Tricks I learned

I was fortunate to meet a lot of athletes during my training and often learned little tricks that I tried and found very useful during my training and during the Ironman Race.Here are the tricks that I found useful.

Swim Tips
1.) Get as much Open Water swimming practice as you can. I recommend the ETA Coach Open water swims in Medford Lakes, NJ. He holds them from 6 AM - 10 AM on Saturdays and Sundays and some Thursday nights and it costs $10/session. The lake has a rusty feel to it, but when you swim in Mirror Lake, you'll think you're swimming in a dream. I swam at least 10 open water swims in Medford Lakes before the Ironman.
2.) Rub dishwash soap on the inside lenses of your goggles and then wash the soap out with water. The film the soap leaves behind will keep your goggles from fogging up.
3.) Start stripping your wetsuit off in the water by unzipping and just getting water in the wetsuit to act as a lubricant. It will just strip right off down to the waist. I had the strippers remove the rest of it off my legs.
4.) After the remainder of you wetsuit is off, wrap it around your neck and over your shoulder (See below) as you run to transition. The wetsuit is wet and can get heavy if you simply carry it in your arms. With a long run from the beach to T1 at Lake Placid, this made the run a lot easier.

Bike Tips
1.) Learn to love hills. Lake Placid is nice that it doesn't have rolling hills but you need to be prepared to ride the hill on the climb from Jay back into town. Since Philly and the Schuylkill River Trail are pretty flat, I would ride to Valley Forge on the SRT and do a few loops around the park where there are some short steep hills. A supported bike ride that I signed up for in April was called the Fleche Buffoon in the New Hope area. The elevation on the climbs in this race makes the Lake Placid bears seem flat. It's an early Spring ride so the weather can be cool but is great ride for training. I also did a training camp in the Poconos with the Philly Tri Club to practice hills and to get a preview of the Black Bear triathlon bike course.

2.) If you get a chance to go to Lake Placid before the Ironman, I highly recommend it to get a feel for the courses, especially the bike course. After I rode the course during a training camp in June, I had a much better idea of my bike race strategy. I had an Achilles injury that prevented me from running the Run course during the camp which I think would have been useful as well.
3.) Practice your nutrition strategy during your bike rides, especially the long rides!
4.) Do don't wheelies for the crowd during the race. I was excited coming into town at the end of my first loop and saw a guy with a "Pop a wheelie!" sign so I did one...and then my front tire went flat.
5.) I saw that someone had posted about how many century rides you should ride during training. I was building up the mileage (70-80 mile rides) on my long rides in April and May when it was nice enough to start biking outside. I did my first century ride on Memorial Day, 3 more in June, and 1 on my last hard week in early July so 5 total. The one week that I didn't do one in June was when I raced the Black Bear Half-Iron distance triathlon.

Run Tips
1.) I learned this one a little late in my training but train for the run doing 8 minute run/1 minute walk intervals. I did the first ten miles in Lake Placid with this strategy and was on pace for a sub-4 hour marathon. Unfortunately I couldn't keep it up with the hills back into town and leg cramps but on the way back out of town for the second loop, I switched to to 4/1 and did that as long as I could.
2.) Train on hills for running as well. Philly has some great Spring races but most of them are pretty flat. I specifically signed up  for the Bucks County Half-Marathon in April to get some hill work in during race conditions. Bonus, was that I came in second in my age group and had I not walked a little bit on the hills, I could have won my age group. The near miss taught me to not waste precious seconds and I used that to PR at Broad Street a few weeks later.

I'm sure there's more tricks and advice that I received  and if I remember them, I'll add them in at some point.

July Training Update with Final Monthly and Weekly totals

Now that the race has passed, I wanted to share the training volume that I had utilized to prepare for the Lake Placid Ironman. 

The final month of training consisted of my last hard week of training followed by three taper weeks. Each taper week was designed to reduce my volume by 25%. My training program was supposed to be a 24 week program but I built in an extra week in case of injury or a vacation got planned while I was training. Since I didn't need it, the extra week just ended up adding a little more volume to my total training. Here are my final monthly totals for my entire Ironman training and a week by week training volume:

Monthly Volume

	January	February	March	April	May	June	July
Running (Miles)
2013	115.25	103.89	100.01	99.41	89.81	112.71	122.14
2014	112.52	117.22	138.07	102.58	135.44	100.88	131.04
Biking (Miles)
2013	201.40	190.26	104.19	217.89	216.29	298.91	162.91
2014	309.80	281.37	355.29	410.49	524.37	601.93	369.52
Swimming (Km)
2013	13.20	14.20	10.00	14.90	16.10	15.50	6.00
2014	22.20	19.70	25.30	27.00	30.40	34.42	29.44

