Monday, July 25, 2011

Ironman Lake Placid 2011

Good morning, Rogue Racers!  I tried my best to keep everyone updated on the race progress yesterday; unfortunately cell service was very limited and the athlete tracking system crashed.  But, Mark and George both did amazing!

George came out of the swim earlier than expected, after following the ladies on the line, and managed to elude both Kelly and I who were waiting at the chute to take photos.  Meanwhile, Mark ran by us and we were able to capture some pics.  After waiting for over half an hour, we finally realized that we had missed George.  Kelly shed tears of relief that she didn't have to tell anyone he was dead.  

The rest of the race went pretty smoothly.  George smiled every time he passed us on the bike.  And Mark seemed to be smiling, although sometimes it is hard to tell with him.  I went down to volunteer in the medical tent around 4pm, but Kelly reported that George felt great on the first loop of the run.  On the second loop of the run, his fellow competitors heard him silently chanting, "Tri... endure... succeed!" His mantra seemed to work as he finished in 12:08:04!  Kelly saw Mark at the halfway point of the run, and he stopped for a while to stretch and give Kelly a sweaty hug.  Despite pretty bad cramps that started at mile 30 of the bike, he still managed to finish in 14:33:39.  It must have had something to do with Kelly's famous cheering!

Since I was down at the medical tent gawking at the pros, I got to see both Mark and George cross the finish line.  It was incredible.  I've included a link to some photos below.


Have a great week, 

Holly

49 comments:

  1. George and Mark, great job and congratulations. Thanks for keeping us up to date Holly, and thanks for the great pictures. I was tracking both the guys religiously yesterday and scared out of my mind when everything for George was tracking just fine, but nothing for Mark past the first bike loop. Glad to hear everything went well, and it was just the system that crashed ;). Congrats to you guys again. What an awesome accomplishment. I'm jealous.

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  2. Bob, next year we are already committed to the Niagra Ultra. But I will officially commit to doing it with you in July 2013 if you will do it with me? We can come up next year and volunteer and then sign-up. You in?

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  3. Awesome!! Who said Ironman was tough? You guys need to find something more difficult now.
    Tracking was a nightmare, so I'll echo Bob's comment thanking Holly for keeping us updated.
    Great job guys.

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  4. I second Bob- Hannah and I were worried last night when we saw the website showed George had finished and nothing more than 1 bike loop for Mark. Awesome job guys!!

    ps- Too bad I can't swim, Holly, you can't con me into an ironman ;)

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  5. Awesome Job Ironmen George and Mark!! You rock!
    Glad to hear you all finished well...since the tracking was a bust. I was a bit nervous as welll..
    I was watching the live coverage on Ironman LIVE of the leaders and it definetly gave me an itch to wanna do this race some day....? It must be a true test of mental and physical will. Great accomplishment guys and well deserved!!
    Nice pics as well...you guys also have a great support team..Kudos - Holly and Kelly

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  6. i'm going to be THAT person that uses a lot of capital letters now.

    CONGRATS MARK AND GEORGE!!!!!! IN YOUR FACE IRONMAN! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    i heard the honey badger is sending all of his friends videos of YOU GUYS today. boom.

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  7. Great job guys, I can never complain about a 5k race again after seeing what you did. Nice pictures, especially liked the "holy s***" shot, really captures the mood.

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  8. FYI- probably won't make it to track workout tonight, I have to work late tonight - run a little extra for me

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  9. Justin, I will not make it out tonight as well. Tell Hannah I said "sorry". See you guys this weekend. I'll be doing my workout early this afternoon. Thank god for my new Garmin ;)

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  10. Way to go Ironmen!! That is awesome. It's funny how all of us that were tracking the thing were getting worried. I knew something was up when it said that the swim to bike transition for both of you was around 50 minutes. Now you have to get your calf tatoos. If you guys get 140.6 I'll get 3.1. Just like Dr. Bob's car.

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  11. You Ironmanners, I have no idea how you do it. I did my sprints yesterday and was exhausted. I kept thinking "if George and Mark can do an Ironman, I can run 1200 meters". I was still 10 seconds slow on EVERY run...suck.

