Worth Level? This course was brrrrilliant, including the coldest ever start to a half ironman. The amazing 2k swim is with a sight line in a calm crystal clear lake, so sighting was almost optional. The swim route almost spans the full length of the lake before swimming back to shore. For how frigid air temp was, the lake maintained a comfortable 70 degrees. Rollings hills for 56.1 miles, with the steepest incline coming out of the Olympic slope/village area. For the run, most of the 700ft climb is in mile 10-12 of the run.

My training had shifted towards endurance as I geared for my first full ironman. Racing national championships a couple weeks before, I learned from my mistakes of going into a race fatigued and stressed. I couldn’t have been more excited to taper for the half ironman. I stuck to the taper schedule and didn’t overexert myself the last week before September 9th.

Driving up to Lake Placid from New York City was beautiful. The directions took us through lush green woods and uncrowded highways. Somehow the forecasted rain has shifted out of upstate, but the expected temp was hastily dropping. My teams’ anxiety about the cold started to creep into my consciousness and on the way north, my co-captain and I sped-shop through the local outlets. The plan of action was park the car where the bikes were visible, speed walk in, disperse, regroup, then move onto the next store. It was a hit and run through every store. The winter gear I picked out was either too expensive or the color was meh. I was still overly optimistic about my tolerance to the cold. I came out empty handed without a windbreak or base layer.

We then completed out 4 hour drive to the Lake Placid, arriving at the lodging for the weekend. The house was up this steep hill past the ice rink and Crowne Plaza hotel and a little ways down the neighborhood street. The airbnb we rented was an old cabin that barely fit 11 people. The background whiff was musk and stale air the whole weekend. My teammate and roommate Lyndze was the first to buy candles and febreeze to cover the smell. We added the amazing scent of homemade french toast, gnocchi, eggs benedict, and burgers through the couple days. I was totally spoiled that my teammates were so adamant about cooking, cleaning, and eating together.

Leading up to the race was the regular race prep drill. The team got a test swim in Mirror Lake. We went through the expo, organized our transition packs, and numbered our bikes. I was lucky to find a discounted Ironman windbreaker and also impulse bought an under armor turtleneck before Sunday. Race briefing confirmed it was going to be 36 degrees race morning. This wasn’t the race to disregard layering and clothing strategy. First half ironman, first frostbite conditions. ☃️ The events coordinators promised warming tents and full clothing change tents to alleviate the biting cold.

I was super excited race morning. Got my coffee and oatmeal, then suit up completely in my wetsuit. We walked down the large hill in darkness. There was no pressure for this race and I was surrounded by my favorite people. My transition set up was not standard as I expected to do a full change. I was swimming in a sport bra and shorts. I would then change out of the shorts into warmer layers- or warm enough layers I hoped.

Swim start was self-selected based on expected completion time. Water temp was in the low 70s, so I opted to stay in the water until I saw the sign for my time marker group. Athletes were swimming back and forth in the warm up section of the lake or hid in the warming tents.

A couple of my teammates were my speed and I joined them in line as we got released into the water. The swim was not frantic for once. I focused on consistent swim stroke and pulling, while strategically hugging the site line but also leapfrogging anyone that was going slower. I actually stuck on the heels of my teammate that has the same swim speed as me. Helpful she was had blue stripping on her wetsuit in a sea of black wetsuits. Once out of the water, I picked up my pace with quick feet towards transition. Running on the blue tarps, I waved and pass by a couple teammates.

I saw a couple missing bikes ahead of me and kept at the concerted effort. My transition time was threw the roof. Understanding the effects of the cold, I leaned into letting go and recalibrate my ambitions. I made the game time decision to not run into the warm changing tent and instead change where my bike was. I wrapped the large towel around my waist and stripped off my wet bottoms. I was juggling holding the towel up, pulling my dry bib shorts up, and trying to not flash any other athlete. Semi dried, the base layer came over my head, then tri top, the neck buff, calf sleeves, and wind breaker. I had toe-warmers in my shoes and I hobbled towards the mount line.

Upon the first slight incline, my legs were frozen. I couldn’t really turned my pedal strokes. Two of my male teammates passed by me. As I recognized their bikes, I cheered them on. A stiff popsicle on the bike, I reached down to grab a sip of electrolyte drink. When I tried shoving my bottle back in the bottle cage, the bottle misaligned with the hold. Thunk! It went straight to the ground. I yelped sorry to the athletes behind me and panicked for a moment, but I knew it was much more dangerous for me to turn back and salvage the bottle than to ride on. I was only a few miles into the 56 mile ride and already missing half my hydration.

It was a slow, cold grind uphill before I hit the fabled descent. Neck warmer drawn over my face, I tucked into my road descend position: hands gripping the drop bars, chest fat onto the stem and stop of my handlebars, and nose doing a hound point. I did as little weaving around other competitors and found another roadie counterpart. She was as comfortable as me to not hold the brakes for dear life and rode through the turns. I tailgated her down the ice chamber descent.

The rest of the ride was more hills and more trees. More hills and more trees. Steepest incline was going into the Olympic village center and climbing out of the cul de sac. The long highway stretch on. I got super excited when I surmount the last uphill before making a right to the neighbor roads. My lower back was aching the last 6 miles. Still a ways to go but I was riding back into transition.

Into T2, I shed the wind breaker layer and got my road shoes on, then bolted straight towards the porta-potty in transition. Most likely added another ticking minutes into my T2. Once relived, I was feeling rock. fucking. solid.

Within the first couple miles, I blazed past the two teammates that biked past me on the first mile into the bike. One, keeping me company, ran with me for a bit. I cheered on 2 other male teammates as I saw them run the opposite direction towards home stretch. I felt really strong off the bike.

The 13.1 miles was on asphalt flanked by forest for the majority except for 1 big hill at mile 10. I hydrated with gatorade and water at every aid station. The last couple miles which led away from transition was mind-numbing as I just wanted to speed back into the finish line. I tried pinpointing girls in my age group, but I didn’t know who to gun for as they could easily not be in my age group, so I just ran solid.

Going into the race, I estimated a finish time of 6 hours. I crossed the finish line at 6:00:45? I ended up coming in 6th place in my age group, which set my baseline. I was ready to take on the world!