That was the phrase on many tee shirts & posters at the 2010 Ford Lake Placid Ironman. The event started yesterday at 7 AM and went all the way to 12 AM the next day. The athletes gathered in the water in attempt to complete a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and a marathon. And they had seventeen hours to do it. Each portion of the tri is completed by doing two loops - and every loop has a cut off time.
I got up at 6 AM to make sure I saw the start of the race. With a few minutes to spare I stood in the crowd gazing at the athletes who were all identical in their black wetsuits and Ironman swim caps. When the alarm sounded for the start, everyone just dove in and started to crawl. A massive movement of black arms & elbows were in the air and a wave of triathletes moved across Mirror Lake. It looked like a giant piranha group invaded upstate New York. After completing the two loops, the athletes transitioned to the bike leg. We watched them go down the shute to the Olympic Oval where their bikes were being kept & cheered on words of encouragement to the wet cold athletes.
And then - we waited. For hours. In fact, I went home and took a nap. I mean, it's hours. It's actually hard work being a spectator for an Ironman. It's a long day for you too! The athletes go out and compete a total of 140.6 miles - that's no short distance; it takes everyone (aside from the pros) 10+ hours to complete. After my nap and coffee #2, I went back to the race area. By this time we were seeing a decent amount of folks come in to loop around for bike lap #2. Well, seeing how it was still going to be another couple hours til we saw the next transition, I decided to take this opportunity to train.
Having trained a portion of the bike route the day before (Lord in Heaven you could have not picked a more humid day for me to train on those forsaken hills), and the run portion was roped off, I decided to try out the swim course. Turns out, Lake Placid Ironman doesn't actually involve Lake Placid. You see all the Olympic sites (Oval, chutes, jumps, etc) but you swim in Mirror Lake. Apparently, Placid is very private & you can't go near it or something. But what's cool is that Mirror Lake has cables & buoys set up all summer that outline the swim course. So athletes can come and train the course. It was amazing to me, to see how many people were out there training this weekend. Pretty much all of us who were 2011 hopefuls were out there running, swimming, cycling that course in preparation for next year.
Post workout & shower, I returned hours later to watch the run portion. This is my favorite part of watching a tri. You can see some athletes wrapping up their bike leg and others starting out their run. The crowd was so excited and crazed, the athletes were either beat up tired, or crazy enthusiastic with the crowd. Watching the competitors had me dying inside, wishing I was out there, and thinking, oh I can't believe I have a year to go to do this. Besides feeling jealous (which I knew was going to happen) it was very emotional and inspiring to see some of these competitors. One man ran by and it was so apparent he had wiped out on his bike. His clothes were torn and shredded, missing skin on shoulders and thighs, and blood all over his side. But he kept going, he was not stopping. I have no idea who he is - but he earned my respect. Even more so, were the blind competitors. They are by far the toughest & fiercest athletes out there on that course. I can't imagine doing the swim portion - those guys are tough and I think must want it more than anyone else.
Well it's going to take people 3-6 hours to run the marathon, so might as well have dinner. After eating we walked over to the finish line to watch the tired and ecstatic athletes finalize their 140.6 mile journey through the Adirondacks. My favorite was the guy who stopped, lit a cigar, and strutted to the finish line. It was great to see them finish what they started. It was an 18 month project, a 12 month training period, and 10+ hour day, with a priceless feeling of accomplishment once you step over that finish line. I watched them for a bit and headed back to get an early night's sleep to compete in the next morning's registration line...
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