Sea Otter Gravel - Alexey's Race Recap

Sea Otter is a stressful race because it is the kickoff to the LTGP (Lifetime Grand Prix). You never really know where anyone's fitness stands and there isn't really a hierarchy for the year yet so people are willing to do a lot for a result.

This year, after some changes to the LTGP schedule, Sea Otter changed from a MTB race to a gravel race as Little Sugar MTB was added at the end of the year. This meant that possibly the most stressful race of the year was also now a  new course that had never been raced! Similar to the MTB, the new lap was 29 miles with about 3500 ft of climbing with lots of slippery roads and corners. The climb up Lookout still being the primary feature out on course. We had 3 laps, so 88 miles and 10,000 ft of climbing.

As the gun went off, the sprint up the track was as brutal as always. My entire focus was on getting to the pinch point at the top in the top 5. Although there was no singletrack, the loose descent that awaited us could have been singletrack as there was only one true racing line on the 5 ft wide path. After safely navigating the start, I went to work.

The goal for the next 2 hours was to focus on position, nutrition and try to make the race hard when I could. After one lap of the course only 7 riders came through the start finish together after starting with 125, so safe to say the race of attrition was off to a good start. I somehow managed to mark all of my high carb bottles, water and all of my water bottles, high carb, so that made the nutrition math fun while racing. 

A couple groups came back together as we started the 2nd lap and we watched Simon Pellaud through a hail mary attack. Most of us weren't too worried as we expected him to falter on the long climbs and we were able to close a 2 min gap on the climb up Lookout heading into the last lap. 

With 29 miles to go there were less than 10 of us. I was constantly looking for a moment to make a move and saw it with about 8 miles to go as Matt Beers jumped on the left side, I followed suit on the right. My goal was to hopefully force everyone to look at Keegan as we rode into the sunset - not that simple, but this was a breaking point. With about 6 miles to go, Keegan and Brendan Johnston joined us up front and it became a 4 horse race heading into the final climb up Lookout. From the bottom Keegan set a hard tempo and Matt came off the wheel, I came around and slowly closed the gap back to Keegan as we entered the final 1/3 of the climb. In my mind we had called his bluff - it was going to be a 3 up sprint to the line, but a reminder to never underestimate Keegan Swenson. With one kick left, Keegan opened a gap to Matt and Me as he rode away to win Sea Otter once again. Matt finished 2nd, and I rolled in for 3rd. 

Did I work a bit too much? Possibly, but damn do I love racing my bike. I'll take the 3rd place and move towards Unbound. This series is far from over!