Friday, July 21st.
In 48 hours, Ironman Lake Placid 2023—my fourth Ironman and second time at Lake Placid—should be just about wrapped up. This year, I decided to write the first part of my race report before the race. I’ve been thinking a lot about process goals rather than outcome goals and big takeaways from this Ironman build. In that reflection process, I realized that no matter what happens on Sunday, I’m proud of everything that went into getting me to the starting line, and I want to reflect on that before all of the post-race feels (good, bad, or a mix of both) take over.
Training for Placid this year went almost perfectly from January to June. Jim designed an elite Ironman plan for Kevin and me that brought us through a variety of different training blocks that were all guided by a lactate threshold and VO2 max testing session in January. We did short bursts of high intensity work, VO2 max sessions, tempo sessions with varied recovery, race pace work, and then lots of zone 2 base work to balance everything out. We got stronger, and faster, and fitter, we stayed healthy, and we executed big race simulations almost perfectly at 12 weeks and 8 weeks out from race day. After that week 8 race simulation, Jim asked me if there were any gaps in our training that I thought we should start incorporating, and I honestly couldn’t think of any. The only concern I could think of was that I might be peaking too early.
I don’t actually know if I was peaking too early, but things changed soon after that, when life stressors started threatening to chip away at the huge foundation of aerobic fitness and mental toughness I had built in the months leading up to the race. In short: in just a matter of weeks, I got really sick with food poisoning, found out about a terminal cancer diagnosis for a loved one, struggled to find answers to a couple of different non-training-related health issues of my own, and dealt with multiple rounds of exciting career developments that were immediately followed by unexpected and crushing disappointments. At the same time, I repeatedly hit what seemed to be more than my fair share of life’s minor inconveniences, and while none of them were catastrophic on their own, the combined effect of them all was overwhelming. I was rapidly burning through my finite supply of Katie Clayton matches.
I’m not saying this to complain (everyone has shit to deal with), but I learned once again that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to sustain an elite Ironman training load when your LSS (life stress score) is through the roof. My sleep tanked, my energy levels were low, and my training became sporadic and disorganized as I leap-frogged from trying and failing to execute my planned workouts to shuffling along on trails to try to make myself feel better to trying the failed workouts again because I felt guilty and stressed for skipping them. Even when I came close to completing a planned workout, I was going through the motions, distracted and apathetic. Eventually, I wasn’t going at all.
My mental health ultimately reached an ATL (as Bo Burnham says, “an all time low—not Atlanta”). I avoided biking by myself because I would start to zone out and forget what I was doing while in aero at 25 mph. I canceled a trip to Lake Placid for our annual training camp at the last minute and skipped my week 4 race simulation (historically the most important session leading into race day) in favor of a joyless and aimless wander on trails listening to “New Song” by Maggie Rogers and Del Water Gap and “No Complaints” by Noah Kahan on loop for three hours in the pouring rain. Two weeks out from race day, I spent the day on the couch after bailing on a 16-mile run less than ninety seconds in. I seriously considered not racing at all.
Because I’m now writing this race report, it should be clear that I changed my mind and decided I would race. Coming out of the dark place I was in for much of the last chapter of the Placid build involved removing as many stressors from my life and my headspace as possible, pulling out and using every single tool in my self-care toolbox. With the help of many, many incredible people in my corner, I forced myself to prioritize time in places I love, mini adventures with my crew, unstructured movement for joy, therapy, acupuncture, good food, and daily mood boosters like an iced maple latte on a hot day, 20 minutes just sitting in the sun, or a puppy snuggle. And it worked, at least to get me to a place where I actually felt a little bit excited for race day. I still have a lot of processing and self-care to do in the post-race period, but for now, I’m cautiously optimistic that I can get across the finish line.
So, before I go and do this huge endurance thing, I’m writing down a few things I’m proud of:
I’m here, and I’m healthy. These are two things you can never take for granted.
I’m getting better at self-care and de-stressing; digging myself out of a deep and dark hole just in time for the race is a victory in and of itself.