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  12. Rogue Racers, I need your help and suggestions. As of late, I've been having some chest pains/cramping while starting to jog. It's happened on my last 3 jogs. It starts off somewhat painful, although bareable. It goes away after 1 mile or so, and I can continue with no issues at all. Again, this is in the chest area, and I don't know whether or not I should be panic because of this. I usually just jog through it. Does anyone know what this might be? Anyone heard of something like this before?

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  13. I would see a doctor just to be safe since it's in the chest region. Could be cramping due to the weather or costochondritis. A good doctor should be able to give you a diagnosis and tell you how to treat it.

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  14. I'll be running at The Running Store's Wednesday night speed training session if anyone is interested in sharing in the suffering. Starts at 7PM in Gainesville. Check their website for directions (www.therunningstoreteam.com)

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  15. Is there any running going on tonite besides Running Store Gainesville??..that is just too far to go ...
    If not I will run the neighborhood.

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  16. Adam,

    You ready to run in an oven? Had a good speedwork session last night and will take tomorrow off. See you at the race.

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  17. Great job,George! You are such a gifted & talented person. Thanks to Holly for a great blog & big hugs & kisses to my sister, Kelly.

    Donna T.

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  18. Thanks, Donna! Glad you liked the blog! :-) Hope all is well!

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  19. WAY TO GO MARK AND GEORGE!!! Great pics, Holly! Thanks for sharing!

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  20. You are most welcome! :-)

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  21. got to go out west for oven weather (dry heat). this is more like being locked in a room with a humidifier and the shower on full blast...but i dont' think we'll get the heat. the saturday forecast is calling for 40% chance of PM thunderstorms...so i'm going with cloud cover and high humidity...

    got to get over for one of those workouts...trying to stick with a new training experiment for right now...3 weeks in and good results thus far in the faster sessions. we'll see if any of it shows up yet on saturday.

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  22. You're right. When Peter and I ran last night we were talking about how hard it was to breathe. Like being in a steam room.
    Can't wait for the race. I hope the training experiment works. I'm always doing the same thing. Shaking it up and doing new things sometimes seems to be the way to break through a plateau phase.

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  23. Hey all,

    6:30am tomorrow at the W&OD trail! It's supposed to be over 80 degrees at that time of the morning, so I think that the plan is to split the long run into two days (Saturday and Sunday). I know that Kelly and Nancy are running 10 miles tomorrow, but I think the rest of us are still undecided. I know that it won't be over 10 miles though.

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  24. keith, just checked the weather...looks like ~88 degrees and 50% humidity with cloud cover. guess that pm thunderstorm is passing by.

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  25. Just to let you know I went to go see my doctor yesterday. I had an EKG, and bloodwork done. He said I look really healthy, but he wants to do a stress test and 3d imaging of my heart next Friday...precautionary measures because of my family history with heart disease. Anyways, long story short, he does not encourage that I run until all tests are back. BUT, he knows I will do it anyways, so he said "if you MUST run, they you have to do it with someone next to you". So, If you guys are ok with it, I'll see you guys tomorrow!!! Glad Hannah will be next to me!!!

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  26. Good news Bob. Hopefully the rest of the testing goes well.

    Hannah, I believe it's Red Cross that states you only have to do chest compressions.

    Adam, I'll see you tomorrow. That weather sounds like PR conditions.

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  27. Mark and George, Congratulations! Awesome job! I hope to someday join your ranks. Someday. Like, maybe it'll be to mark my 50th state marathon. Right now I'm still at the point where I finish a marathon and think, "thank goodness that wasn't an Ironman!" You two are incredible. The "holy s**t" photo really put it into perspective. Holly, thanks so much for posting.

    Was that really ke$ha in the picture? I just subjected myself to watching Tik Tok on youtube but I still can't tell from the photo if that's really her.

    I'll see some of you brave souls tomorrow at 6:30 am. :)

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  28. April,
    George's bike's name is Ke$ha, and that is me holding George's bike. So Ke$ha is sort of in the picture only it is George's bike named Ke$ha.
    Oh and Mark's bike's name is Monica Bellucci. That is why Monica is making friends in the other picture but all you see is bikes.

