Shelburne resident Greg Mernick finished the Lake Placid Ironman!

He crossed the finish line at a fast walk, one swollen Achilles tendon and one nasty blister slowing his pace. Still, he finished, 15 hours, 6 minutes and 39 seconds after he first dove into Mirror Lake in the center of Lake Placid, N.Y. "I did fine until the run. I didn't have any legs," said the Shelburne resident. "I really enjoyed the whole day. The time wasn't great but those things happen," he said. "The volunteers and the fans were incredible."

A special educator at Essex Middle School, Mernick swam the opening 2.4-mile leg in 1:45:36. He cruised through the 112-mile bike circuit in 7:09:11. He limped through the 26.2-mile run in 5:56:30. (Note: He also spent 15:22 in the two transition zones for his final time of 15:06:39.) "I felt ready," he said. "They had more participants than they've had in the past and I waited with the start because I'm slow in swimming. "The swim went well, the bike went well and the run went well, at the start," Mernick said. "I had an Achilles swell and I had a blister on one foot, so after six or seven miles, I knew I would finish, so I went at a speed walk."

Mernick finished 2,176th overall among the 2,475 competitors who completed the course in the allotted time; all competitors had to be off the course by midnight Sunday. He placed 314th in his men's 45-49 age category. "One thing really inspiring to me was there were an awful lot of older people doing it," Mernick said. "Maybe later in life, if time prevails and I have more time to train, I might look forward to spending more time doing that." Otherwise, he said, he will concentrate on shorter triathlons, such as the RaceVermont.com series based in Shelburne. "I have a sprint triathlon in August, the Burlington triathlon in September and a marathon in October (either in Portland, Maine, or Newport, R.I.)," he said.

As for those at the front of the pack in Sunday's Lake Placid Ironman - winner Ben Hoffman's time was 8:39:34 - Mernick said, "They're incredible athletes who put in an awful lot of time preparing for it."