Race Report: Gran Prix Beverly

Gonna get back into this thing, time for a week-old race report!


Last Wednesday, I traveled south to the Bay State for my second (seventh?) event of the summer, the Gran Prix of Beverly. This was my first city crit since I won Concord last summer, and only my second non-collegiate event of the season, after opening the summer at a race in New Jersey with my new team Sunapee Racing.


A little backstory on the evening: the night before I raced the A race in my local practice crit, and was shelled by two Cat 1 racers while trying to hold their wheel in the break for about 15 minutes. 

So when I showed up for a huge Cat 4 field on a flat and fast course, I was anticipating a race with the pack. 

But my legs thought otherwise.

After a quick neutral lap, I found myself sitting towards the front of the field for a couple of laps, and thought I'd try something. 

Halfway through the fourth lap, I put a quick surge in off the front to open up a gap and was let go for a lap and a half until a lone rider branched up and joined me. We stayed away for a few laps (and a prime) until the pack closed the gap to under three seconds, at which point my breakaway partner faded back to the front of the bunch, leaving me dangling like a carrot. 


A really fast carrot.



Another surge put me back out front by 10 seconds, and that was the smallest gap there was until after the finish. For 17 laps I time-trialled it off the front, opening up 25 seconds on the 60 person field behind me through to the finish. 

It was my first win on that large a stage, with more than just racers as spectators, and a very amused race announcer and live-tweeter.



My season continues this weekend back at Concord, racing the Cat 4 race at 2:00 pm at White Park, followed by the Witches Cup in Salem on Wednesday.

On getting back to work and the importance of focus

This fall was a weird one for me.

I was injured or sick for most of running season, and dealing with that just left me drained heading into ski season. While I was still training, I didn't feel like an athlete.

I had come to grips a long time ago that my college experience was abnormal at best, both in academics and athletics. But now, with my college career ending in a mere five months, reality is starting to unwind.

I've been an athlete my entire life, from racing NHARA and BWL races as an Alpine skier, to six years of lacrosse, ski jumping, and now my ninth season of Nordic racing, I am realizing how fortunate I have been to be able to compete for most of my life.

This year marks what may be my last season of competitive Nordic skiing for a while. Graduation is looming, and as fun as it is, the job market has a much stronger pull than running around the northeast chasing snow.

This doesn't mean I'm hanging up my skis for good. Wherever I end up I hope to still be able to ski and continue training, but my days of high stakes weekend racing may be on sabbatical.

Back to this season though.

My end goal for this year is to have a solid place in the top 30 in the EISA by the end of carnival season. Last year I finally broke into the NCAA points, but still a top 30 eluded me. After this fall and early winter, hopefully I can make it happen.

The season starts tomorrow at St. Lawrence.

Getting back to business

It hasn't really been the kind of season I was hoping for so far this year. Going into a senior season, one hopes they won't be sidelined by injuries for the first month, only getting back to their freshman form with three races left.
I've been battling some Illiotibial Band (IT Band) issues since the beginning of the season, keeping me from participating in many team practices, and limiting my running to only a couple of days per week. As any athlete can tell you, being apart from your team can really get to you, missing out on big events because you physically can't do them. Luckily, I've been able to keep active through cycling, but it's still taken its toll.
Dinner.
Another thing an athlete can tell you is that when you pull them out of athletics, it will affect them in their daily life. For a student, this can mean classes, personal commitments, or just daily function. Trying to pull yourself out of a funk when you just aren't there is one of the biggest struggles you can have, and sometimes you just need to take a break.

This weekend, we hosted the VT Intercollegiate Cross Country championships, where after four weeks of disappointing races, I was able to finally break the elusive 28:30 mark again, having cracked it first at this race in 2013.


Now that I feel that I'm going somewhere with my training, it's time to figure out everything else.