Yesterday the Ironman event was held here in Lake Placid. This grueling event combines timed swimming (2.4 miles), cycling (112 miles) and running (26.2 miles). Our friend, Allen Hutchinson, competed. He’s been training for about 18 months and competed in half triathlons in the past. This was his first full Ironman event.

Allen set reasonable expectations. When asked what goal he set for the race he said he would like to beat the average time which is over 13 hours. Donna and I didn’t see the swim event as the race starts very early and there was a light rain falling. We followed Allen’s time splits online and knew he hit his swim goal of 1 hour 10 minutes.

When I saw his 30 mile bike split time, I knew he was flying but didn’t know if he could sustain the pace through the next 82 miles which included significant climbs. Donna and I went to the course to cheer about 30 minutes before we expected to see Allen come though town. He surprised us by coming through 10 minutes after we arrived.

The streets were lined with spectators, all of them cheering the competitors. We walked over to Donna’s sister, Pam’s, house and visited for a awhile. Donna decided she would walk the three miles back to our place while I scootered back.

Upon my return I removed my helmet and could hardly believe my eyes. Water was coming out of one of the bays behind the right rear tire. I opened the bay and it was full of water dripping down from above. I ran inside the coach, the bathroom floor was flooded with water coming out of the shower stall. I quickly went back outside to the left side of the coach and opened the gray water drain valve.

When I came back in to the bathroom, it didn’t look like the shower was draining very fast. I looked at all of the faucets to see if something was left open, filling the gray water holding tank. I was puzzled as no faucets were dripping. I went back out and turned the water inlet valve from outside water to the freshwater tank position so the plumbing would no longer have pressure.

By now the shower had drained and I began mopping up. Luckily I arrived just as the bathroom floor was filling with water and it didn’t get into the rest of the coach. As I was mopping, I was trying to think of the cause of the flood when I heard and felt a loud pop in the floor. Hmmm…what was that? Then it happened again.

I dashed outside again and opened the bay where the fresh water tank is. When I diverted the incoming freshwater to the tank I neglected to open the vent valves. The tank was blowing up like a balloon and pressing on the floor of the coach. I quickly opened both valves and wondered what else could go wrong. I inspected what I could see of the tank and it didn’t appear to be damaged. One of the level sensors had a few drops of water around it but didn’t leak once the pressure was relieved.

In the middle of all this Donna sent me a text message stating she was on her way here. I replied “disaster here.” I set up a fan and space heater and continued to clean up. When Donna arrived she went to the fire station and borrowed a wet/dry shop vac. I finally figured out the source of the water. Before we left Donna started a load of laundry, neither of us thought about how much water that dumps into the gray water tank or what the current state of the tank was. Lesson learned. I was wound up tight for hours. Water damage is an RVers worst nightmare.

Meanwhile out on the course Allen was continuing his fast pace. His average speed for the bike portion was a hair under 18 MPH. On a hilly course this is excellent. I knew he would be strong in the run.

After all of the clean up work I was sweaty and felt not so clean. We had dinner plans with friends so Donna and I showered and changed clothes. We planned to go into the village to cheer Allen on during his final leg of the run. Just as we were beginning to leave it started raining again. Donna stayed back and finished tidying up the place instead of riding in the rain while I scootered into town.

The village was crazy — streets lined with cheering spectators, competitors straining to reach the finish. I looked for Allen. I walked over to the Prague Motor Inn and looked for his wife, Crystal. When I couldn’t find her I realized Allen must have already come through and she would be at the finish line.

I walked back to my scooter and rode over to the stadium where they finish the event. It was an absolute zoo. Masses of people, supporters and athletes milling about everywhere. I gave up trying to find them. I phoned Crystal but didn’t get answer. It was no surprise considering the noise.

I returned “home” and looked up Allen on the Ironman site. He finished well ahead of expectations with a total time of 11 hours, 40 minutes and 48 seconds. It was an outstanding performance, even more impressive when you consider that it was his first full triathlon. He competes in the 40-44 age division which is probably one of the toughest. His time placed him 98th in the division.He was 480th overall in a race against 2800 competitors. I’m impressed and proud to know him.

We finished off what turned out to be a tough day on the Ironman circuit and a tough day in the RV by joining friends for dinner. We ate at the Whiteface Lodge in Lake Placid with Wendy, Ian, Karen and Bernie. Good food, good conversation with good friends was a great way to end the day.

Today we’ll pack up and drive to Lake George to join Donna’s sister, Linda, and her husband Tom.

The Iron Man event takes place today. In fact it’s 7am as I write and the competitors are already in the water for the 2.4 mile swim. But I’ll write about that tomorrow, this morning I need to catch up on the last couple of days.

Friday morning Gene and I went out in his boat on Lake Placid intending to do a little fishing. As we cruised across the lake, Gene filled me in on a little of the history and the layout of the lake. Suddenly the outboard engine started making unusual noises and lost power. We turned around to limp back to the boat launch, but soon the engine quit running.

It seemed like a fuel delivery problem to me and I began to investigate. After a while another boater saw that we were powerless and offered a tow which we gladly accepted. While we were being towed, I continued to look for the problem and found a pinhole in the fuel line under the cowl. The pinhole was allowing the fuel pump to draw air, so the engine ran lean and then quit.

