Caroline Tory
3rd Apr 2024
Hailing from Toronto, Canada, Caroline Tory’s passion for endurance sports was ignited at an early age, when she dreamed of moving to the mountains. After college, she found competitive cycling after landing her dream job in Aspen, CO, and began laying the foundation for her tenacity and drive as an athlete.
Beyond her athletic pursuits, Caroline’s ability to seamlessly balance her career as a managing director at Aspen Words with her rigorous training regimen is a testament to her exceptional multitasking skills. Whether presenting literary prizes or tackling grueling workouts, Caroline approaches each endeavor with focus and determination.
Caroline is entering her second season in the Life Time Grand Prix, after an impressive 12th-place overall finish in 2023. As she gears up for the 2024 season, we sat down with her to talk about her work with Aspen Words, Girona, and how she is able to balance her life on and off the bike.
Having tackled the 2023 Life Time Grand Prix, how do you plan to utilize the lessons learned, challenges faced, and triumphs achieved from the previous iteration to refine your strategic approach and mental game for this next chapter? Is there anything specific from the previous year that you anticipate will be especially valuable as the series continues to evolve?
2023 was not only my first time racing in the Life Time Grand Prix, it was also my first season competing for an 8-month season at an elite level and doing dedicated training on the bike, so I had a steep learning curve. I took away a lot of practical lessons like the equipment and fueling demands of the different Life Time courses, but also about myself as an athlete and how to stay consistent, healthy and motivated across such a long season. I learned to respect the recovery that’s needed after these long, grueling events – and that a high stress work week, even if mostly spent sitting at a desk—isn’t truly recovery. I worked with a great coach and established new routines to make sure I was getting the necessary training but also recovery, all while balancing my work schedule.
But I think the most valuable thing that I gained from last season is confidence and faith in my own path and plan for 2024. I spent a lot of last year questioning whether I belonged, wondering whether I was doing the right training or if I was capable of being competitive at this level while juggling a full-time job in a totally different sphere from bikes. It feels good to go back to the series having proven to myself that I do belong, and I hope to race with more confidence for this second go-round.
Beyond the bike: How does the mental intensity of your work at Aspen Words translate to your athletic drive and mindset?
I’m an ambitious and competitive person, which feeds into both my athletic goals and my work at Aspen Words. Aspen Words is a literary center and program of the Aspen Institute, which is an internationally renowned non-profit organization. I spend my days creating literary events that connect readers and writers and helping to promote literature. We also host about 30 events a year featuring authors from all over the world, so it has become a serious puzzle to fit my race schedule within that calendar. It could not be further from the cycling scene, which is both a blessing and a challenge at times. On the one hand, it’s helpful to have the sense of perspective provided by a career where no one cares about your achievements on the bike and the focus is entirely on producing an amazing experience for others. At the same time, I often feel like I’m being stretched in too many directions and have had to get a lot better about prioritizing. I love that when I’m in the middle of a hard workout or a race, I have no choice but to be 100% present in the moment. All the stresses and decisions that are part of my career disappear and I can focus completely on the physical effort.
Mastering the balance: Do the strategic demands of your career fuel your determination as an athlete, or is it a complete mental shift when you clip into the pedals on a bike?
The phrase “mastering the balance” makes me laugh, because I still have such a long way to go on this front. I’m equally passionate about both cycling and my literary career, which can lead me to overextend myself sometimes in the pursuit of excellence in both worlds. It’s a constant juggling act to pursue both and I’m still figuring it out every day! I do think that having a limited schedule makes me especially focused and efficient when the time comes to train or prepare for a race. I don’t have the luxury of procrastinating the workout or overanalyzing my equipment choices for days on end.
Gravel’s trajectory: With gravel racing’s burgeoning popularity and growing presence in the cycling landscape, how do you envision the sport’s future influence on the broader cycling culture? Are there any particular changes you hope to see as the sport continues to gain momentum?
I am relatively new to the competitive gravel scene, so I hesitate to preach too much about the evolution of the sport since I’m also learning a lot about the landscape as I go. However, I will say that gravel allowed me to enter the sport at a very competitive level later in life as compared to what I see in other disciplines that have higher barriers to entry and seem more focused on starting in juniors and moving up through the ranks. And while there’s still a long way to go in terms of creating more equity, especially for women, I do feel like there are so many people in the gravel space who are working tirelessly towards this and making rapid progress as compared to other sports or disciplines that remained static for a long time. One of the main reasons I was excited to do the Life Time Grand Prix again in 2024 was the knowledge that we’d have separate starts from the men at every race. While I think there’s a place for the mass start at smaller events – and I’ve certainly benefited from rolling with a larger group at many races – I’m excited about how the separate starts will change the strategy and dynamic of the women’s race, and hopefully bring more visibility and media to the female side. It seems to me like a much higher percentage of the men’s gravel peloton can make a full-time living off cycling as compared to the women’s side. I hope the increased attention will draw in more sponsorship and support for the women.
Girona Training Camp: It looks like you decided to take a break from the snow up in Aspen and are currently training in Girona Spain! What’s been your favorite part of Girona so far and what’s been your favorite ride?
Long, endurance rides are my favorite type of training but something that I rarely have the luxury to do when I’m at home and trying to fit in shorter training blocks. It felt almost easy to get in a 28-hour week on the bike when there were so many new roads, little Catalan towns and cafés to explore. I loved the variety of terrain around Girona, from fast-rolling dirt roads to chunky goat tracks and some super famous road climbs like Rocacorba and Els Angels. The GS1 was the perfect tool for all of it. My favorite ride was a gravel route that took us from Girona to the coastal towns of S’Agaró and Platja d’Aro. It’s here on my Strava if you want to check it out! It’s a mix of rolling smooth and some chunkier dirt roads through the forest inland, and then you pop out above the ocean and do this smooth, switchback descent down to coffee! The ride bike to Girona is flatter and smoother so you can definitely indulge with some pastries by the sea before heading home.
Crunchy or Smooth Peanut Butter: ?
Smooth for sure. With honey!!!!
Photo Credit: Whitton Feer | @whittonfeer
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