Tornado Kid broke his foot last winter as he prepared to run his first marathon early spring. His father, Fast John, had been coaching him for months, so when plans changed... he proposed they make their debut marathonian effort as father and son at Lake Placid - along with "g".

It was a done. There was a back-up plan in place. Fast John and "g" had their sites set on running their first 50K on 7/22/06. They had already run the Damn, Wakely Dam course in two days with packs for a training experience. With the Wakely ultra scheduled for 6 weeks after the Lake Placid marathon, they both saw the wisdom in running Lake Placid as a 26.2 mile training run.

As for Tornado Kid, his longest run had only been 17-miles due to his 8 week hiatus from running due to a broken foot. Never the less... the kid was ready to rock on race day! He had 26.2 vision.

As usual, "g" was fine tuning his approach to running the Wakely Ultra in July by trying some new strategies for running Lake Placid. He was committed to drinking 1 bottle of Gatorade prior to the race, he took Succeed S Caps (salt) and Power Bar Carbohydrate Gels before and after the race, and hourly during the race, and he focused on drinking H2O regularly. He also planned to only run at a pace that was comfortable - perhaps, a 10 minute mile pace. (Tornado Kid and Fast John were planning on a comfortable 11-12 mile pace.)

Race Day Weather:
Lake Placid is located at the hub of the Olympic Center in the Adirondack High Peak Region. In mid June temperatures can be anything from 84-degrees and muggy (like the first, 2005 race) or cold (40-degree) and rainy - like this year's race. For sure, the Marathonians preferred cold and wet conditions to hot and steamy! So, it was perfect running weather!