Resident Races Lake Placid Ironman

Kevin Katmann and his wife have spent years watching the Lake Placid Ironman triathlon.

 “My wife and I own a house on Lake Placid and they’ve been running the Ironman since 1999,” Katmann said. “We took a liking to it from watching it and from watching friends do it.”

This Sunday, Katmann will do more than watch as the athletes swim, bike and run their way to the finish line—he’ll be among the 2,700 athletes competing in this year’s race.

“It’s someplace I certainly never imagined that I could be,” he said. “I weight now than I did in high school. Cardiovascularly, it’s just really hard to put into words. .   I should be able to compete in my age group with a respectable time.”

The race entry has been two years in the making, since that’s how long Katmann spent training and building up to the Ironman distance—which includes a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike and a 26 mile run. He’s completed three half-Ironman distance races (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13 mile run) and “seven or eight” Olympic (.96 mile swim, 25 mile bike, and 6.2 mile run) and Sprint distance (half mile swim, 10 mile bike, and 3.1 mile run) events, but this will be his first full Ironman distance race. He’ll compete in the 40-44 year-old men’s age group, which is the largest age group at the Lake Placid event.

“People were very supportive (when training began) and have been very supportive to this point,” Katmann said. “My wife, Caroline, is on the top of that support list.”

Katmann used a 30-week program found in Don Fink’s book “Ironfit” to train for the race, he said.

“I though it was going to be somewhat overwhelming because there are some peak weeks in training,” he said. “There are some weeks where you are training 20 hours on top of a full time job at Hillsborough Pool, Racquet and Fitness Club.”

When preparing, Katmann would train six days a week, with one day to rest, he said. During winter months, treadmill runs and spin classes—he is an instructor at the club who teaches spin sessions—would keep him from training in nasty weather.

“I never got frustrated,” he said. “I loved to train. If I had to stop at this point, I would certainly miss it.”

“There were hard training but it never discouraged me,” he added. “Any tough races or tough trainings would hopefully better me.”

Still, one event remained a challenge during his training period.

“I actually learned how to swim at the beginning of the program because I couldn’t swim the length of the pool,” Katmann said. “That is by far the most challenge event because of the lack of swimming experience.”

In addition, the race will have a mass start—where everyone enters the water at once—rather than swim waves that are broken down by age group.

Still, with 140.6 miles of race ahead, Katmann has his goal ahead of him. Instead of just finishing the race, he hopes to complete it in a time that qualifies him for the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii.

“I’m definitely prepared,” he said. “I think anyone doing an Ironman would be nervous at this point, a week out. I think it will definitely fuel me to keep going.”