Blog for Megan Hottman
Sea Otter Recap
4-19-10: back home in Denver after my trip to Monterey and Santa Cruz, CA for Sea Otter and the Santa Cruz crit. If I had to rate the weekend solely on my results, I'd give it an F. But I'm rating it on fun, gaining fitness, bonding with teammates and host family and other cyclists and generally having a blast the entire time - it therefore receives an A+.
I flew in Thursday morning and was racing the Sea Otter crit just a few hours later on Liza's bike (she lent me her spare so I didn't have to fly my race bike out). I had some mechanical problems and kept dropping my chain so after chasing back on a few times, I was officially OTB. Rather than quitting I decided to maximize the chamois time by TT-ing the rest of the race. Liza made the front group and took 7th -which was great!
Friday was the Sea Otter road race. It is only 47 miles so it's raced hard and fast, more like a circuit race. On the second-to-last time through the feed zone, a small group got off the front and I wasn't where I should have been when it happened. Still got plenty of racing in though, as the main field I was in still wanted to race hard -so there were plenty of attacks and accelerations before we hit the final 2 or 3 mile climb to the finish. I ended up 14th. Tiffany suffered a mechanical and had to stop racing. Friday night our host family had a grill party at their place which was an absolute riot.
Saturday was the circuit race. This year we were to race for 2 hours so I wasn't sure how many times that meant we'd have to climb the hill on Leguna Seca. It was a lot. The first 45 minutes were very mellow. At around 1:15 to go, teammate Liza launched a solo attack and got up the road. She was joined by a Touchstone rider and they soon had 40 seconds on the field it was great! With about 50 minutes left some of the teams decided enough was enough and launched an attack in the feedzone. 11 women quickly got off the front. I was in the main field, which closed in on them but never could reel them in. They finally got out of sight and we all got serious about racing for 12th place. The last 3 times up the climb I wasn't sure I'd make it, so on the final lap it was all I could do to remain in the field for the sprint. Liza did great, sticking out 15th place. I was 30th in the same field. I'd be curious to know how many we lost during the race, it was pretty freakin hard. Tiff and I were stoked with the hill repeats we accomplished.
Saturday afternoon was magical because Jono proposed to Liza and we all got to share in their celebration and excitement. It made an already awesome weekend absolutely memorable!
Sunday morning we rolled out of Monterey and made for Santa Cruz. There was a local norcal crit there and we'd decided to make this a 4-day training block, so we kitted-up and warmed up along the beach. The crit course had a couple technical spots and a nice climb in it -the race was 30 laps. So I figure that gave me 50 hill repeats in 2 days ;) I tried to follow the moves and get into a break during the first 10-12 laps of the race but nothing stuck. 2 girls rolled off the front and no one reacted, I thought for sure it would come back. then a 3rd bridged up and they were gone. DOH!!!!! Missed it again!! I tried to bridge up and spent a lap off the front but didn't make any progress and came back to the group. Worked hard on good position with 3 and then 2 laps to go. On the final lap I slid back a bit too far and didn't finish as well as I'd hoped.
All in all, great QT with teammates tiff and liza, great excitement with the engagement, fantastic host family fun and great training in the races. I'm very pleased.
The information on this site is purely informational and may not pertain to your specific ailment. It should not be taken in lieu of a doctor's advice!