I’m getting better at being compassionate with myself, and I’m hoping that will help me walk away with my head held high no matter what happens on Sunday.
Even though my training wasn’t perfect, it was still very good. I believe that I am about as fit as I have ever been for Ironman, and that reflects months of hard work.
I have learned so much about life, myself, and my needs in the last few months. For that, I am forever grateful.
My race day mantra is a mash-up of something Connor told me in our wedding vows and a recent gem from Coach Jim. “You are loved. You deserve respect. You are Katie Clayton, and you can do anything you put your mind to. // You just have to be you on race day.”
It’s almost show time. See you on the other side!
Sunday, July 23rd.
Good news: Katie Clayton showed up to race Ironman Lake Placid. I had an A race on an A day. Here’s what happened…
Pre-race: I miraculously slept pretty well for the night before an Ironman (9:15 pm - 3:45 am straight) and got up with plenty of time to do my usual pre-race breakfast routine (coffee, oatmeal, banana, peanut butter, Skratch), get dressed, braid my hair, and roll out. Connor and I were lucky enough to be staying at an Airbnb that was less than a 5-minute walk from transition, and we quickly and efficiently made it through bike personal needs drop off (a bag with three bottles I would switch out at the halfway point), transition setup (adding more bottles to my pre-racked bike and snacks to my bento box), and run personal needs drop off (a bag with a bunch of SIS gels).
We then made our way over to the swim start and ran into my parents, Jim, Colleen, and almost the entire Endurance Drive crew of 11 athletes. Jim told me to get to the swim early so I could line up at the front instead of getting stuck behind nearly 2000 other racers, so I got my wetsuit on and did some last-minute hugs before heading to the front with Kevin. I ultimately lined up a couple of rows back from the very front, but I seeded myself slightly faster than I expected to swim because I knew that everyone usually overestimates their swim time. At 6:25am, the pro men started, followed by the women at 6:27am, and the age-groupers at 6:30. I was in the water by 6:31 and onto the course.
Swim: The Ironman Lake Placid swim is one of the best Ironman swims out there. It’s in the calm and clear Mirror Lake and features two long rectangular loops, but the best thing about the course is that it is marked by an underwater cable that follows the route exactly. This means that if you swim on top of or next to the cable, you don’t really need to pick your head up and sight for the turn buoys, and you can instead stare at the cable like it’s a lane line at the bottom of a pool. It’s an awesome feature, but it never fails to amaze me how many people swim dozens of yards off the cable and end up swimming extra. Their loss!
The first 1000 or so of the swim was awesome; I felt strong and in control, the water was moving fast and the draft on the cable felt like a jet stream, and I wasn’t getting kicked or pushed around too much. Unfortunately, the chaos set in as soon as we hit the first turn buoy, and I immediately started getting jostled around by what felt like a lot of Large, Confident Men (LCMs hereafter) who had no problem literally swimming on top of me or kicking me in the face. This level of chaos lasted for the remainder of the swim and got worse on the second loop, when I ran into the age groupers who had started the swim up to 30 minutes after me and were swimming much slower than those of us that were already on our second loop.
At that point I knew my pace was slowing because it was hard to find a rhythm, but I just tried to stay relaxed and keep moving forward. I knew that working 50% harder would probably only save me two or three minutes for my total swim time, and it would be better to make up that time on the bike, run, or in transition than to totally gas myself. Reminder: no one wins an Ironman on the swim, but you can certainly lose one. I made it out of the water in just under 1:09, which was a little bit faster than my 2019 swim time at Ironman Lake Placid but a few minutes off the pace I know I can sustain when I’m not getting trampled by LCMs. Still, my swim was smart, and my heart rate was in control as I exited the water, got some help from the wetsuit peelers, and jogged down the carpet into T1.