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  29. Bob, keep us updated and take it easy. You can skip 2-3 weeks of running with zero consequences (I did once).

    Filmed a 10k at the W&OD, Gurmessa (I think it was him) ran like greased lightning in sunny 98 degree weather..amazing. Should be up tomorrow a.m.

    Did 9 miles at Burke in the early p.m. today, heading out there again tomorrow. Keith if you are game for a p.m. run let me know.

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  30. Peter,
    Let me know what time you want to run tomorrow. It would be nice to run Burke again b/c it's been a while. Going to put my compression socks on and go to bed. Need to recover after tonight's race and the long drive home.

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  31. The FCHC 5k that Adam and I ran was a great race. Very well run by Race timing unlimited. Even though it's a bit far away it would be a good race for the group. Relatively flat course and family friendly. I will probably try to run some more races managed by this company. I believe they have a 50k coming up for you long distance people.

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  32. Adam and Keith, congrats on your race last night! It was super hot yesterday, so I don't even know how you guys raced! Way to go! :-)

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  33. keith, hayley took some pictures last night of the start and finish. we'll send them your way.

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  34. Adam, That would be great. I e-mailed racetimingunlimited and let them know how well organized I thought the race was.
    I went over to VA Runner in Clifton today and had a great talk with Vernon. What a great guy! Always willing to give some real good racing advice.

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  35. Racetimingunlimited does the majority of races in the Fredericksburg area. Lots of the guys who work at the store are part of the company. The best part is they are usually very quick with the results, especially when the races are in fred. I've done a few where i've been in an out of a 5k with plenty of morning to spare.

    $100 to the store for new gear! Can't beat that for a $15 entrance fee either!

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  36. Also, as of a few minutes ago, Wardian said on his fb page that the National Marathon will now be part of the RnR series. So same hilly course, now with entertainment.

    And speaking of Wardian, and Fredericksburg area, he usually comes down for the Hartwood 10 miler. August 21st this year. Turco, Poulos, Piggott were all there last year

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  37. Way to give Michael Wardian credit. Don't you read my website, Adam? I've had that new Rock 'n' Roll race up on our site for 2 weeks!

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  38. Who is this Rogue Racers person?

    I'll be running the Annapolis 10 mile run on Aug. 30th. I'll have to look into the Hartwood for next year.
    The RnR USA marathon has a cool sound to it. I'm seriously thinking about doing it. Also, just saw that Stone Temple Pilots will be headliner for the RnR VA beach 1/2 marathon.

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  39. Yeah... Who is this Rogue Racers person? And why haven't they posted this week's workouts? How lazy!

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  40. holly...this seems familiar...like a certain calendar at school that needed updating. do i always have to remind you??

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  41. Just wanted to say Happy Birthday Bob!! Hopefully you are planning on celebrating by doing a super fast 800m workout tonight :)

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  42. I always say don't update anything. It just screws everything up. Can no longer use my car's Bluetooth technology because I updated it & now it won't let me answer the phone--updates do SUCK.
    Live & learn Bob. You're older today & wiser about updates.

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  43. Keith,

    I'll give you a call around 5:45 to see when we work out today.

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  44. Happy birthday Bob! I celebrated your birthday by running 7 miles on the dreadmill. Hopefully you were able to have an enjoyable one.

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  45. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!

    Planning on doing my sprint workouts tonight, since yesterday was literally a wash. Anyone want to meet up for the track workout? If not, I'll run my sprints on the W&OD behind my house.

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  46. Bob, I won't be running tonight, and Hannah is at work. Since our fearless leader hasn't posted anything, I think that's a sign that we don't have to run. I'm game for the tempo tomorrow night though

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  47. Hi all,
    Looks like tomorrow is an 8 mile tempo run for all marathoners-in-training. The plan is to meet up at Burke Lake at 7pm. Feel free to come out and run 1 or 2 loops!

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  48. Hey guys, I will be unable to make the run tonight. I have a company event I'm going to. I ran the sprints last night off the W&OD. Tough day of running, as I got a huge blister running barefoot on the heated pavements. I still did pretty good with the times; however, I had to put shoes on for the last 3 - 800 meter sprints.

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