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Mellen’s Lake Placid Pasta Recipe

Mellen’s Placid pasta recipe  

I’ve been making this since I was a student and perfected the recipe living in staff housing: with the goal to maximize flavor with minimal ingredients. I started replacing pasta with zoodles about 18 months ago in order to reduce calories and eat more vegetables. This recipe is nothing fancy, but it’s really quick when I’m rungry, or travelling with a kitchen in my accommodation – all of which describes us in Lake Placid!

Ingredients:

1 jar Classico marinara sauce

½ cup red wine

2-3 tbsp pesto sauce

Extra-lean ground beef/hamburger (or mushrooms + miso paste for vegan)

2-6 zucchini

2-3 cups baby spinach (optional)

Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions

  • Put pasta sauce in pot to heat.
  • Form ground beef into twonie-sized flattish meatballs.  Put some of pesto in non-stick frying pan and brown meatballs in small batches with more pesto on top, periodically draining pan juices into sauce. (For vegetarian/vegan, use mushrooms + miso paste for umami flavor). When done frying the meatballs, place into pasta sauce, then use the red wine to lift the remainder of the pan browning and add to sauce.
  • Boil 2-3” water with a pinch of salt in 2nd pot
  • Prepare zoodles:

Zoodles (zucchini noodles)

Cut the non-stem end from zucchini. You’ll need 1 large, or 2 small per person – it’s deceptive when they’re raw. Use a spiralizer (check Winners/Homesense, you can usually find one for $3).

Use the spiralizer like a pencil sharpener on the zucchini to turn it into zoodles.

     or    

  • Boil zoodles for ~2 minutes, until bright green. For more carbs, boil ½ serving of regular pasta as usual, and add half a serving of zoodles to the top of the boiling pasta water when pasta has 2 minutes left to cook. For more green, add in a few handfuls of baby spinach to the top of the zoodle/pasta water to steam for 1 minute.
  • Drain zoodles (or pasta/zoodle/spinach mix) in colander or from pot, serve onto plate, put meatbally pasta sauce on top, sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
  • Enjoy!

 

Half Ironman Lake Placid – Mini Race Report by Zindine

The why

Irina and I were looking for a different Ironman event to do after Tremblant. Good reviews from common friends as well as easier logistics put Lake Placid on the map for us. So last year we decide to sign up for the inaugural Half Ironman. The event sold out in a few hours. In retrospect this was one of the best half ironman races we took part in. Louis, Mellen and Paul joined us for the adventure! 🙂

Getting there

It’s a short drive really (about 7 hours) but we broke it in two and spent the night in Kingston because we like it there. That was really good as we arrived in Placid before lunch and were able to register as soon as the doors opened.

Overall Organization/Expo/Ironman Store

Everything was well marked, we never had issue with parking, the expo had lots of different stores for our last minutes need. The Ironman store as usual was good at getting into your wallet 😛 The transition area was large and well positioned next to the finish line and stands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accommodations

We rented a house about 2K from transition. It came with all we needed. The price was high. The highest we’ve had to pay for a race rental. We ended up cooking a lot and eating out very little because there were not a lot of choices in the town. So having a kitchen ended up being very important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pre race workouts

We were able to swim the actual course with no issue the days prior. The water was clean, a bit cold but nothing us Ontarians are not accustomed to. We found some good running and riding routes and we felt safe all the time. Locals and drivers were very courteous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Race morning

We drove close to transition and found parking easily (we were very early). Otherwise there is a shuttle service that should be very convenient. We got body marked, setup our bikes, made the last tweaks and waited patiently for the race to start. It was very cold and we were all fully dressed to the last minute. The morning bag drop off was conveniently placed right at the swim start. This was very appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swim

The swim was the warmest part of the race. Water temperature was in the low 16 °C. This was a self seeded swim. Fairly uneventful for most of us. A bit crowded in places as there is a line underwater that you can follow the whole swim. Coming out of the water was cold. Air temperature was around 4 °C.  I was in my element though. I love the cold. I used the stripper (they were not busy at all) and picked up the pace to my bike in an attempt to warm up. This worked nicely for me.