T1: There were a handful of fast-looking women in the change tent when I got in from the swim, so I tried to get my helmet, socks, shoes, and glasses on as quickly as possible while eating a half a bar. I skipped the chamois cream (a questionable decision that I paid for on the bike but still stand by) but did make a brief bathroom detour because I did not achieve my usual goal of peeing on the swim and didn’t want to have to stop while biking. (Only goal un-achieved.) After that, I was off on the bike course and zooming out of town.
Bike: My heart rate was higher than I wanted it to be for the first 20-30 minutes of the bike, so I kept the effort easy and resisted the urge to push up the initial climbs out of town so I could get it back into the 145-155 bpm range that Jim and I had planned on. Luckily, the wind was minimal and the weather was coolish (mid-60s) so the elements weren’t driving my heart rate up further, and it began to settle as soon as I hit the Keene descent—a notoriously steep, fast, and fun section with an elevation loss of over 1000 feet. I got a head start on nutrition and hydration, taking in most of my first bottle and the other half of my macro bar before I descended. The descent is so long and fast that it provides a great opportunity to barely pedal and still hit over 45 mph while allowing your heart rate to drop considerably and your stomach to digest. And it was beautiful! Going from Lake Placid to Keene is probably one of the most iconic sections of the course.
After Keene, I took the left turn towards Jay and entered another fast and fun section that trends slightly downhill and often features a slight tailwind. I tucked down in aero and churned out another 10 fast miles, nailing my Ironman watts and feeling really strong. There weren’t very many women around me, so it was hard to tell where I stood relative to the rest of the field, but I did get passed by some LCMs on very expensive tri bikes. I whispered “See you on the run” to each one that went by me.
The next section is a series of steep climbs from Jay to Wilmington, and then there’s a flattish but rolling out-and-back on Haselton Road that allows you to see who is up to 20 minutes ahead of you on the course. I felt strong on the climbs and passed plenty of people who seemed to think it was a good idea to stay in aero while they were climbing at less than 10 mph, but I was surprised on the Haselton out-and-back to see that there were a lot of women slightly ahead of me who looked super strong. It was hard to tell if they were age groupers or pros and exactly how old they were, but it was clear to me that my competition was going to be stiffer than it had been in 2019. Still, there was a lot of racing ahead, so I just put my head down and continued to focus on eating, drinking, and efficiently moving through the course.
The hardest section of the bike course is from the end of the Haselton Road out-and-back all the way back into Lake Placid. This 20-mile stretch gains almost 1000 feet of elevation and seems to always have a headwind. It’s also the first section where you really see people start to struggle, but I was glad to still feel mentally locked in and energized from the consistent carbs, and I passed more and more people on every climb. After making it up the last of the three bears (final kickers before entering Lake Placid), I was glad to see the crowds once again and got a boost with loud cheers from Jim, Colleen, my parents, and my friend Brandt’s parents, who were volunteering at the race. I rolled into the bike personal needs station just before mile 56 and switched out my three bottles with fresh ones, and in less than a minute, I was off on the second loop.
An Ironman Lake Placid adage is that “First loop heroes are second loop zeroes.” Loop 2 was much quieter than Loop 1. The field had stretched out quite a bit, and it seemed that many people who I had dropped on the first loop had lost further stamina on the climb out of Lake Placid. I could definitely feel that I had been working, but my heart rate and power were both consistent and exactly in line with my race plan, so I just kept doing what I had been doing, eating and drinking as much as possible, and being strategic about being down in the aero bars vs. sitting up depending on my speed and the grade of the hills. I was passing even more people on the climbs than in the first loop, and while I was definitely not feeling fresh and was sore from being on the saddle for so long, I was motivated to keep up my power and pace. I knew that I was on target for a sub-6 hour bike if I could replicate my first loop, and that kept me going all the way through the 2nd grind up from Wilmington.
