[NECTC] Cranberry Olympic 2010

I’m back on the East Coast!!! I got here on August 25^th. Had to come back for some Peer Mentor stuff with the new freshmen and took advantage of my ability to move in a couple days early. Unfortunately the fact that the Cranberry was only a few days after moving back in sucked because I was exhausted and spent from moving. I have a lot of crap to move around.

School starts on August 30^th, but NECTC triathlons start on August 29^th!!!

I’m so excited for our team this year!!!!!!!!! We’re huge!!!! And we’re representing Stevens awesomely.

On Saturday the 28^th we started the drive to Massachusetts. Nick’s car included Nick, Aaron Williams, Kim McCaffrey, and myself. Nicole’s car included Nicole, Aaron Perelman, Jamie Brabston, and Gabby Czernik. After some traffic leaving NY and one Subway lunch stop, we finally got to the race site in MA around mid-afternoon.

We had to check in, and then we planned on doing some warm-up stuff around the race site. They had messed up my name for some reason during registration, so I had to change my name from Amanda Allison to Amanda Nauman. Later, I realized, they had spelled my last name wrong after changing it on the name change form! I ended up on the results as Amanda Nanman. Idiots.

Sidenote on the goodie bag: the new “Cool Mint” cliff bar flavor is awesome. Another new tekwik shirt as well.

Once we were all checked in, time for a swim in the Pond!! There was confusion about whether it’d be wetsuit legal because it had been so warm for the previous few weeks and the temperature was right on the cusp of being wetsuit illegal. We went in with just our swim suits for warm-up and it was beautiful. I hate large bodies of fresh water, it’s just one of those weird things about me. So the first few minutes included me freaking out, but once I got used to it I loved it. I would love to have a pond/lake to swim in like that near my house when I’m older. Perfect for open water swimming.

Quick bike with the noobs.. some fast/easy stuff on some random offshoot rode from the main road in front of the park. Nick and I realized that we were going to have to work on some technique stuff with the team. After that, I ran around for less than 5 minutes with a few of the girls, we were really just scoping out the transition ins and outs and jogging from point to point.

After finally being familiarized with the area, we headed off to the Hotel. Dinner was at an Olive Garden and we were carbo loaded very well. The rest of the night we tinkered with bikes and got ready for an early morning race!

Morning of the race went smoothly. It was great to be back in the NECTC season because I love showing up to races with tons of college kids around.. it makes for a great atmosphere! The anticipation was high as we all got ready for the race. Luckily we squeezed in a “Before” team picture.

 

And here we go! Kim's first Olympic! woohoo!!!!

 

Swim= 19:21 – 5^th fastest swim in the entire race!!!!

There was only one guy ahead of me for the whole swim. I had one of the worst starts when Aaron Williams jumped on top of me and I got squished and thrown around until I finally was able to pull away and stay ahead. I passed Nick before the 2^nd buoy and from there I just followed the guy in front. Luckily he was there, because the sun was shining brightly and the buoys were hard to see around corners of the pond. I felt really good about the swim though, and I was very happy I made the decision to wear the wetsuit.

T1= 2:34

Bike= 1:14.25 – 105^th fastest bike in the entire race

Average power = 176.
Average HR = 179

The bike was not as powerful as I had hoped. All the moving in the previous days and all the hard/fast workouts I was doing at home just a few days previously killed my body. I knew I wasn’t rested whatsoever, so I was just trying to crank it out as best as possible. I focused on working the flats because I had zero legs for the tiny uphills. It’s a good thing that this course was relatively very flat with only small rolling hills because my legs were not happy.

T2= 1:49

Run = 52:12

Average HR = 184

THIS WAS MY FASTEST 10K TO DATE!!!!

I was reeeeeeeeally excited about that. Somehow I had some good legs following that bike split of 21.31mph. The usual suspects starting annoying me about a mile into the run, the inner quad muscles. They do not like running fast after biking hard and fast. So they started to seize up, but luckily it wasn’t a terrible cramping sensation. It just made it really hard to turn over and sprint. I had apparently drank a good amount before the run because my stomach was sloshing a little bit. At the same time I was thirsty, so I need to time things better and get a good pee in before the swim next time.

Overall I got a little discouraged on the run because I was in 2^nd and dropped to 5^th when 2 army girls and an MIT girl passed me. They were running soooooooooo fast. The first army girl ended up running under 40 and the other two in the mid 40s. that’s so fast! Yuck, I couldn’t keep up and I was pissed.

But I powered it home and was happy with my fastest Olympic 10k split!!!

Overall time = 2:30.19

Nationals last year was a 2:26, but that was with a half mile swim. And Lobsterman last year was a 2:32.10. So it’s my fastest official Olympic time! Woohoo!

At the end of the day, I was happy. But I knew it wasn’t my best and I have a lot of room for improvement. I need to rest up for a few days and see if I can get my legs back and ready to go.

Here is the “After” team picture!

 

Two weeks to the Quakerman!