September 2nd I left the house at 5am for the hour drive south to Cassadaga, NY (site of the Lily Dale Spiritualist Assembly).
https://www.lilydaleassembly.org/
It was still dark when I parked at 6am, but the sun rose beautifully over the lake as I collected my registration packet and set up my transition area.
The transition area was on a basketball court just 100 yards from the lake. This was actually my ONLY triathlon this year. I had done a swim-run race in June and a 10km swim in July but I had to skip my sprint triathlon in August as had to attend a funeral that day.
I had done MUCH less biking this year than in past few summers (due to traveling so much and training for the 10KM swim) and knew I would have to take it easy on the bike and just have a good time. I had won my age group (1/4) in 6:07 two years ago, had to cancel when I had Covid last year, and felt I would be happy with 6:30 this year.
After 30 years of competing in triathlons though it is easy and non-stressful to quickly set up my gear.
I had plenty of time to chat with the half dozen other Buffalo Triathlon Club members racing and also some people I met who were in from Ohio or PA. I did a practice swim in the lake for a few minutes to make sure my wetsuit and goggles felt good and then the race director (Mark Wilson) gave the race announcements.
Below is a 2 minute FB video from Mark Wilson!
https://fb.watch/mUcv3dgYnD/?mibextid=hubsqH
I got in the water on time but was totally out of position (I wanted to be at front of group) when the swim started abruptly. I lost a few minutes swimming through a clump of slower swimmers before I got in an open area and had a good view of first buoy. After that the swim was fine. The 4th leg of the rectangle is directly into the sun but I had walked around lake in the morning to site out some big trees as a guide until could see the last buoy and line of rope at end.
I had a smooth transition to bicycling, I wasn’t in a huge rush and took an extra minute to get the bike computer going and turn on pedal power meter.
I had planned to try to keep my HR under 140 on flat sections (can’t keep it low on uphills) as for my longer flatter training rides I had been zone 2 training with HR < 135 and I figured that would be a pace that would leave me strong for the run.
The last 2 times I did this race (2020,1021) I had been at peak Ironman Training volume (AZ was cancelled in 2020 so I trained for it 2 years in a row). That included doing several 100+ mile rides and doing 2 loops of the CassadagaMan course a few times (versus just one practice loop this year and my longest ride being a flat 60 miles).
I felt comfortable on the bike out of the water but noticed that my HR was 163 after the sprint from lake and transition stress. Even while biking easily at 17-18 mph my HR only came down into the 150s for quite a while. It was only after the first hill up and down that on the flat northward section my HR slipped down to 140 where I kept it on the flats for the rest of the race.
3:48 for the 56 miles (with 3600 feet of climbing).
I felt good after the first loop. I drank 2 bottles of HEED on each loop and some gels so total of about 100oz water and 1300 calories. On the second loop I could tell it was getting hot out as on the steepest hill at mile 15/43 when I slowed down to 5 mph the heat hit me and I noticed huge beads of sweat on my shoulder.
And as ALWAYS on the second loop the wind from the south had picked up and the 5 miles of gradual hills up the highway were a challenge.
I am always SO happy to get off bike without having crashed , had a flat, etc.
At mile 40 I saw someone walking his bike in socks and stopped to see if I could help. It was a friend I swim with and he had gotten 3 flats, I offered him a tube but he had very deep rimmed wheels and even my long valves would not have worked. He had a damaged valve extender and actually got help from the SAG vehicle and finished the ride (luckily he was just doing the aquabike because the hour delay would have been REALLY bad if he had to also run).
Again I was in no huge rush at transition and took a salt tablet, had some fluids and … wasted a minute with my watch as it failed to switch from bike to run mode as it had frozen for some reason (I think maybe because my phone was in the transition area and it tried to connect to it while doing too many other things).
My legs and feet felt great as I headed out on the run course. It was sunny and 78 but there was a breeze. On the shaded parts of the run it felt ok but on the big hills with the sun shining down it felt really hot.
The first few miles are flat and then some big downhills with small uphills and then big uphills….
My legs felt great for the first 7 miles. I alternated drinking Heed and water at aid stations and had a few gels as well with caffeine and some Tylenol and salt tabs at mile 8. At the 3 spots ice was available I dumped a cup down the front of my shirt and let it cool my core as it melted.
I passed a few walkers and some slow runners as I was maintaining a steady 10 min mile pace on the flats. After a big downhill and immediate uphill around mile 8 my quads started to complain and the heat slowed me down. After mile 10 I had a cramp in my left hamstring that went away after I walked a few steps and massaged it a little. After that I was more careful with my pace until the last (finally) flat 1.5 miles. I did my usual hard sprint for the last few blocks until my right hamstring said “NO” and I was able to ease back my pace and finished without it cramping. I walked a few blocks past the finish line drinking a COLD bottle of water and letting the legs calm down.
This was possibly the slowest half-Ironman distance race I have done but still finished 1st (of 2) in my age group and 17/33 overall.
I got home just before 5pm (exactly 12 hours after leaving). After walking Fifa and unloading my car I settled in and watched the DVR’d Chelsea game (embarrassing 0-1 loss at home).
Sunday morning I spun on my bike for 20 minutes and then did 30 minutes of Yoga and my legs really felt pretty good. I did an hour of gardening and then took Fifa to Buffalo Lab Club at SUNY Buffalo.
she would not get off couch for her nighttime walk!
I was exhausted too and slept well but went for a slow one hour run as it is time to start training for the NYC Marathon (I did it in 2003 and had no plans to repeat it but Alex asked me “if” I would want to run it with them, duh!!!
Alex and I are starting in the 5 hour corral and they want to run alone to be in own zone with their music so I am planning to wear a costume and just run a causal 4ish hour pace (I ran 3:42 in London in 2021).
https://www.runwithtfk.org/Profile/PublicPage/99838
The above link should allow u to donate to the Children‘s charity Alex and I are running for. I donated the full $2600 amount for myself.
https://www.runwithtfk.org/Donate
*****Trigger Alert*****
Unless u are a Triathlete or someone with a morbid interest in triathlons u should stop reading now.
Please do comment, like, subscribe to my blog.
Triathlon on my mind …..
After I volunteered at Lake Placid IM in July and stayed for the World Championships slot process (with now alternating years/sites so this year 2000 women at Kona in October and 2000 men at Nice, France on Sept 10th) I have been following the IM process more. I heard that the Nice bike course is very hard and …..
As so few men wanted to accept Nice spots at Lake Placid they actually had 2 of 50 left over after offering one to ANY finisher. So if u finished in 17 hours u could go to World Championship… but if u trained your best for Placid and were that slow I don’t see how one could manage the Nice bike (although the run is totally flat at least). I want to watch the Nice broadcast to see the course and see how many age groupers actually race and finish, it will be a task to watch though as unlike Kona it is way ahead of us and will start at 1am EST. Of course the pros will be cruising up the long 6.7% hill as fast as I go on flat ground, like when watching the Tour de France.
Talking and FB chatting with people in the various triathlon groups I am in I was motivated to spend a little time on line looking at races to see how the Cassadaga 3600 ft bike and 900 ft run elevations compared.
There are only 10 North American IM races left as Mont Treblant and Utah gone now.
Only Canada and Lake Placid have elevation similar to Cassadaga per mile. And 8 races have less total bike climb than Cassadaga. And the run at Cassadaga is more per mile than any IM (by almost twice!).
But don’t be scared! Training on hills for bike and run is like anything else, just need to do smart training and not wasted junk hours.
And for a real confidence booster u can ride the Omphalius road segment, just south-east of my loop.
Train well my friends …..