I hit mile 100 at around 5 hours and 15 minutes and realized that I had just biked my fastest century ever, which was shocking because my previous fastest century ever (just under 5:20) had been on a training ride with Jim and my friend Matthew “MattyBOOM” Goff, who is one of the strongest riders I know and pulled me for almost the entire way. Seeing that I had biked that fast by myself, in a race, after swimming 4200 yards and before running a marathon, gave me a huge mental boost (I think I actually said “F*ck yes, Katie” to myself out loud). I was even in good spirits and started laughing when the skies opened up with a classic and unforecasted Placid downpour from miles 104-110. The rain stopped just in time for me to roll into town, and the bike was over in a strong time of 5:55.
T2: I handed off my bike to Brandt’s parents who were helping to re-rack athletes’ bikes and tried to jog over to the tent, but I quickly realized that my legs felt like sticks and couldn’t really move. Luckily, they loosened up in the four minutes it took me to put on my shoes, a visor, and my race belt. I stuffed some gels in my pockets, grabbed some vaseline to help with some bike-related chafing, and was out the door and onto the run course.
Run: The Lake Placid run course is a double-out-and-back with two big hills and a bunch of smaller rollers. It’s a beast of a run course, and the hills come late in the day, so it’s common to see people start out hot and fade hard. Luckily, I was glad to see that my heart rate was very much in control for the first few miles of the day, and I knocked off two miles at or above goal pace with little effort. As I did on the bike, I focused on trying to eat and drink early and often because I knew it would be harder as the day wore on. I saw my parents and Connor right at the beginning, Kevin’s family by Lisa G’s and Sentinel Road, and Jim and Colleen at Jim’s classic spot near the Lake Placid Recycle Center. It was great to have so many friendly faces to look forward to at different spots.
When I saw Jim and Colleen a little before mile 2, Jim told me that I was in fourth place with two women in my age group 5-10 minutes up the road and a few other women in my age group close behind. It was déjà vu from 2019, when he told me at the exact same spot that there was another woman in my age group 26 minutes ahead of me, but that she was running 12 minute miles and that I could catch her hours later if both of our paces stayed the same. The difference, however, was that the women ahead of me and behind me were all really strong runners. I wasn’t going to be able to overtake them without blowing up if I tried to catch them now, so my best bet was to run as steadily as possible and hope that some or all of them fell off the pace.
Mentally, this situation was less motivating than my 2019 race. I knew I needed to stay steady, but that might not be enough to beat anyone in front of me or stay in front of the people behind me. 24 more miles was a long time to just keep methodically chipping away at a consistent pace, and I was tired. While I was doing well aerobically (my heart rate was in a sustainable zone) and I wasn’t bonking, I was starting to feel like I just didn’t want to be out there anymore. Starting the 7-mile out-and-back section on River Road from miles 2-9 made things worse; there were almost no spectators out there and I knew I had so much longer to go. I could feel myself checking out mentally, but I kept pushing the carbs, dumping water on my head, and throwing ice in my sports bra. This strategy kept me cool, gave me something to look forward to every mile, and provided me with little jolts of energy that propelled me forward. My heart rate and my pace stayed steady.
When I saw Jim and Colleen again at mile 9, morale was lower than it had been the last time I had seen them. Jim informed me that the situation was essentially unchanged; one competitor was nearby up the road, and a few others were close behind. I could tell that he thought I had it in me to run down the woman ahead of me, but I didn’t believe that just yet and I choked out (or maybe snarled) that “I only have one pace right now,” to which he replied, “Hey, it’s okay. I know. That’s your superpower!” Colleen tried to pump me up with some additional words of affirmation and I kept on moving back into town, where I saw my parents (who asked how I was feeling and I said “eh”) and Connor. They told me I looked stronger than I felt. I decided not to stop at run personal needs because I didn’t really want more gels at this point and I didn’t want to waste any time there, and before I knew it I was back out on the second loop. (I paid for this later when I tried a Maurten gel for the first time at the mile 14 aid station and had to spit it out because it was so gross.)
Despite having 13 miles in my legs, the second loop felt better than the first because at least I knew I was more than halfway done, and my heart rate and pace continued to be miraculously consistent. I started to do the math of what my overall finish time might look like if I kept up the pace, and I found a new source of motivation in thinking about how dramatically I might be able to beat my old Placid PR (which I had sort of considered to be an unbeatable performance). I was still in 4th place, and I started to become fully at peace with that result because I was so excited about the huge PR prospects. Regardless of whether I stood relative to others, my own performance was exceeding all of my expectations.
