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Sorry I didn’t have a chance to follow up on the last post from Chiang Mai.  We left there and flew down to Koh Samui, a little island in the southern part of Thailand in the Gulf.  We stayed at a small boutique resort that was similar to where we stayed in Bangkok, except on the beach.  It was incredible.  This vacation has been really interesting, each day we think it can’t get better and every day seems to out-do the one before.  Coming home is going to suck big time.

Anyway, Koh Samui was a blast.  I hope the pictures we took can do it a little bit of justice, but it’s going to be tough.  We didn’t have much connectivity down there since there was just a single computer for the whole hotel.  No big deal though, we spent most of our time lounging on the beach and eating meals overlooking the water, so internet time wasn’t missed.

We’re back in Bangkok now for the last two nights of our trip.  Oddly, it feels very comforting and “normal” to be back in Bangkok.  We’re staying at the same place we stayed the first 3 nights and Liz has already made new friends with the girls at the front desk.  I’m sure she’ll offend then shortly (more on this later).  Time to head to bed now, I might write one more time before heading home but if not, we’ll see you all on Thursday!

We’ve been in Chiang Mai for about 2 days now and we’re leaving some time tomorrow, so we still have a good amount of time left.  Considering the way we’ve been packing in the activities, we’ll have done a lot more by the time we head south.  It’ll be nice to get down to the beach and relax and finally get a tan over the next few days.

When we got to Chiang Mai, we decided since it’s significantly smaller than Bangkok that we would walk around and check out the city, maybe do the walking tour in one of our books.  This was a great idea in theory but the execution fell horribly short.  Streets are very poorly labeled here and the book we had sucked ass beyond belief.  Never buy the Lonely Planet Thailand book!!!  It’s a steaming pile of shit!!!  We hadn’t eaten and we were starting to get a little cranky so we bought a better city map and found some food, nothing spectacular but it got the job done.

We’re staying across the street from a night market which takes up about 5 blocks.  It’s massive.  They sell everything there from pirated movies, music and software to very nice home decor and portrait paintings.  There’s also food and massages, which are both very good and very cheap.  We made friends with a woman who runs a tea stand and have been back there both nights to sit at her little shop and she makes us different kinds of teas to sample.  It’s like going to a wine tasting, except less pretentious and probably better for you.  Liz is in heaven, we’ve probably spent an hour there each time.

I only have a minute left, so I’ll wrap this up.  I’ll try to write again later about yesterday, which included custom suits, elephant riding a long neck tribe visit and praying monks.

We’re getting ready to grab breakfast and jump on a plane to Chiang Mai this morning.  Honestly, to my surprise I really am going to be sad to leave Bangkok.  Our stay here couldn’t have been better.  Liz did an amazing job finding a really cool place to stay outside of the busy downtown area.  We packed as much into the 2 days we were here as we possibly could, it’s been incredible.  I’ll put up pictures when I get back.

Here’s a quick run down of things we’ve seen/done”

Number of Buddhist temples (wats) knelt in: 2
Different forms of city transportation taken: 4
Times we haggled prices to save what ended up being less than 50 cents: 4
Meals eaten in sit down restaurants: 2
Meals eaten from street vendors: 4
Encounters with the Thai version of Montezuma’s Revenge: 0 (thank god)

The street food here is ridiculous, it’s better than the food we’ve had from restaurants so far and I’m hoping they have street food in Chiang Mai and Koh Samui as well.  Seriously, last night we each got a plate of food (I’m not really sure what mine was) that tasted awesome and cost us less than a dollar each.

Ok, time to go grab another crazy breakfast and jump on a plane.  The place we’re staying in Chiang Mai is going to be much different than the boutique place we’re staying in Bangkok.  Our Chiang Mai accommodations are a trendy upscale hotel with all the amenities, should be interesting.

