Penn State Nittany Classic Weekend

State College, PA - Saturday road race was in the Black Moshanonn State park. It was a beautiful morning but super cold! We drove the race course on the way to the parking lot and we found that it was 22 degree F at the top of the climb. The course starts out with rolling hills and into a big descent and the 5-mile climb starts around mile 15 and finishes with another mile of descent into a sharp left hand corner to the start/finish (total 21.6mi per lap), which was only about 200 meters from the corner.

First ones to start were our Men's C racers: Michael, Tony, Tim, and Paul. Tim was in the lead group in their second lap and almost took podium finish, but he missed the last left hand corner and finished 6th, which was still a fantastic job! Michael rode strong with a chase group and came in 14th and Tony took 21st after a long lonely second lap while Paul decided one lap of lonely ride was enough. Zuzka in womens' B race rode in a breakaway of 4 girls and took 3rd in a sprint finish. Hannah rode to 13th, completing her first ever mountain race!

Our B racers, Issao and Seth rode strong and came in 8th and 10th. Last one to start was me. In the first lap Ana from Harvard, Margaret from Columbia and I formed a breakaway and rode the second lap together and at the final climb, Ana went ahead and I was 2nd place distancing Margaret with about 300 meters at the top of the climb. However, after a mile of descent I was caught by Margaret and I finished 3rd.

On sunday we had ITT and criterium. ITT was 4.5mile long and pretty much flat and straight with some rolling hills. Notable results of ITT; Seth took 4th in Men's B ITT! Downtown criterium was a fantastic course with lots of corners. Tony and Michael took 6th and 7th in the Men's C criterium. Issao and Seth got 10th and 13th in a pack finish. Zuzka took 9th and Hannah took 17th. Again, I was the last one to start. My race was just like all the other criterium of the day, very fast from the start. There was a break of two girls and unfortunately, I missed it and I was hanging in the pack all through out the race, and I finished 9th in the pack sprint.

Overall it was a really nice weekend. Penn State did a fantastic job of organizing nice races and MIT team had fun time in all of the races.