I drove up alone to the Army Spring Classic Road Race in Harriman State Park, arriving about an hour before the team, which gave me ample time to stake out the parking lot. Fortunately Jim had already provided us with a lay of the land, so that left me to deal with the Humvees.

After the team arrived, I started warming up with my fellow D riders for what amounted to over 26.5 miles in the mountains. I had a so-so warm up and made it to the line just in time to snag a good spot in the first two rows.

The race started uneventfully enough, riding neutral down a long steep descent into a sharp hairpin headed back uphill. Once we made it a few hundred meters the race was on. I stayed up towards the first third of the pack, which was led on and off by a few UNH riders. Towards the end of the climb about seven riders started a breakaway, leaving Vince and me at the front of the main group. When they got about 30m of distance between us we decided to bridge the gap, and we were able to attach back on.

Once we got on to the second lap it got more interesting. I used the descent to move up a few places in what was then a pack of 15-20 riders. I hit just over 46mph and managed to get to the front until… a rider from Brown (?) went into the hairpin too hot and slipped down smack in the middle of the turn, leaving me to slam on my breaks to a near stop. I lost all of my momentum and the work that I had put in on the descent, but fortunately the front group bunched together on the ascent and the paced slowed down considerably.

We stayed together until the end of the main climb. At the first roundabout I joined a breakaway led by Syracuse with riders from UNH, Bard, and Penn State. We rotated some hard pulls and tried to build some separation on the main group, but either they caught up or we failed to create enough distance.

Between then and the final ascent things stayed the same. I entered the climb with a group of about the same 15 or so other riders. There were a few more humps and lengthier straightaways before the finish from the top of the climb. A bit after we reached the top of the climb, I decided to make a move and took the lead into what I thought was the final stretch. Apparently there were still a few kilometers to go, and I was soon enough swallowed back up by the group, realizing I totally underestimated/forgot how much we had left. From there the pace got really quick until we could see the finish over the final hump. I maneuvered my way through the tight group as best I could and hammered my way to 6th place, my first top-10 finish and first of three top-7 finishes on the weekend.