Shaena’s report from the Beanpot TTs

This is the first of many reports from the Boston Beanpot road weekend, in which MIT took an unprecedented victory…

TTT: The women’s B triple t had many very good moments before its overarching bad one. Andrea Love and I made up the team, since we had the “problem” of having too many women in A’s to form a complete B team (great problem to have!) We started out on the gently rolling course behind the Army 4-person team, not expecting to beat them because of their sheer numbers but figured we were guaranteed at least 4th place overall because there were only 4 B teams. Well, we passed Army pretty early on, and with Andrea giving me very nice rests by leading up the hills we made very good time for the first 9 miles of the 12-mile race. Actually, we passed quite a few of the A teams, and the other B teams were several _minutes_ behind us by the time Andrea crashed. It was her first race, and unfortunately turned out to be a terrible start to the season; she hit my rear wheel and went down, breaking her collarbone (clavicle) So sad 🙁 At least all of the other MIT teams did well, and hopefully she recovers quickly!

ITT: My goal was to win the ITT now that Christina isn’t in my category anymore 😉
This week was slightly less intense on the training than last week, so my legs felt quite fresh in the morning, and I was really hoping I could do it. However, after I finished marshaling I ended up without any time for a warmup (well, rode for 5 minutes on the trainer) and stupidly didn’t eat enough or bring any water with me. So, not ideal, but after the first mile of excruciating pain I settled in and rode as hard as I could. Passed SEVEN women, which made me think that it must have been a great race for me, but a new Dartmouth girl took 1st place instead (she deserved it – super strong nordic skier). Good competition for the future!