Weekly Training schedule

Triathlon Week	Time	Swim Yards	Bike Miles	Run Miles	Weights	Comment
1	10:45:11	8,421	90.3	21.9	2 x 30 min
2	9:16:19	2,734	70.4	31.3	2 x 30 min
3	10:57:28	3,500	80.7	37.1	2 x 30 min
4	12:36:52	10,389	80.0	27.9	2 x 60 min
5	11:39:41	3,500	100.0	34.9	1 x 60 min
6	11:59:08	3,500	99.7	27.0	2 x 60 min
7	10:24:09	7,000	72.8	23.2	2 x 60 min
8	9:31:41	7,437	42.8	29.8	2 x 60 min
9	13:06:06	6,890	95.1	29.3	1.5 x 60 min
10	10:25:23	7,000	67.3	19.0	2 x 60 min
11	11:50:17	7,437	97.7	11.7	2 x 60 min
12	15:28:24	7,437	128.0	36.6	-	Injured Wrist
13	12:45:08	7,000	99.2	31.1	1 x 60 min
14	16:17:43	11,389	157.0	23.9	1 x 60 min
15	13:39:53	7,437	88.5	31.4	2 x 60 min
16	11:44:47	4,374	55.7	38.9	2 x 60 min
17	18:23:29	8,564	171.0	35.8	1 x 60 min
18	10:20:04	7,000	50.2	32.1	1 x 60 min
19	17:48:58	12,686	152.0	23.6	2 x 60 min
20	14:17:22	7,983	167.0	9.1	1 x 60 min	Injured Achilles
21	16:44:56	7,874	173.0	19.2	2 x 60 min
22	18:03:47	12,686	107.0	41.0	2 x 60 min
23	10:20:38	7,000	64.9	35.0	-	Taper (75%)
24	7:02:43	6,124	28.2	28.8	-	Taper (50%)
25	16:37:07	6,411	170.0	33.3	-	Taper (25%)
Average		7,271	100	29

Week 22 (Last hard week)

I wanted to make sure that I got as much volume in this week since it would be the last hard week of training. I squeezed in three swim workouts (2 pool, 1 open-water) and completed the final week of strength training workouts. I did my normal speed workout on Monday and Wednesday WPR run.I got really lucky with the weather on the Fourth of July as there was no humidity and it was cloudy most of the day. I was going to do a 16 mile run and work on the 8 minute run/1 minute walk intervals. As I was going along, I felt really good and decided to go a little further because the weather was awesome. Eventually when I started running low on Gatorade at mile 11, I turned around and started heading back home and picked up more Gatorade at a store along the way. I felt good for the entire run and the intervals worked really well.

My final century ride didn't go as planned as I had an issue on a hill in Valley Forge where my crank just stopped and I proceeded to fall into a ditch on the side of the road. After I got back up, the derailleur wasn't quite shifting right on the way home. I was hoping to get the bike tuned up a week later after one more long ride, but felt that it needed immediate attention from the bike shop in case anything needed to be replaced. 

Taper Week 1 (75% volume)

The taper week was probably one of the greatest feelings that I had during the course of my training. I really felt that my body responded very well to the lower volume. Rather than trying to figure out how much volume I could cram in for a week, I was trying to reduce my weekly volume within an approximate ten hour time frame. With my Achilles injury a few weeks prior, I felt it was necessary to get a good long run this week while maintaining my swimming endurance. I only did one bike ride as I felt my conditioning was great and had my tri bike in the shop for a tune up after the accident from the previous week. I made sure to get a 16 mile run in during this week and a 65 mile bike/7.5 mile run brick workout at the end of the week.

Taper Week 2 (50%)

My time goal for this week was 7 hours of training. I did one last long swim in the pool, a ten mile run and  finished the week off with a mini triathlon brick workout in Medford Lakes since it was my last open water swim before I left. The brick consisted of a 1.5 mile swim, 28 mile bike ride and a 7.25 mile run. I knew that I was taking Sunday off to start my trip and wasn't concerned about doing this last brick.

Taper Week 3 (25% before Race)

I started making my way up to Lake Placid on Sunday morning and stopped in the Catskills at my friend’s campground for the first few days of my final taper week. I wanted to keep my training volume between 4-5 hours before the race. I was able to do two 25 mile ride rides which had elevation similar to the hill in Lake Placid. The out and back course had an elevation gain of 1,900 feet during my 25 mile ride. It was a great ride to get the legs ready for the climbs in Lake Placid.

I also did two short 3-4 mile runs to keep my running legs fresh while in the Catskills. My second run was probably not advisable as we were doing a preview of the Warrior Dash NY course at the campground and it was mostly on trails. Luckily, I took it very easy and had no issues so close to the Ironman. Once I got up to Lake Placid, I did a swim loop in Mirror Lake on Friday morning and a ride down the Keane Descent on Saturday to get a feel for the new paved areas of the road surface before the race. 

