Elizabeth Izzo

By Alex Kochon

A three-time Ironman triathlete who’s preparing to race her fourth 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and 26.2-mile run (and second World Championship), Elizabeth Izzo starts most days before sunrise to fit it all in.

She wakes up between 4 and 5am to get in at least a two-hour training session before work. Many days, that means jumping on her bike trainer and eating breakfast as she spins. Other mornings, she grabs a headlamp and safety light and heads out for a three- to four-hour bike ride. Sometimes, that’s followed by an hour run. Then it’s time to get ready for work, either in Cooperstown, where she’s an emergency medicine physician assistant (PA) at Basset Medical Center, or at home in Lake Placid, where she’s an advanced emergency medical technician (EMT) with Lake Placid Ambulance. Depending on her shift, she might not get home until 10 or 11 at night.

She doesn’t drink coffee, getting her caffeine fix from chocolate instead. The next day, she does it all over again, working at least a dozen sporadic 12-hour shifts per month in Cooperstown and about half as many shifts a month in Lake Placid. She lives in both places, commuting between her apartment in Cooperstown and parents’ home in Lake Placid, but spends most of her time in Placid. “I come home so often that some people don’t even realize I was gone,” she said of the roughly 3-hour, 45-minute drive. “My car already has a lot of miles, but it’s totally worth it.”

Elizabeth, who’s also known as “Izzo” or “Lizzo,” started her job in Cooperstown in August 2020, a few months after graduating from PA school at Albany Medical College. Before that, she studied exercise science at the University of New Hampshire, where she was a multiple-time NCAA Championships cross-country skier.

She’s been an active EMS provider since 2010 and worked for Lake Placid Ambulance during the height of the pandemic. Eventually, she’d like to become a paramedic. “I don’t ever want to stop pre-hospital medicine because I love it just as much as I love ER medicine,” Elizabeth said.

In March, she signed up for the 2021 Ironman Lake Placid, an Izzo family tradition. Graham Fraser, Ironman Lake Placid founder and their former neighbor, got her parents hooked on it. Elizabeth’s mom, Sandra, completed five Ironmans, and her dad, Bill, finished four. 

Both Elizabeth and her dad raced in 2016, with Elizabeth finishing in a blistering 11 hours, 15 minutes, and 9 seconds for first in her 18-24 age group and 34th overall among women. She qualified for the 2016 Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, where she battled the elements on a tough day to finish in 12:32:40.

This year, she decided to do another one before she turned 30. On July 25, in front of friends and family in Lake Placid, Elizabeth completed her third Ironman in 11:26:20 for third in her 25-29 age group and 35th overall. That qualified her for Kona, where she’ll do it all over again on Feb. 5, 2022 (postponed on Aug. 19 from Oct. 9 due to Covid-19). “I felt great overall,” Elizabeth said this year’s Lake Placid Ironman. “The bike was definitely windy. The Keene hill had crosswinds, and there was a headwind back from Wilmington into town, but I felt great. Running is my all-time favorite so I was really excited when I got to run.”

This year for the first time in her triathlon career, she enlisted the help of a coach, Breno Melo, a professional triathlete who lives in Massachusetts. She upped her bike training to eight to nine times a week, while also running four to five times, swimming two to three times, and strength training twice a week. She began wearing a heart rate monitor and entered this race with a specific pacing strategy based on heart rate for the bike. She mostly stuck to it, but her monitor’s battery died before the run, so she ran the marathon by feel. “Since working with a coach I’ve learned how to properly train for biking, but on the run, it wasn’t as imperative to stay controlled because I’m already familiar with pacing,” she said. 

Elizabeth finished the swim in 1:13:44, bike in 6:23:59, and run in 3:36:26, and said she achieved her goals for each part of the race: not losing her goggles nor swallowing too much water during the swim, not having any mechanical issues during the bike, and not having any nutrition problems throughout the day. Last but not least, she had fun. “My goal is to always have fun, and look around, and enjoy the moment,” she said. “There are moments that are not as fun just because it’s uncomfortable, but in a strange way it’s still a form of fun.”

Being a local athlete helps, she said. “The small-town feel is something that is not replaceable,” she said of racing an Ironman at home. “Throughout the whole race, there are people yelling my name, and sometimes other athletes are like, ‘Are you from here?’ and I just giggle and say, ‘Yes, I’m from here.’ The support is out of this world. It would not be the same experience at all without everybody cheering me on like that.”

Her most challenging moments came around mile 95 on the bike, while riding into a headwind on Haselton Road toward NY Route 86, and the last six miles of the run, while closing in on the second-place woman in her age group. She narrowed the gap from 10 minutes at the start of the run to one-minute and five seconds behind her at the end.

Asked how Ironman stacks up to some of her other athletic endeavors, like Nordic ski racing, half Ironmans and road running, Elizabeth said it was by far the toughest. “The level of mental and emotional control that you have to maintain, to not go down a path of self-doubt or second guessing yourself or, ‘This hurts so I’m just going to slow down, or walk, or stop for a second,’” she said. “I really like activities where you need to dig deep into your mental strength because you come out the other side and you just feel so much more accomplished.”

Leading up to Kona, most of her base training is complete. She’ll spend most of August resting, recovering, and getting back into training. This fall/winter, she’ll build up to “big volume” similar to how she trained for Lake Placid. She’ll then travel to Hawaii with her mom and sister, Anna, who plans on doing her first Ironman next year.

This time, Elizabeth said she’s more prepared for what to expect in Kona. “You feel like you’re at an Olympics or World Championships, which you are, but it’s such a different feeling because all of the top athletes from the top age groups are in the same spot,” she said. “The goal is to finish before dark. The elements are very challenging there. It’s very hot. The last time I raced there I had a headwind/diagonal crosswind for 108 of the 112 miles on the bike.”

While she doesn’t have a concrete time goal, she said she’d be on “cloud nine” if she beats her 2016 record of 11:15. She plans to wear her team’s blue Karma Endurance suit and her neon yellow helmet. “We will just see what my body will allow and how deep I can dig,” Elizabeth said. 

After Kona, she plans to take a break from full Ironmans. “The full Ironman distance is very hard on your body, not to mention the time commitment, but I definitely will keep doing triathlons, probably Olympic distance and half Ironmans,” she said. “I’ll just keep doing trail running, hiking, cross-country skiing, all of those fun things. Maybe I’ll do another one someday down the road.” 

Alex Kochon (alexkochon@gmail.com) is a freelance writer, editor, and outdoor-loving mom of two who enjoys adventuring in the Adirondacks.