After the mile 14 gel debacle I largely switched from gels to aid station coke, and the small doses of caffeine and straight high fructose corn syrup at every mile were enough to keep me moving. When I hit the River Rd turnaround, I knew that all I had to do was run home, but I got a better view of the competition behind me. There were several women within a few minutes of me that looked tired but were still hanging on, and I knew that I had to keep up the pace in case any of them were in my age group. While I was fine with 4th place, I didn’t want it to turn into 5th at the last minute. My physical energy was waning, but my mental energy was building as I ran back to the main road.
When I hit the first of the two big hills for the second time (at mile 22), I spotted a woman ahead of me who had cruised by me in the first mile of the run at what looked like a sub-7 minute/mile pace. I had a feeling that she might be in my age group, but when she had passed me in the beginning I didn’t even consider chasing her because I assumed that she was an uber-runner who I had no chance of beating. But here she was, walking up the hill and looking totally spent. Interesting.
I jogged behind her, speed-walking the steepest section to keep my heart rate in control. She started running again at the top and I did too, and she briefly went out of sight when I grabbed coke and ice at the mile 23 aid station and she didn’t stop. Then I saw Jim and Colleen at mile 24, and they said I had a competitor 30 seconds ahead of me, and she was fading. I knew it was the same woman. Jim and Colleen blasted my 2019 pump up song “Atlantic City” from their speaker as they biked past me to get back into town for the finish, and I kept on moving forward.
I hit the final Lisa G’s hill a little after mile 24—an absolute kicker. No one was running, and before I knew it, I was just yards behind my direct competition. The hill takes a sharp left after the steepest section and continues to grind uphill for a while before turning right onto Mirror Lake Drive, and then there’s a final out-and-back section of about 1.5 miles total before the finish line. I made my move after the sharp left; she was walking, and I was running. When I passed her, I knew it was time to leave it all on the course. I unleashed the threshold heart rate I had successfully avoided for the whole race, and I surged down Mirror Lake Drive.
I saw my parents and Connor screaming for me—Connor was the loudest, screaming “YOU ARE KATIE CLAYTON” and I ran faster. The crowd seemed pretty surprised to see anyone moving at faster than a slog at this point in the race and I got some extra cheers and “She looks so strong!”s that pushed me along. I hit the turnaround, got a quick glimpse of my competitor a ways back, and pushed even harder as I finished out the last three-quarters of a mile toward the finish. My parents were gone (I assumed they had headed to the finish line), but I spotted Connor in the same spot he had been in before. He wasn’t yelling anymore. This time, he just locked eyes with me and mouthed one word over the roar of the crowd: “Maintain.” I knew I had it.
I rounded the corner, hit the Oval, and ran hard down the finishing chute and across the finish line, looking up at the clock as I finished. I don’t remember hearing the magic “Katie Clayton, you are an Ironman” announcement, but I know it happened from the video my Dad took. I do remember seeing my time on the screen: 11:03:45—a nearly 20-minute PR, and good for the 3rd place podium spot in my age group, a Kona qualification ticket (to the first-ever all women’s Ironman World Championships), and a race I couldn’t be prouder of. Ironman Lake Placid, done and dusted in an exciting fashion for the second time.
After: This is one of the longest race reports I have ever written, so to those of you who stuck around until now, thank you! I will keep my post-race reflections brief so you can get back to your lives. First, life has ups and downs. Sometimes you need to have a lot of downs in order to have an up, and that’s okay. I’m learning a lot from riding the waves. Second, I have so much love and gratitude for my enormous network of family and friends who have supported me through every step of this journey. I’m glad I could put on an exciting show, but it means the world to me to know that my crew would have loved me just as much if I hadn’t even started the race. I love you all.
--KK