They have Thai massage in our hotel, right in the “lobby” for 300 baht for an hour.  300 baht is about 10 US dollars, so it’s by far the cheapest massage I have ever had.  It’s also the first time I’ve ever had a Thai massage.  It was great, though I can’t really decide if it was relaxing.  I think I’m actually afraid of the woman who gave me the massage because I don’t think I’ve ever thought to myself, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take” during a massage before.  Sure I’ve had that thought during really fast races and during boring family events, but never during something that was intended for relaxation.  All jokes aside, I think my legs finally feel better.  Too bad they will probably be sore again tomorrow.

We made it to Bangkok last night after an incredibly long day of flying, I think total travel time was up near 30 hours, so it’s Saturday morning now in Bangkok.  We seem to have adjusted pretty well to the jetlag and time changes so far, but it’s still early, we may be running on excitement.

So far, Bangkok is amazing, though we’ve only seen it at night, but our hotel is incredible.  I’ll explain more later, but we just woke up and showered then wandered downstairs for an organic breakfast of papaya, thai tea, and a plateful of vegetables, rice, dressing and deep fried papaya flowers that we were supposed to mix together and eat.  Sounds weird, tasted awesome.

The goal is to avoid problems like we encountered in Mexico, but it’s going to be tough to control what we eat if everything tastes (and looks) like that.  Today we’re off to see the sites in historic Bangkok, try some Thai cuisine and hopefully get a massage.  Hope you guys are doing well, check back in the morning!

It’s 3:45 in the morning and we’re about to head out the door for our trip to Thailand.  I’ll try to post a couple times while I’m there so check back.  See you guys soon!

No Gifts.

That’s what Bernard Hinault told Lance Armstrong in the 2004 Tour de France. What he meant was for Lance not to “gift” anything to any of the other riders in the Tour, don’t give them stage wins, don’t let them hold the jersey, make them earn it. That’s how Ironman Lake Placid was, it didn’t give us any gifts, everyone that crossed the finish line earned every single step.

That being said, it was an absolutely amazing experience, it’s almost impossible to put into words the feeling of riding and running through the crowds in town and in the Olympic speed skating oval at the finish. Easily one of the greatest feelings of my entire life. Overall, I’m really happy with my finish time and the race in general. I would have a changed a couple things (like the weather), but for my first time I don’t really care, I crossed the finish line and never questioned why I was doing it. Here’s a rundown:

Pre-Race

The alarm went off at 4am, though I think I was already awake. I managed to get a decent night’s sleep and already had breakfast made for the morning so I just had to eat and get things ready to go. The normal breakfast of “Banana Bob’s” and a bottle of Accelerade and I was on my way. It was nice and cool, we headed over to body marking and the atmosphere was pretty calm considering what we were all about to get ourselves in to. I dropped off my special needs bags (which I ended up not using), my dry clothes bag (which was soaking wet by the end of the day) and headed over to the swim start to relax for a bit. Music was blaring, it was awesome, 2400 people in the water bobbing around and the announcer screaming, “Before the day is over, you WILL be an Ironman!”.

Swim

So, that was the set up. Now we have 2400 people in the water, nervous, excited, peeing, scared and ready. When the cannon went off, it was just a flurry of arms and bubbles. I had heard the horror stories of trying to swim down the cable connecting the buoys. The advantage is that you can see the cable about 10 feet below the surface, so swimming long it, you don’t need to sight. The problem with that approach is that 2400 other people have the same idea. I decided to swim pretty far right and just aim straight for the turnaround buoy. It worked out perfectly, 18 minutes to the turn, 19 minutes back, a short little run across the beach and it was back in the water for lap two. In general, the swim was pretty crowded, but I didn’t feel overwhelmed with the number of people. Maybe I’ve been in the thick of things in other races before and I’m just used to it, or I just don’t care, I’m not sure, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. At the turnaround on the second lap I thought to myself, “Well, this is the furthest you’ve ever swam”, which was a pretty cool feeling. Out of the water in 1:15, I think my laps were almost identical times and I felt like I did nothing. Oh, one of the coolest things is the wetsuit “peelers”. After the swim, you run up, sit down and in one quick motion they rip your wetsuit off and hand it back to you, it was great. By now it was pouring and it was time to hop on the bike.