T1

I decided against adding any extra layer. But I knew my extremities would be cold so I wore socks and gloves. Putting the gloves was a bit of a challenge. 🙂 I was out on the bike in no time though.

Bike

My plan was to work hard right out of transition again to warm up a little. I used a high cadence for about 15 minutes to raise my heart rate. That worked fairly well for me. I caught Mellen first, she looked good on the bike. She swims really well this year and was out of the water ahead of me. I caught Louis a little later on the longest descent of this bike course. The bike course is kind of cut into two pieces. The out is about 50K of a slight downhill. We also had a tailwind. I reached that turn around point at an average of 39+ kph. That was fast! That was the best part of the ride. But I knew the real work was coming. The last 40K of the ride are a constant climb back up to Lake Placid. Nothing steep, just a gradual uphill. And obviously now we were also fighting a headwind. 🙂 This was tough mentally and I found myself fairly lonely on that stretch and it was hard to stay motivated. I stayed on top of my nutrition as the cold made it hard to feel thirsty or hungry. I kept to my schedule and got off the bike in a very good shape. I was never really cold. Even broke a sweat a little. 😉

T2

I got into transition and it was fairly empty. I was a bit surprised. But I knew I worked hard on the bike and saved a ton of time in T1 by skipping dressing up. Got my shoes on, race belt and my nutrition and off I went.

Run

The run is similar to the ride, a lot of down on the first half, a climb back up to Lake Placid the second half. I was feeling good right away, temperature was still single digit and this is really where I am the happiest. After 3K I started hearing a bike catching up to me, this was the 3rd place lady bike. They passed me but I caught them back up a little later. The bike passed me again a few kilometers later with a new 3rd place lady. The race was on for third place. 🙂 I had no idea where I was in my age group. I just kept pushing. Made it to the turn around and knew the work was starting now. I started seeing friendly faces too from that point (Mellen was killing it, Louis looked very good, Paul was all smiles so was Irina). It was nice to see them on the course. Sorry I always look like I am about to murder someone. That’s my race face! 😛 A guy caught up to me on the hardest climb of the run and drafted me a bit sending words of encouragements. Hahahaha, it was so hard and so good at the same time. We worked together up the hill and up the final turn around. That actually helped me stay focused. Getting to the final turn around, 1 mile from the finish line was such a relief. I was on track for personal best for a half marathon off the bike. Breaking 1h40 for the first time ever and on a hard course. I was so happy. I made it to the finish line and then waited for my friends and Irina. I finished 10th in my age group, my best results at an Ironman branded race.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next for me is the Hamilton Marathon in November 🙂  Thanks for reading!

 

Wakely Dam Ultra – Race Report

Wakely Dam Ultra – 55K Trail Run in the Adirondack.

Unsupported. Point to point. “The first aid station is the finish line!”

Louis discovered this race while looking for something to do between our two main triathlon events this year (Half Ironman in Tremblant in June and Half Ironman in Placid in September). With about an hour lead time, prior to it selling out, Louis mentioned the race to me and Paul and of course we did not hesitate to sign up. It sounded like a good adventure and that’s how we roll!

We started our training back in the winter using some local races to build some mileage and stay in shape (Chilly Half and Around the Bay). As the weather got better and the trails dried a bit we started running off road on the Bruce Trail (some old routes and some attempts at new routes).

If you want some local trail running routes, here are some of the runs we did:

https://www.strava.com/activities/925143786
https://www.strava.com/activities/964658863
https://www.strava.com/activities/975424081
https://www.strava.com/activities/997013010

We did train in the mud. 🙂

 

We had lots of fun off the road

Especially Paul!

