Lake Placid (week 29)

What a fun weekend in Lake Placid! I headed up on Thursday afternoon, and Dan joined me on Friday. We stayed in a gorgeous and comfy home about 2 miles from town. We were joined by 6 BTTers (Heather, Mary Beth, Jen Tucker, Laurie D, Lori M, Ian) and my cousin Tom and his wife Elpi. Tom was the only one racing... the rest of us were there to support, volunteer, and/or relax. The house made it very easy to relax with ALL of the amenities we needed... full kitchen, big grill, wrap around porch, big screen TVs, pool table, hot tub, sauna.... we had it all!

I started two of the mornings with a swim at Mirror Lake.... and it felt great. The easiest way for me to swim while keeping my blood sugar from crashing is to swim immediately after eating breakfast. I may have been breaking the cardinal swimming rule, but it worked great! Both times I took my breakfast down to the late and chatted with friends I ran into while I ate. Then off into the water I would go! It took me 40 minutes to do a full lap of the IMLP course (1.2 miles), which is about 5-10 minutes slower than usual... but hey, I'm not too aerodynamic right now! I got a kick out of some people's reaction to me swimming. I ran into coach Tim the first time, when I told him I was there for a swim he said "bullshit".

Other than that, we did a lot of lounging, cooking, catching up with friends, walking around the neighborhood, and strolling around town. On the day of the Ironman, I headed down to watch the swim and bike start while Dan slept. After a few hours break back at the house, Dan and I returned to town watch the run. We watched Tom finish the bike and start the run, and then headed over to the BTT cheering tent out on the run course. We got to catch up with more people, including the newest BTT babies Elan Davenport and Adam&Ryan Aronis. A bunch of cuties! It was fun watching the run, especially with a few BTTers doing really well out there! Coach Tim and wife Cait did really well also... 5th overall and 2nd female, respectively. Oh, and we had a Michael Phelps sighting. Apparently he was there watching his sister race!

All in all, it was a great weekend. I was bummed to head back to Boston, especially since I was heading straight to the docs. More on that later...