Home Course Advantage - 2019 Concord Crit

Well hot damn, that was a good one.

There is so much to say about how this race went, and I'm not sure I'll even hit it all here.

I'll lead off with paraphrasing what I said in an instagram post earlier this week. This season hasn't gone quite how I had hoped it would. With a limited race calendar and lackluster training, paired with planning for life in Northern NY, my head hasn't totally been there in races. Saturday was different. It was my last race day of the 2019 calendar, on my home course, where I got my very first criterium win back in 2016.

I lined up for the Cat 3/4 race in my older Sunapee Racing kit, intending on using this race as a hard warmup for the 1/2/3 race later in the day, and maybe to pad mine and my teammates pockets by going prime hunting. Going in, I didn't really have a plan for how the race should play out. Kramer did, Alec and Sean played along with Kramer, but I didn't. My plan was to play it by ear, knowing that the way I had come in to the race I could either go for primes or podium, but not both.

Well, early on I decided that I wanted to make sure we got some money out of our race. The first prime was early enough that I felt confident that I could go, collect the prime, and have enough time to recover for the finish as long as I didn't get caught up in a breakaway.

Well I got the prime without any contest, but nobody was bringing me back.

I didn't want to be in a breakaway this early, and certainly was not looking to stay away solo for too long this early. I dialed back my effort, putting on a show sitting up to stretch and drink, hoping to bait someone into chasing me down, but the pack was content with letting me dangle. 

Suns out, tongue's out?

So I dialed back my effort, settling in to a comfortable pace, and chilled out until the pack caught up to me two-and-a-half laps later.

 From here, my idea was to just pack-surf near the front until the closing laps and go for a bunch sprint, confident that Kramer and Alec could bring any attacks back. And for the most part, this plan worked. The race was pretty uneventful from then on.

Until right about here.

Derin, the Minuteman rider in the pink socks, launched an attack out of that corner with ~6 laps to go to collect the final prime. Like with me earlier, we were fine with letting him dangle for a couple of laps thinking that even a disorganized 3/4 field winding up for a sprint could bring back a lone rider. 

We were wrong. 

I launched a counter-attack to try and bring Derin back with 3 to go, and was quickly joined by a couple of my northern VT racing buddies Zach and Pat. Pat took a couple of deep pulls with his diesel engine before popping with a lap-and-a-half to go, and Zach and I traded off pulls until he dropped going up the climb to the roundabout on the final lap. By this point, we had put about 8 seconds into the field, and had clawed our way to within two seconds of the leader.

I managed to come over the top of Derin at the height of the course on the final lap, and dug deep to put a gap between us going into the chicane. 

I opened up a sprint going into the final corner just for insurance, and with ~150m to go, I knew that I had it locked. 

Taking home the win at my team's home race, with teammates in the field, on course, and in the announcing booth, in such a decisive fashion, was more than I could've imagined capping off my 2019 season. Hearing from the team at the post-race BBQ, the closing laps were some of the most exciting racing they've seen, and to have the flames atop the podium was icing on the cake. (I also lined up for the 1/2/3 race, but lasted 42 minutes before I realized I didn't want to be lapped a second time)

 As with last year, I am on my way back to Clarkson University, but this time in a *slightly* new role. In July, I was promoted to Interim Head Cross Country and Nordic Ski Coach, and will be taking charge of the teams starting in a couple of weeks when preseason begins!

Critting Around: Two4Two at GP Beverly

What. A freaking. Day.

After my alright results at Greenfield, I was really looking forward to a redemption shot at Gran Prix Beverly. I had won this race last year via a race-long breakaway, and after my breaks didn't stick at Greenfield, I was looking for more.

And it didn't come easy this time.

My race prep started two days before, trying to source a new shifter to replace my failing one. I went to every LBS in town and called a couple that I would/could drive to on race day to try and find something suitable but to no avail. Plans then turned to loaning a shifter from a teammate for the race, but travel delays made that unfeasible as well.

