On our way down to the beach I had the opportunity to talk with Troy one-on-one. Turns out he is pretty familiar with the Allentown area and knew some people that I knew as well. He is a really nice guy and actually spends some time with everyone in the camp. We headed out for our swim in Mirror Lake and the water was perfect temperature. The swim felt great from the gitko and I quickly settled in to a nice steady pace. There were three of us out together and most were behind with a few ahead of us. The whole swim went pretty smoothly and I was shocked to see that I was over a half mile at the 15 minute turnaround. We made the turn and headed back. Return trip was just as good. I was able to do just over a mile in 30 minutes which is really good for me. Mirror lake is the best lake for open water swimming. There is buoys setup all along the course and a rope runs 4 feet below the surface so spotting is very easy.
After the swim we headed back and quickly switched into our bike gear and back out in a half hour. We were doing the Ironman Bike loop in reverse which the first half is all downhill. That is great but the road totally sucked. Major tire grabbers. We stayed together as a group rolled down to Wilmington. The conditions eventually improved and we all sorted ourselves out a bit. I was focusing on reserving some energy for the big climb on Rt. 73 back into Lake Placid. Kept a nice gear and spinning at 85 RPMs. We eventually wound down to Keene and started our way up the big climb. I quickly wound up being the third man up the hill and the others dropped below. I dropped down to nice easy gear and spun my way up the 7 mile climb. It was much better than I thought it would be. At some point along it I heard someone coming behind me and it was Troy cruising on up like it was nothing, then he went past and caught up to the guy in front and then I passed him riding back down it again. Wow! I uploaded my ride later on Strava and it is a Category 2 climb for those of you familiar with cycling. Pretty instense.
The ride was 53 miles total and I ended up doing it in 3.25 hours which is around 16mph. Pretty good I think. After the bike we had to get our running shoes on and do a little 3 miler around the lake. That also felt very good. Legs felt loose and I kept a 9 min/mi pace. I think it would have been faster but I was dodging people coming down Main St. I chilled on the veranda for a little bit and then showered and took a little nap. I headed over to Placid Planet afterwards and picked up a bento box and some more nutrition products. We had a lecture at 5pm and Troy instilled some race/training knowledge into us, then it was off to the Dancing Bears for grub and beers. I had a big ole plate of pasta, Angel Hair Pomodora, which really hit the spot for me. We shot the breeze for awhile and then headed back to the hotel.
Tomorrow will be the full, 112 mile bike course which should be a ass-kicker.
