Sea Otter

Sea Otter: Day 1

The road race at sea otter was very hot and hard. I had no teammates so I had to do whatever I could to conserve as much energy as possible. We did 5 laps and each time up the climb more and more people got dropped. Luckily, I was not one of them. In fact, the first few times I was the one setting the grueling pace up the climb. After that I sat in to conserve energy for the finish. It was hard to conserve energy because it was so windy. But I did as best as I could. I felt fine towards the last climb and I was still with the lead group. So I was happy. I was climbing fine on the finishing climb and of course, I get a cramp in my right hamstring. I thought to myself “why is this happening? I ate enough and drank almost 4 big bottles during the race” so what could have gone wrong? I don’t know. After the race, I was really upset because I made sure to hydrate and feed myself so I purposely wouldn’t cramp up. I ended up finishing 13^th but the good news is that I was the 2^nd 17 year old; meaning that everybody who beat me was 18 except one kid. That was something positive to look at.

Sea Otter: Day 2

I felt much better at the circuit race. The pace up the climb was very hard each lap. I was able to stay with the lead group the whole race. I barely did any work to save energy for the finish. On the last riser before the finish on the last lap, a kid attacked and I went with him. We had a tiny gap and when he was a little tired I countered his attack and next thing I knew the whole group was on me. I made the mistake of going too early. And it cost me a spot on the podium. I ended up 7^th. And again I was the 2^nd 17 year old. I was happy.

Although my results are not the best, I am still satisfied for one very important reason. First of all I had fun at Sea Otter because that event is always so lively and has so much energy and diversity among cyclist and also my improvements. Compared to two years ago when I was at the bottom of the age group, I finished 14^th in the road race and 10^th in the circuit race. Two years later, at the bottom of the age group again I finished 13^th and 7^th. As you can see I improved which is something good to look at aside from getting the best results although next year I would very much like to have a team at this event as it is very tough to compete against such strong riders without a team.