Race Report: 2024 Sea Otter Road Race - Women's 40+

Race: Sea Otter Road Race - Women's 40+

Date: Thursday, April 18, 2024

AVRT racers: Kristin Hepworth 3/8, 5/22 (overall)

Course: 5 laps of a 7-mile loop with a steep 3-minute climb at the start of every lap. After lap 4 the course turns onto Barloy Canyon Road for a final 7-minute climb that steepens to 9% in the final half mile. The full race was about 40 miles with 4,000 ft of elevation gain

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11210993176

Nutrition: Oatmeal for breakfast two hours before the race. One Ucan energy gel at the  start. One bottle of electrolytes and one bottle of water with malto.

Recap: Women’s B/C/D, collegiate, and masters categories raced together with a very early 7:00am start time. Driving over in the morning was tough. I only had enough time to warm up for about 8 minutes before I needed to get over to the start line. I was not feeling ready and warm at all.

Two of the ladies in the masters category were cat 1 and still very active racers. One was Leah who is a national champ. I knew this going into the race and was confident they would make the race really hard.

The cat 1 masters ladies positioned themselves at the front through the uphill neutral roll out and took off first and incredibly hard at the whistle. I tried so hard to keep up with them, but I was not warmed up and it was clear their watt threshold was much higher than mine. 

Shortly after the first climb, a group of 4 formed including Claire, who is also on AV, but was racing for Stanford. The four of us pacelined hard to try to catch up to the front groups for the next few laps. We lost Claire during the last lap at some point, so we were down to 3 chasing.

I positioned myself on the front going into the final turn up the 2 mile finish. My plan was to hit it hard and try to drop the other master rider I was with. I went as hard as I could while knowing I had to keep my heart and breathing at a sustainable level for 2 miles. I finished 45 seconds before the other masters racer I was pacelining with and 3 minutes behind the cat 1 masters ladies that broke away at the beginning. I got 3rd for the masters category and 5th overall. Looking back, I wish I would have warmed up to get the most out of that initial attack, and it was rewarding to hold that last climb to the finish to minimize the time lost. It was a fun race and I was glad I did it.