Race Report: 2024 Sea Otter Classic Fuego XL

Race: Sea Otter Classic Fuego XL – Women’s Elite

Date: August 19, 2024

AVRT racers: Rachel Hwang

Course: 2 laps totaling 70 miles, 8500 ft gain

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11219707025

Race Recap: (Rachel Hwang’s perspective)

Coming off being sick, I hadn’t been able to train for long distance and my respiratory system had taken a hit.  I entered with the women’s elite field, and I felt like I had no business being there. 

As soon as the beep went off at 9:05:30, the 40+ women sped off, and already I could barely keep up.  The first bit is on the track road to thin out the herd, up a steepish incline, headed straight into singletrack.  I managed to tag on the end of the pack when we got to the singletrack, and stay behind the same people up and down hill for a bit, but I could see glimpses of the field in front of me, and the women up front were already out of sight.

First lap went ok, finishing in about 2 hours 55 minutes.  The course was very much XC style, with the singletrack being very mellow, hard packed dirt, and flowy with nothing technical, and with decent gravel roads.  While the first lap went ok, as soon as the second lap started, I bonked.  When my legs were pedaling with the power it knew it could on the first lap, my lungs felt closed and I couldn’t breathe fully, and because I haven’t been able to do a long ride in the past month, on the second lap, my legs weren’t up to the challenge and I started cramping. I also crashed early on the first lap from a rut where multiple people crashed and I have to give a shout out to the Eliel kit for not ripping.  That hurt, and my Garmin snapped right off the mount.

As the second lap started, mentally I was done and physically I was capping out. I pedaled slow as when I started putting power down my right quad would cramp.  I went really slow for 2/3 of the lap until a women passed me, and I paced with her the rest of the way to the end.  While we didn’t say a single word to one another on the trail, we exchanged a few words at the end and agreed it’s definitely more fun and enjoyable with a fellow rider.

In addition, for the first time, my stomach started rejecting the nutrition, probably because I was still sick(?) but that was an interesting note I took with me from this race.

With long mountain bike races like these, there is nothing that makes me happier than passing the finish line, with the strong feeling of accomplishment.  I finished around 6 hours 15 minutes, about an hour slower than what I predicated I could do, which was a let down, but that just means I’m ready to come back next year. 

Nutrition: ~500ml per hour of nutrition, and a gel per hour, and half a bar after lap 1