The good news is that I saw some of the lake and the issue with engine is an easy fix, but our tour was cut short and we didn’t get a chance to fish.

Donna and I went into the village and it was really hopping. Sidewalks filled with people, streets filled with cars, bicycles, runners and scooter (yes, we had the only scooter that we saw in town). There was a large vendor area with a platform the could raise and lower. Under the platform was a large inflatable cushion. Kids were lined up for the opportunity to jump from the platform and land in the cushion! No thank you.

 

Friday night we were invited to dinner at Wendy and Ian Poole’s house. Donna’s old friends, Karen and Diane, were also invited along with their husbands, Bernie and Patrick. We had cocktails, good conversation and good food. It was a great dinner party. Our contribution to the dinner was a bottle of wine – “Triple Overtime” from Igor Larionov’s winery, signed by the man himself.

Bernie and Karen drove us home but first we stopped at their place for a nightcap and tour of their house. It’s a beautiful place that Bernie built.

Yesterday I had good news from Detroit BMW. They sold my R1200RT motorcycle! Tomorrow I’ll sign off the title and send to them via FedEx overnight.

Wendy and Ian invited us to go boating on Saranac Lake. The village of Saranac Lake is about seven miles from Lake Placid and is slightly larger with about 6,000 residents. The lake itself is actually comprised of three lakes – Upper, Middle and Lower Saranac Lake. We were on Lower Saranac Lake. About half of the shoreline of this lake is public property. The islands are also state land and have reservable camp sites on them.

We had lunch on the boat anchored in  a small cove. Wendy made some delicious wraps. We talked and enjoyed the scenery and each other’s company and then took a short swim to cool off. It was a very pleasant way to spend a beautiful day.

Last evening Allen Hutchinson, his wife Crystal and their three daughters joined us for dinner. I grilled jerk chicken with mango salsa (which Donna prepared). We also had a green bean and fennel salad and brown rice. We spent a couple of hours at the picnic table eating and talking. They’re a lovely family.

I hope Allen is doing well in the swim right now. It’s raining, 62 degrees and cloudy. The rain shouldn’t affect his swim but I hope it stops before he begins the ride. He expected to complete the 2.4 mile swim in ~70 minutes so he’ll be transitioning to the bike soon. We’ll go watch the bike portion.

That’s what we’ve been up to. Tomorrow we’ll move to Lake George to camp alongside Donna’s sister Linda and her husband Tommy.

 

 

Thursday morning we were up early – this is still a habit for me. During the night, a nice Prevost coach pulling a trailer parked at the Lowes. I wish I had taken a picture of it. It was a real beauty. We hit the road around 7:30 and drove RT3 into the Adirondacks. This is a great road – very scenic and the smoothest pavement of the entire trip with not much traffic.

We stopped in the village of Cranberry Lake for breakfast then continued on through Tupper Lake, Saranac Lake and into Lake Placid. Lake Placid is a village with a population of about 5,000 people. For such a small village it has an astounding vibe and history.

Lake Placid hosted the winter Olympic games twice – in 1932 and again in 1980. Donna worked at 1980 games parking cars on Mount Van Hoevenburg. Another interesting factoid about the 1980 Olympic games – the Lake Placid Middle/High school was issued a liquor license and served as a bar during the games. It’s the only high school in the USA to be issued a liquor license!

We’re staying at the Lake Placid fire station RV park. The fire station is manned by three full time fire fighters and a volunteer crew. One of volunteers, Bob, runs the RV park (which is a New York state licensed RV park). The spaces are bit cramped but all of them have full hook ups with 50 amp service. We have the only pull through site so we didn’t have to drop our trailer. We also have a view of Mill Pond from our front door!

Getting into the fire station was an adventure. I turned on to Mill Pond Road, but I should have driven another 50 feet and pulled in to the fire station entrance. Once I committed to Mill Pond Road, I had no choice but to follow it into the village center. This involved a couple of narrow streets and tight turns. The Iron Man triathlon is being held here this weekend and the village was bustling with pre-race activities. We remained calm and made our way through it all and back to fire station without any drama.

The Iron Man triathlon has been held here every year since 1999. It’s the second oldest official Iron Man event in North America. We have a friend from Michigan, Allen Hutchinson, competing this weekend in the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bicycle and 26.2-mile run. The race takes place on Sunday but there have been athletes up here training for weeks. We’ll try to hook up with Allen and his wife, Crystal in the days ahead.

We had lunch in town at the Chair6 restaurant with our friends Alec and Susan Friedman. Susan is an author/speaker Donna met in a book club when she lived here back in 2000 – 2002. Alec is the rabbi at the synagogue here.

Donna’s sister, Pam and her husband Gene joined us later at the fire station. We grilled pork tenderloins and ate at the picnic table. Entertainment was provided by the fire crew. They were training for fire department competition. This was fun to watch and something new to me. Gene was a former volunteer fire fighter here and he explained the activity to us. The fire crews compete against other departments in various timed events. Some of the events involve a drag race type start with special race vehicles quickly accelerating to 60 mph with fire crewmen standing on a platform on the rear. The vehicle then skids to a stop as the crew jumps off, sets a ladder and one of them climbs a tower to complete the course. This type of competition is great training for the fire crew as the events they compete in simulate many of the firefighting skills they need.

We had a very full day and look forward to more fun-filled activities throughout the weekend.