Inside the Race: Sea Otter
From the course — Laura King & Ted King
90 miles. 7,800 feet of climbing.
Beyond the numbers, every race leaves something behind. These are the moments that stayed with the riders.
Laura King
From Ironman Worlds to gravel.
High: I was proud to find myself with good positioning on the beginning track all the way to the top where we head onto dirt. That’s always the most harrowing part of the race.
Low: I was not descending with my typical confidence. Perhaps it was a mixture of a recent race crash mixed with the marbles on steep descent terrain of Sea Otter, but I was tense and couldn’t find my groove.
What stayed with them: I enjoyed being in a group with a diverse age range. We had 20s, 30s, and 40s together. It’s cool that women can compete at the elite level for all these decades!
Ted King
WorldTour veteran · 90 miles into Sea Otter
High: Being in the front group for as long as I did! I last nearly an hour before the elastic broke and I was headed backwards.
Low: When I ejected my water bottles on a washboard section pretty early in lap 2. So the extra bummer of that is I packed all my nutrition into my bottles so I was high and dry. I zipped through the next feed zone and picked up a neutral bottle of water. That doesn’t do much for me when I need energy. So my day went pretty downhill after that.
What stayed with them: I was surprised how quickly the entire peloton was lined up on the start line. So I ended up arriving relatively late and that put me literally dead last on the start line.
Watch the first 30 minutes — from inside the race.