So here I was, hanging out in the pouring rain in Beverly, with a mostly-assembled bike, trying to put it together in the hours before the race. Splendid.

I managed to piece together a mostly-functioning bike (with the help of Look NRS) with just enough time for a one-lap warmup before taking to the line. Not the best start.

The race got off to a slow and mostly-cautious start, as the previous rain had made the corners a little slick, resulting in multiple crashes in the first few laps. I did my best to stay at/towards the front of the group in hopes to avoid them, but the first two took place DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME. Locking up the brakes (again) was not what I had in mind for 40 minutes. 

Unlike last year, I was unable to escape the field very much, only a couple of efforts that lasted for a lap or so before being reeled back in. My lack of warmup and the adverse pre-race situation was hitting me, and I was ever worried that my shifting would fail in some catastrophic way. Unable to really get into a tactical mindset, I had to resort to just drilling it (as usual) and hope for the best.

After a while, I realized that we had a break forming. No longer were we a pack of 40, but of 11. I could relax a little bit knowing that even being swallowed by the field would only push me back a handful of places instead of a dozen or more. I was finally able to let others do some of the work, jumping from wheel to wheel among the top-five to save some energy for the finish.

Going into the closing laps, I knew this race would be decided by a final sprint. I didn't have it in me to try and gap the pack from more than a lap out, and even if I tried, my move would be swiftly covered. I didn't try anything fancy or aggressive, just hanging out in second or third wheel for the last two laps. 

With one lap to go, the pack started to wind itself up, even in the chase group. Someone off the back went down into the final corner, causing our lead group to readjust our finish strategies. I was coming into the corner second, but the leader seemed to think that the race would be neutralized, and sat up. I wasn't taking that chance, and gradually ramped up my speed to edge by him down the last straight. No neutralization. With less than 100m to go I actually started my sprint.

(Minuteman guy with his hand up is the guy who sat up)

I had done it. Not only had I finally won a race in a bunch sprint, but I had won Gran Prix of Beverly two years in a row. On a bike with broken shifting. It honestly wasnt until I came out of the last corner that I thought I had a decent chance based on everything that has transpired before the start, but good lord was it an amazing feeling afterwards.

End of season

Well, now that the season has ended, I've been able to 'focus' on my other sports, like jumping!

On March 9th, I strapped on my jumpers for the first time all season in Lebanon, NH, during the Storrs Hill Mud Meet and USCSA National Collegiate Ski Jumping Championships. That day was not only my first day on a jump all year, but was also my first attempt at a K50 jump ever.

Hiestad Hill: The K50 at Storrs Hill.

The Mud Meet (which I won last year) is a Skimeister event (my specialty) for all ages and abilities. It combines a short nordic ski with a rather easy alpine race, as well as a meet on the K5 and K25 jumps.

In addition to the Mud Meet, Hill Manager Jon Farnham, along with USCSA, hosted an informal K50 meet that also acted as the Collegiate National Championships. There were only three people competing, all of us from the Burlington, VT area (the other two were UVM students).

I won.

It was my first day all year with long skis on, and I won the collegiate national championships. It was terrifyingly awesome.

The rest of the meet was a good time, short Nordic ski and an even shorter alpine race, and I took second overall, to the current NH State Skimeister.

That Friday, the three of us, along with a

few others, traveled to Lake Placid for a Exhibition Meet for the rest of the USCSA athletes. We limited ourselves to the K48, but there were a handful of locals (not college kids) hitting the K90.

I didn't jump as well that night, only hitting 35 or 36 meters, while I was hoping to hit 40, it didn't matter. We were there for fun more than anything.

The day after the Mud Meet, the Saint Michael's Nordic Team travelled down to Cochran's Ski Area for their first annual Nordic Skier Cross race. It was a blast, with a huge descent and a few good climbs, along with jumps, gates, and tight turns. I did rather well, coming in 8th overall, with only a couple of falls under my belt.

And that basically concludes my ski season, I should be updating more regularly on cycling season (first race is this saturday!!), as i will have more free time.

torin.