During training, we didn’t do particularly very long runs, but we wanted to get used to running in unfair hilly conditions of trail running. One run was early in the spring, right after a rain storm and the mud really tested our patience, strength and perseverance. After about 2 hours in the mud we were very tired and called it quits and worked our way back to the road. In retrospect, this was one of our most important training runs; 30+ KM into Wakely, we were glad we did that run!

Paul and I are rookies when it comes to trail running so in addition to training we needed quite a fair bit of equipment – Who doesn’t like buying more gear?? Louis guided us and by the time we arrived at the race we were ready to tackle the challenge. We all had a running vest which allowed us to carry a fair amount of water, nutrition and supplies as there were no aid stations from start to finish. We opted during planning to carry a limited amount of water and brought MSR Trailshot water filters from MEC (we had two for the 3 of us) to replenish our fluids at many of the lakes/rivers on the route. We packed food and other supplies included cliff bars, salt tablets, band aids, toilet paper, bodyglide, pain killers, insect repellant and gels. We also all invested in trail shoes as they offer better grip in wet conditions and oh boy did we need the extra traction.
Louis owns a pop up trailer so we decided to camp not far from the end of the race at Point Comfort Campground in Adirondacks state park. The drive to Piseco New York on Friday morning was uneventful. We got out of the GTA by just after 6AM and cruised through Kingston and 1000 islands bridge to cross the border. Camp was just a couple hours away once we got to New York State.

Our trip

Luigi’s Pizzeria

On route we stopped for lunch at a place called Luigi’s Pizza in Boonville. If you ever go around this place, don’t stop there. The food was awful, the restaurant was very ugly and it’s one of those places you know you don’t belong as soon as you walk in. It ended up being the blunt of most of the jokes for the rest of the trip, so it deserves a spot in our story – it was fun and will remain an integral part of this trip.

Shortly after Luigi’s, we arrived at camp in the early afternoon, prepared everything for the evening to come. Louis had pre-researched the camp, and although the camp itself wasn’t great, except for a crazy lone traveler from Quebec who was camping beside us – we had an awesome private site overlooking the lake.

Louis hard at work. Thanks Louis for your truck and trailer!!

After camp was set, we drove to the race site – Piseco Airport (the finish line) to get our registration kits and race swag as well as meet with the race organizers and some other runners. It looked like a good bunch of people and you could feel the tension building up. In talking with some of the people there who had actually already raced this before that we realized we were in for a challenge. The word “mud” and the expression “blowdown” kept coming up a lot! We found our later what it meant (referring to blown down trees making the actual trail impassable)

Blowdown (photo credit: Dan at breakhearttrailrunning.blogspot.ca)

 

Piseco Airport

Pasta Dinner

The race organizers and volunteers prepared a pre-race carb load pasta dinner for all participants and families. It was a simple but tasty dinner, with lots of home-made goodies that Paul enjoyed very much (He has such a sweet tooth).

After the pasta dinner, we made our way back to camp to put the final touches to our preparation and packing. Packs and outfits were made ready in no time and we were relaxing around a camp fire. We went to bed early as the alarms were set for 3:45am.

Surprisingly we woke up naturally – all 3 of us for some reason, our alarms were not needed. We quickly got ready, ate breakfast and made our way to the finish line back at the airport where coffee and the schoolbus were waiting for us. The bus took us to the start line – a 60+ minute drive! This ride took forever it seemed and really highlighted how far a 55km run was to be! We got to the start line with about 30 minutes to spare at 6am. As with any race, final washroom breaks and the addition of bug spraying took place and in no time we were waiting for the start of the race.

This the 17th year of the race and it always has been capped at 65 runners; something to do with the New York State Park Authorities. I believe 62 made it to the start and we all lined up for the customary pre-race picture.

We were each wearing a Half Ironman Muskoka t-shirt from a different year 🙂

The whole gang ready to start

Off we go

At 6:30am, the race director started the countdown and we were off. We got into this race not knowing exactly what the terrain would be like. We heard it would be a bit technical, a lot of beautiful scenery and very muddy.

