went uphill along the river, but I never got the sense there was a killer hill. Every section of uphill was followed by a flat or slightly downhill section which would allow you to catch your breath. In fact the only place that looked tough was "Papa Bear", the last hill before entering the town of Lake Placid.

After the drive I felt really good about the course and was much less worried about the bike than I had been. We proceeded to the registration and I got everything signed up and taken care of.
We walked through the expo and checked out some merchandise but I didn't want to buy anything before I had finished!

We headed back towards Long Lake, grabbed some lunch at Tail of the Pup, and then went home to relax.

Saturday morning I got up and drove back to Lake Placid by myself to drop off the bike and the bags I had packed the night before. After checking the bags, I again wandered around the expo and ended up watching a taping of a chat between (L-R) Greg Welch, 4 time Ironman champion, Paula Newby-Fraser, 7 time Ironman World Champion, Mike Reily, the voice of ironman and the announcer for the next days race, and Graham Frasier the president of the WTC.

The chatted about the history of the Lake Placid race, it's the oldest after Hawaii and Canada, and the first in the continental US. It's been the same course for all 9 years of its running and always well attended. Paula and Greg also had a couple tips to share which were interesting, but all stuff I've heard many times before.

We were given bags to pack for the swim to bike transition, the bike to run transition and special needs for both bike and run. The transition bags you would grab after the swim and the bike, and use to keep everything you needed for each event. I had packed my helmet, jersey, shoes, socks, sunglasses etc in my bike bag and a complete change of clothes in the run bag. I figured I would be happier if I could change completely and feel better in between sports, even though I don't typically do this in a shorter race. The special needs bags you are allowed to retrieve after each first lap, and I had an extra tube and CO2 cartridge in the bike one just in case I needed it, and some band aids and vasoline in the run bag along with my long sleeve shirt, in case I was getting cold. The bike and run transition bags are hung on racks to allow everyone to find their own bag easily. This seemed to work remarkably well during the race.
I had called my brother and offered to meet if he happened to be around (they were camping for the week and planned to be there Sunday to watch the race), but I didn't hear from him at all. After racking my bike, I headed back to Long Lake to relax.

My two brother's in law showed up Saturday afternoon as well after a bit of wondering around Long Lake looking for the house and we had a relaxing afternoon and evening while I tried to chill out as much as possible.