With all of my training in the books, I was ready to go for the Lake Placid Ironman. The one thing I couldn't train for was the monsoon during the swim and bike portion of the Ironman. The volume and intensity during my 25 weeks of training was enough to achieve my goal time to complete the Ironman in 12 hours despite the monsoon, flat tire, and a trip to the penalty tent for a drafting penalty.

Race Day Recap

The alarm went off at 4AM on Sunday morning to get ready for the race. I didn’t get the best night of sleep but I think it was more because I tried to go to bed at 8PM rather than thinking about the race. I had been getting to bed a little earlier each night prior and getting up earlier each morning but maybe that was too early to try and get to sleep. I immediately began taking in calories. My prerace meal consisted of a banana, bagel with peanut butter, breakfast bar and a cup of coffee. I left the hotel around 5AM to head over to transition to get body marked and drop my special needs bags off. It had rained overnight and there was rain in Sunday’s forecast so I packed some extra towels and dry running clothes. I dried off my bike, which I had to leave in transition overnight, and got the tires pumped up and ready to go. I headed to the lake where the bike special needs location was easy to find but the run special needs location seemed like a pretty far walk down Mirror Lake Drive. After dropping my stuff off, I headed back to the lake to get ready for the swim. I ate another breakfast bar, Gu gel and been sipping down some Gatorade along the way.

Swim

I got to the lake and started to make my way into the swim wave where I wanted to start which was between 1:10 – 1:20. As I waded around the lake to get wet, I ran into fellow ETA Lake Placid camper Brian Primost. Brian and I went into the same corral and lined up together. I had told Brian that he could draft off me since I figured if he didn’t, then someone else would. The swim start was a streaming wave start and they released swimmers in groups of about 30-40 swimmers at a time. Right when we got to the timing mat, we were told to stop and let the other swimmers go, which wasn’t a bad thing since we would have a little room to start once they did release us. Once I got into the water I caught up to some of the swimmers that were released before me pretty quickly. The first loop of the swim felt more like a wrestling battle royal as there was a lot of bumping and kicking. Nothing too bad, but it was just difficult to maneuver at times. I tried to stay to the outside but kept getting pulled into the middle. The back half of the swim loop cleared out a little but I did find myself swimming way too far to the outside. I finished my first loop with a solid time of 34:11 and ran through the timing mats on the beach and started my second loop. 

The second loop wasn’t as crowded as the first loop and I was able to utilize the underwater line at times to guide me through the swim. As I started the turn to head back to the swim finish, I noticed that it had started raining very hard. The storm would intensify and I started hearing thunder and saw some lightening. I wasn’t sure what they would do so I just kept going and hoped that the swim wouldn’t be cancelled. Luckily, I was able to complete my second loop in 37:04 and was ahead of my projected swim time of 1:15. That was certainly a good feeling to complete the swim a little faster than expected but I was also being mindful to not waste energy on the swim. Upon exiting the water, I had my wetsuit stripped off, draped it over my shoulders and wolfed down a GU gel as I ran to T1 in the pouring rain. I would find out that swimmers were pulled from the lake a few minutes after I finished because of the lightening and the final times would need to be adjusted. 

Bike

I got through T1 in 10 minutes and was off on my bike in the pouring rain. I was totally soaked and cold very quickly. My fingers lost all circulation and were bone white and my uncovered arms were red. I began the climb out of town with lightening still shooting across the sky. I got to the Keane descent and tried to be slightly aggressive but not stupid. No reason to end my race by wrecking on a slick road on the steep hill. I made it down the descent quickly and started onto the flats towards Jay. 

The rain continued for another half hour and didn’t stop until I was on my way back from Ausable Forks. The remainder of the first loop was uneventful until I got back into town and decided to pop a wheelie for some guys holding a sign. They were excited; I however got a flat tire from it.  If there was ever a place to get a flat, it was right there. I ran about 100 yards with my bike to the special needs area. As the volunteers were getting my special needs bag, I found some bike mechanics to help me fix the flat. They told me there weren’t supposed to physically help me fix it, but would coach me through it. I was moving quickly but they eventually took over and I reloaded my nutrition from special needs while the mechanics put the tire back on my bike. I think the whole tire change took three minutes. I consider myself lucky as I've heard about others that had much worse bike mechanical issues. My time for the first bike loop was 3:07:17 and almost 18 mph which was again, ahead of pace.

