Training in Lake Placid

On to training. Eric and I went up to Lake Placid to train. Its a lOOOONG trip there and back, but well worth it. So beautiful!

I was absolutely elated about the bike course since it seemed much easier than I expected.
I expected the hills of death I saw in the Tour De Carroll, but only there were three longish climbs. At first I was freaking out b/c I was going soooo slowly, but the whole middle part was flat. And its so pretty. You pass a huge waterfall and go down this 6 mile hill. I was partially scared out of my mind and partially exhilarated. No way I can do it in aerobars like everyone else, but I kept a tight grip on the brakes, just in case! But, the worst happened. My first bonk. At mile 49ish, I noticed just how long it was taking me to do a mile! I was really slowing down, and I started to languish. I was even having problems steering, and we were going up a long climb that had a guardrail. It wasn't the time to be having problems! I finally stopped and had a fig newton, and that brought me back to life. I really wanted to do another loop, but I would have to figure out this nutrition first. Decided to try some accelerade to drink to see if that would help.

The thing is, I went from being absolutely elated to deflated. I still have yet to do 100 miles on the bike, so I have a lot of work cut out for me.

Then, we got to swim in Mirror Lake. It was great! I never did find the "cable" or "rope" that everyone kept talking about, the one that you could follow for the course. Oh well. It seemed cold at first but was refreshing and easy to swim.

We were pooped by the end of the night. Got to spend some time in town, had some good food, and went to bed. We had some biking to do the next day!

Well, no such luck. We got there in town just as it started to rain. :( It was soo cold and windy and wet, and I was terrified of going down those hills in the rain! We decided to run instead. I was going to try to run the whole course. Interesting since I hadn't run over 6 miles since Cherry Blossom, and have barely run anything over 3 miles! It started to rain harder and harder...