Bike

Having done the Seagull Century twice in pouring rain I felt better prepared than anyone else to ride 112 miles soaking wet. The Lake Placid bike course is notoriously difficult, I was warned beforehand and I even sent Mark out on some recon rides for me. I had driven the course two days prior and didn’t see anything that really concerned me. I figured I’d stick to drinking a bottle of fluids every hour and then alternate a gel and a bar each hour as well. It seemed to work out pretty well and I don’t think I had any nutrition problems during the whole race. I was obviously drinking enough because I had to stop to pee 3 times on the bike, maybe I was drinking a little too much.

The ride starts off with a slight climb out of town and then drops down a 6 mile descent to the town of Keene. I bombed down this hill on the first loop, probably coming close to 50mph. Then it’s pretty flat for the next 10 or so miles to the town of Jay, which was nice. It’s after that when the “fun” begins, a left turn toward Wilmington presents you with about a 3 miles climb. In my opinion, this was the toughest part of the course. Once in Wilmington, you head out Hasleton Road for 6 miles and then turn around and come back. This was pretty easy, but I hate out and backs so I could have done without it. After the out and back is where it was supposed to get really tough, a 12 mile climb back to Lake Placid. I didn’t think this was as bad as advertised, the last three climbs before town are pretty cool, they are nicknamed “the Bears” and are actually labeled on the road Mama Bear, Baby Bear and Papa Bear. First loop was just over 3 hours, which was about what I expected since I was taking it pretty easy.

Second loop it was still pouring, I figured it would clear up eventually, but the rain was relentless. On the descent to Keene is probably the only portion of the race where I actually didn’t feel very good. Riding downhill in the rain after you’ve done a swim and over 60 miles of biking already was a little sketchy and I was getting cold. So cold that I was shivering while descending, not safe. By the time we got to the flat road to Jay I was just trying to get into a rhythm and warm back up. I had hoped to push a little harder on this section, but I didn’t have it in me being cold. I eventually warmed up and got back into the groove.

I actually wish I had brought my triathlon bike instead of my road bike, but oh well, now I know for next time. I think the road bike did help me on the climb up to Wilmington and back into Lake Placid. I seemed to pass a lot of people on those sections without ever really pushing too hard. I kept thinking to myself, “Go hard, but don’t make it hurt” and I would be fine. Second lap was a little slower which isn’t what I wanted, but I was still smiling and never questioned whether I would make it.

Run

I’ll start off by saying that the run was the part of the race I was the most concerned about. My longest training run was about 16 miles so I wasn’t quite sure how I would be after that point. That being said, the run ended up being my favorite part of the race. I started off feeling great and kept my pace under control, figuring I could pick it up later. Around mile3 I started to crave food. Not bars or gels, but real food, I was just hungry, but physically felt fine. So I walked through the aid station at mile 3 and grabbed a bar, cookies, banana, chicken broth and Gatorade. And I ate it all. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel full afterwards and started to jog again. Around mile 4 a woman caught up to me and asked about my Eagleman visor. I picked up my pace a little and kept up with her and we ran together for the pretty much the next 15 miles.

Our first half marathon pace was really good, I felt awesome and was actually on pace to beat my marathon time in Chicago. The second half I started out really well, but had to stop to pee (again) and around mile 19 it started to hurt pretty bad. I started stretching the walk through the aid stations a little longer then I had been and then had to run to the bathroom (one last time) at mile 22. At that point it was 2 miles up back into town and then a quick out and back and I’d be done. I figured I would run the flats and downhills and power walk the uphills and aid stations. That strategy worked out well but brought my time down a bit on the second loop, bummer.

Once back in town, you can’t help but run hard. The crowds of people are amazing, I can’t imagine what it would be like in decent weather. Oh yeah, it was still raining. Back through town you can hear the music and the announcer calling people’s names out. A quick half lap around the Olympic speed skating oval and across the finish line and I’m an Ironman. It sounds so simple typing it, but I really can’t put into words the experience, I don’t think it’s sunk in yet.