As I left town for the second bike loop the crowd was pretty rowdy. I found it interesting to see what people had put in the special needs bag. I saw one guy chowing down a slice of pizza – brilliant! The sun had come out and the roads were pretty dry by the time I started the climb out of town and down the Keane descent. I was certainly more aggressive on it the second time. I did feel the need for a bathroom break so I stopped at the first aid station after the Keane descent. I cruised along on the second loop much like my first. I finally caught up to my friend Brian McEntree from the PTC on the Haselton out and back. We both remarked how we were so ready to be off our bikes. I started the hill back up to Lake Placid. At one point, I came up to a pack of riders and I went to the outside of this group because I didn’t want to get stuck behind them going up a hill. As we started up a hill, I didn’t want waste energy by trying to pass them, but unfortunately I was called for a blocking penalty by a referee on a motorcycle. My first triathlon penalty, although I think it was kind of bogus because they should have penalized everyone for drafting. Anyway, I had to stop at the next penalty tent and report my bad behavior or I would have been disqualified. There wasn’t a time penalty, but the stopping and reporting the violation cost me at least a minute. After leaving the penalty tent, I trekked up the Bears for the final time and back into town. I think the crowd had shifted from the Bears as there weren’t quite as many people there the second time around. My second bike loop was almost the same time as my first loop, 3:08:08, and my total bike time was 6:15:25, almost another 15 minutes ahead of schedule. 

At this point I’m thinking that I’ve done two-thirds of an Ironman and all I had left to do was get through the run to become an Ironman. Just a few more hours to go…

Run

As I was getting ready in T2, I heard it starting to rain again. I did another quick stop in the porta potty and started off for the final marathon run. As I started down Main St, I felt my hamstring tighten almost immediately. Not a good way to start the run and I forgot my salt tablets in my bento box on my bike. Someone on the side of the road yelled for me to get sodium. I gutted it out to the first aid station and asked them for some salt. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any but a volunteer gave me some chicken broth which does have sodium in it. It seemed to ease the cramp and I was able to get going into my 8 min run/1 min walk intervals. The strategy was working well for me and I got out of town and the out and back on River Road without any further problems. As I started the hills back into town, my hamstrings were twisting and locking up again. The next three miles were pretty tough as I had to walk quite a lot whenever my hamstrings tightened. My first loop of the run took a little over 2 hours which was slightly slower than I wanted, but I had to concentrate on finishing and my health more than time at that point. I was definitely in survival mode.

I started to get some momentum on the descent out of town for the second loop but was tiring fast. I figured that I would try switching my intervals from 8/1 down to 4/1. It was definitely challenging at times trying to balance the cramping with moving forward. I took chicken broth and cola when I could at the aid stations. At one point I was walking with another athlete and told him about my cramping issue and he gave me two salt tablets. The salt tablets helped but I was still cramping and flat out exhausted as I finished the out and back on River Road running alongside Nicole Kropp Strand. As we crossed the bridge and began to head back to town, the hills started again. Nicole took off and I was simply too tired to even attempt to run the hills and decided that I would walk all of the remaining hills. I had three miles left to become an Ironman, I was so close. I struggled to get over the last few hills and knew the back part of the Mirror Lake out and back was mostly downhill. Once I hit the final downhill towards the Oval everything became surreal. I tried to take everything in for the last half mile. The downhill propelled me into the Oval at a nice running pace. Once I was in the Oval the crowds were cheering and I didn’t want the moment to end. I gave some high fives to the crowd along the way as I finally spotted the Finish line. 

About 10 yards before I got to the Finish Line, I heard the sweet sound of Mike Reilly’s voice:

“Paul Amos from Philadelphia – You are an IRONMAN!”

I crossed the Finish line and I had thought that my final time was under 12 hours, but would later find out the final time was 12:00:38 (Damn penalty!). The official shortened time was 11:13:20. I ran into Nicole again and Bill Kline after finishing as we meandered around the Finish area for a few minutes. A trip over to the massage tent was my first stop and then I was off to collect my stuff and head to the hotel for a shower and dinner. 

Congratulations to everyone that completed the Ironman that I had met and trained with during my journey to completing my first Ironman at Lake Placid. Also, a big shout-out to the volunteers and spectators that did so much to help all the athletes to complete the race. The course is no-joke but is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever raced. Mirror Lake is an absolute open-water swimmers dream and the Finish Line in the Olympic Speedskating Oval is one of the best Finishes anywhere (I've heard better than Kona). As I reflect on everything that's happened since I signed up, I'm proud that I created my own training plan, trained hard, and executed on race day to achieve my goal time. There's certainly room for improvement and I will start to explore those options in the future. For my first Ironman, I was completely satisfied with my result and how I raced.

I hope that people have found my blog helpful. I'll still post my final month of training and various tips and tricks that I've learned. I did learn a wetsuit trick two nights before the Ironman that was very helpful going from the lake to T1.