September 3, 2011
First race of the NECTC 2011 season!
1500M SWIM --- 40km BIKE --- 10km RUN
Intro:
The Cranberry Olympic race was supposed to be the first race of the NECTC season on August 28th in Massachusetts. However, Hurricane Irene trumped us all and forced the race director to cancel the race because Massachusetts was placed in a State of Emergency leading up to that weekend (along with every other Northeastern state in the US). We were all pretty bummed, especially because some had been doing solid speed work training specifically with that race in mind. So instead of racing, we were all huddled up in our own apartments on Saturday and Sunday, waiting for this monster of a storm that was supposedly about to come barreling down on us. As you probably already know, NYC wasn't hit nearly as hard as predicted and I even managed to squeeze in a couple long runs. One of those was in the pouring rain and it was awesome!
The team headed towards Lake George on the Friday before Saturday morning’s race. I was in Nick’s car with Joe and Matt, and we were lucky enough to leave at noon. The drive was long but the company was enjoyable and it went by fairly quickly. We got to packet pick-up at an indoor water park (so weird!) near Lake George. It was the most inefficient packet pick-up I’ve ever been through, but long story short we made it out of there in one piece with our numbers and that’s all that matters.
The most noteworthy issue, however, was that I wasn’t actually ever signed up for this race! One of the freshmen newbies on the team, Carrick Porter, had signed up and was no longer able to race. He emailed the race director to allow me to have his slot, but I never received a confirmation email. I just went to the race strictly on optimism that I was racing haha. Fortunately when I got there they had already set my name aside, gave me all of Carrick’s stuff, and then assured me that the timing company had changed the name and sex. Guess what number they gave Carrick? Number 1. Hell yeah.
We biked around the Lake area for a little bit before checking into the luxurious motel, and then we drove down to Olive Garden for dinner. The other cars with Luke, Evan, Aaron, Carolyn, and Kevin had to leave later in the day and we met them at the hotel after dinner that night. The team meeting was great.. I’ll never forget Matt totally breaking the bed with his own weight just by sitting there haha.
Prerace:
Since Nick’s car had already gotten our packet info, we stalled for a little bit longer getting to the race site on Saturday morning and just met the other guys there.
All the collegiate kids were in the first wave and our numbers were all in the top 100, so consequently we all had the same row of bike box racks. I started joking that all the Stevens kids needed to spread out because we were going to come out of the water and all get bunched up haha. We remembered to snap a pre-race photo and then everyone kinda did their own thing for warm-up and prerace shimmies.
Once the wetsuits came on we were all giddy with excitement and itching to race!
Swim= 21:16 – 6th fastest swim split in NECTC, 1st overall female swim split
Stevens comprised the top 7 swim finishes in the NECTC: Evan came out of the water first, then Luke, Joe, some UVM kid, Nick, me, then Matt. Stevens domination.
I had some goggle issues because they kept fogging up and I had to stop a couple times to clear them because I had no idea where the buoys were. I could see the hazy figures of who I assumed were Luke/Joe/Nick ahead me during the whole swim and just made sure to follow them. I’m in dire need of some anti-fogging goggles so I don’t have to stop and clear my goggles 3 times in a 20 minute swim. No bueno.
The swim also felt like it took a lot longer than 21 minutes, but it was pretty decent. I came into transition and saw all the Stevens guys and cheered us all on! So exciting to see us all in the lead from the start!
T1= 1:28
Bike=1:10:27 – 12th fastest bike split in NECTC, 4th overall female bike split
Average power = 184
Average speed = 21.3
Bike HR Avg = na
A little over 2 minutes slower than Vermont, but it was a much hillier course. The beginning portion was on a beautiful smooth paved bike path that was awesome to crank down on.
Overall, awesome bike course with a perfect amount of challenging rolling hills.
Fun fact, the average power of 184 was exactly the same as VT but it was slower.
T2= 0:56
Run = 46:46
Run pace = 7:33 min/mile
Run HR Avg = na
The only bummer about this portion of the race was my lack of Mr. Garmin. Unfortunately, the battery was dead when I turned it on the morning of the race… so I was back to the traditional method of just running without any sort of concept of time. I was kind of annoyed because I loved having the watch in VT.
It would be cool if I had known the actual distance of the course.. because I was so stoked about my sicknasty new PR under 47 minutes and I really hope the distance was actually a 10k!
2 lap course!
Luke came in from the bike relatively close behind me and passed me on the run within the first mile and Matt was close behind him. They both ran ahead during the first lap, but I ended up gaining on Matt once I started the second lap. When I came around for the second lap, there was an older guy, who’s leg defined him as a 60 year old, that came trucking out at quite a quick pace with a super high cadence. I thought about asking if he knew what pace he was planning on holding, but after a couple minutes of just trying to hang on, I decided to try and stick with him because he was running fast!
Without Mr. Tim Ricks, number 375, I totally would not have gone a new best time for my 10k. He was going the perfect pace that pushed me to a new limit on the back half of my run. Near the end, he looked at me and said, “You’re an animal!” I replied, “You’re killing it, too! Thanks for letting me hang on.” And then he asked me if I wanted to do a third lap with him haha. I respectfully declined and told him to pretend I was still right behind him! Later, I found him after the race and we chatted for a bit. For the last half mile, I was probably going 6-something because I was hauling. I came into the running chute and right as I approached the finish line, frikkin Aaron Perelman blasts by me as fast as his legs can move him so he nudged me out by 2 seconds for the overall finish. I cursed him as soon as I realized what happened and just laughed off the ridiculousness once I was able to breathe haha.
Very memorable run for sure!
Overall time = 2:20:53
1st overall female in NECTC and the entire race of age group women
The men on the Stevens team posted up some awesome races and walked away with the team win! They edged out UVM and one of our biggest competitors, BU, from last year. On the women’s side, Carolyn and my points added up perfectly to sneak away with the win right ahead of UVM even though we were the only two girls racing that morning from Stevens. On both sides, that’s pretty dominant if you ask me!
If you want to read the team race report written by the lovely Aaron Perelman, CLICK HERE to get to our Stevens Tri website!
Here's our very professional post-race team photo!
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| Beautiful! |
Next race: Buckman Sprint!!!
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