The first 10K (about 65 minutes) were very runnable and we were loving life. The temperature was nice and cool and there were still a fair number of runners around us. We tried to settle into an easy pace that would work for all 3 of us. The further we got into the race, the more remote and the muddier it got, more mud, more technical, and more hashed the trail became. There were lots of stop and go’s and a lot of blow down trees across the trail. We kept working our way ahead and made it to 20K which is where the elevation is at it highest point during the race (most of the climbing happened between 10 and 20K). We were a bit slower in this section (about 85 minutes) there were the first nature breaks, food break and the terrain continued to get harder. Between 20K and about 34K (about 2.5 hours) is where the scenery was the most beautiful. We took several long breaks to enjoy it with mandatory picture stops. We crossed many lakes during this portion of the race. Unfortunately this part of the trail was also the most wet, but so far the temperature was still very good and the bugs were still away.

Refilling our bottles with filtered water. The water was safe and tasty.

Ned ran a bit with us and took this picture for us. Thanks Ned!

A fancy Panoramic

We crossed the Marathon distance of 42KM after about 6.5 hours. We were starting to get a bit tired and it was showing – a few pain killers were ingested around that time. 🙂 But we knew then we were close to the end.

Just past the marathon mark. We don’t look so bad. 🙂

But as we had hoped, the closer to the finish line the better the trail would be – this proved to be true.
The last 10K were mostly downhill but still very technical and still very muddy. Did I mention there was mud?

We were told there would be some orange tape indicating when we were to make our way off the trail to make our way to the finish line. About 2K left at that point. I had planned to take a picture of the tape but I forgot. To be honest we just wanted the race to be over at that point. My feet were soaked and I just wanted to get rid of my shoes. By this point in the race the sun was high, the temps were hot and the infamous bugs were showing up in force. The deer fly traps we were given in our race kits for our caps were working well. I don’t think any of us got bitten during the race. We were very surprised.

Deer fly trap worked nicely. Louis caught the most. 😉

We arrived at Piseco Airport and knew we still had to run around the runway, who knew how long runways are!!!. We put on our best smile on and crossed the finish line all together.

Ready to cross the finish line

We knew there would be a hose in the finish area, I went straight to it and got ride of my vest and soaked shoes/socks. I washed my legs and feet and it felt awesome. The cold water on my toes was awesome.

We cooled down a bit, we looked at the results and were impressed by the finish time of the winner (5h30). For us it was almost 3 hours slower (8h22). Even though we ran together and stopped for pictures and food breaks, we don’t think we could run this race in 5h30m, kudos to the winner! We will be back to do better now that we know what to expect.

We enjoyed the post race meal, had a hamburger, a few sweets and lots of yummy drinks. We socialized a little with a few finishers and watched many more runners come in. We changed into our FMCT singlets and put on our shiny new Team Panda FMCT visors and took another finish picture.

FMCT Crew Representing

After that we packed and made our way to camp.

The entire area around the race, finish line and our camp had limited to NO network/cell phone coverage. We managed to find a tiny pocket of 3G network between the finish line and our camp that was literally about 3’ wide. We huddled there as long as it took to upload our watch activities to Strava. The slow network and our exhaustion did not help, it was hilarious, but there was no way we were leaving till we got our files uploaded!! Eventually we got all 3 our activities on Strava and we could finally relax and be proud of our accomplishment.

It did not happen if it’s not on Strava! 🙂

Our campsite was not far from the lake and as soon as we arrived, we just jumped into the lake to refresh and wash off the mud and sweat. We felt much better after.

Shoes took a beating

We made our way to the only restaurant in the area called the Oxbow Inn. Several runners were there already. They recommended the pizzas and that’s what we ordered. Obviously, we were hungry. We did not last very long that evening and I don’t think it took us long to fall asleep that night. In the morning we made breakfast, packed and drove back.

Our next adventure will take place not far from this trail race as we will be in Lake Placid to race the Half Ironman.

Thank you for reading!

Louis, Paul and Zindine

March 28th Weekly Update