Post Race

So, about 12:23 after it’s all said and done. I’m happy. I literally thought about this race every single day since the day I signed up last July and I have a feeling I’ll be thinking about it every single day after completing it. After the race I was really fortunate to have my Dad and Mark there to pick up my stuff and cart me back to the hotel. I don’t know what I would have done without them since I could barely walk and when I finally got moving I would start shivering uncontrollably as soon as I got out of the massage tent, pretty weird. Well, it’s over now and I’m still basking in my accomplishment. I’m sure it’ll wear off at some point, but I don’t think it’ll be any time soon.

Thanks everyone who was there for a swim, jog or bike ride along the way and to everyone who told me I could do it and gave me words of encouragement, I couldn’t have done it without you guys.

Those are the greatest words I have ever heard. The spectacle of the finish line is beyond words. I had an amazing day, despite the non-stop torrential downpours and times where I thought I would freeze to death. I think I had a grin on my face the entire race, it was that much fun. I’ll give a recap tomorrow, I’m pretty beat now and need to sleep. Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement and congratulations, looking forward to seeing you all again soon!

So, it’s the day before race day and I’m getting ready to head to dinner. Bike and gear bags are already in transition. I feel pretty rested and loose. I’m actually tired as hell since I didn’t get to nap today, but that’s good, it should make it really easy to go to bed at 8 or 8:30 tonight and then get up at 4am.

I have some pictures to put up from yesterday’s training and sightseeing, but I’ll get the up after the fact. I think for now it’s just head down and focus on the task ahead. See you guys soon!

So, Thursday morning rolls around and now I have a full day to fill with activities. I didn’t really know what to expect or really what to do, so I figured I’d take advantage of the swim course being open to get an easy swim in. Per Seth’s advice, I decided to bike the run course in the afternoon as well. Since we were in town early, I decided to head over to registration as as early as I could to miss the crowds. More on that in a bit. The Olympic speed skating oval is pretty much where everything takes place. Here’s a shot of me under the sign at the entrance. This is where transition is set up as well as a ton of vendors, the finish line and, of course, a store. I want to buy a ton of stuff with the Ironman logo, but I feel conflicted since I haven’t actually done the race yet, so I’m going to hold off until it’s over.

The place we’re staying is pretty awesome. It’s right on Lake Placid and it’s about a 10 minute walk to Main Street, downtown. There are a handful of other athletes staying here as well. The grounds are great and we sat out back and had our morning coffee before getting the day officially started. If I have the energy, maybe we’ll play some bocce out back since I have bocce balls in my car that haven’t moved in probably two months.

After breakfast it was time to head down to the swim. I really didn’t know what to expect in terms of other people being there and how far to swim, etc. Boy was I surprised. Here’s a shot of the swim course from the beach at the start and another of people (that’s Mark in the black and green) getting ready to start teir practice. There were probably a couple hundred people just hanging out, music was blaring, Gatorade volunteers were there to hand out free drinks and watch bags. It was a pretty impressive sight to see. So, off I went, jumped in the water to do an easy thousand or so. The water was really nice and I probably didn’t need a wet suit. Next thing I knew I was out at the turnaround, oops. So back I swam and got out on the beach having swum a half-ironman swim leg as practice. Honestly, I didn’t want to get out of the water. It was that nice. I figure I needed to take advantage of it since next time I’ll be with 2200 other people all of whom want to take the shortest possible route around the buoys. It’s going to be like a UFC fight.

After the swim, we headed over the registration and packet pick-up. Like I said earlier, I thought by showing up on the first day I would miss the crowds…wrong. Lines were out the door and wrapped down the side of the building. It was pretty funny, everyone talking about times and strategy and which parts of the course were hard and which were easy. It was interesting to hear, but I don’t think any of it will matter on race day. Everything is going to be hard and the strategy will be to make it across the finish line in one piece. Besides, they don’t give you your $500 t-shirt until after you finish anyways, and that’s why we all do these things anyways. Once funny thing was having to weigh in at registration. I’m not sure why they do this, but I felt like I was back in high school at a wrestling tournament.