It’s hard to believe that I’ve been coming to Sea Otter for 16 years. It really does feel like just yesterday I was a little kid running around this venue absolutely in awe of all of the athletes, bikes, and races available. To be totally honest, I often feel imposter syndrome now as I walk around the venue and see life-sized photos of me advertising products. I frequently hear someone whisper “That’s Hannah Otto” as I make my way through the rows of booths and it makes me so happy, but also makes me chuckle a bit because in my mind, it’s just little ole me.

As the largest bike show in the world, the Sea Otter Classic is a spectacle in and of itself, but for athletes, it holds a unique type of pressure. It’s the first race in Lifetime Grand Prix, and one of the first times in the season that all of the ‘usual suspects’ are racing together meaning that it’s our first chance to size each other up and to see where everyone stands coming in from the off season.

As I warmed up, I felt the pressure building and mounting, culminating in a few panicked sentences to Clayton about my nervous state before heading off to the start grid. But as we sat there for far too long, the nerves actually began to melt away. All I had to do was execute. All I had to do was one small step at a time. Push off the line, clip in, pedal.

The start at Sea Otter is renowned for being one of the most critical and challenging. It’s about 2.5 minutes straight up hill before a pinch point that forces the entire group into a single file line. I held my own, breathing through the nerves and when I got to the top of the track, I thought, “Not perfect. But good enough.” This is a skill I’ve actually been working on. Sometimes in racing we get so caught up in trying to make things perfect that we forget that things don’t actually have to be perfect in order to achieve your goals or in order to keep charging forward.

As the lap continued onward, I found my flow and my confidence. With each coming climb, I discovered that I had more in me that I even thought. It was clear that the off-season training had paid off and my body was responding exactly the way I wanted it to.

I stayed in the lead group all the way through lap 1, with laser beam focus. Potentially a little too much focus, because I managed to ride straight through one of the aid stations without seeing my feed support. I guess I was so focused on the riders around me and my own effort, that I forgot to open my eyes for the hand up. When the aid station ended, I looked back in dismay. How had I missed it? I felt dread come over me knowing that those 500 calories might not matter at the moment, but eventually they would come into play. I set it aside and told myself “If you just nail the rest of your feeds, you’ll be just fine.”

Despite a few mistakes, I managed to find myself in the lead group sitting comfortably toward the end of Lap 2. I could feel myself waning just a bit, but I knew I had a big bottle with lots of calories just up the road. All I had to do was survive long enough to get there. A perfect hand off. Success. But as I raised it to my lips to drink, it slipped out of my hand. Dread enveloped my body. I actually wanted to cry. I felt like I watched my race slip away as the same speed the bottle fell to the ground. I had already been without water for 30 minutes, I was already 500 calories low, and now I was another 300 calories in debt and had at least 30 minute minutes to my next chance to grab fluids. I was in deep trouble.

As we entered into the final lap I could feel my body crumbling. I was shaky, seeing stars, and suddenly even getting through the final lap felt like the biggest challenge of all. I feel off the main group and did everything I could see stay with the riders passing me, but I had moved from racing to surviving. When I finally crossed the finish line, I was so depleted that I just sat straight down on the ground and chugged all the fluids I could find.

This is a tricky one for me to sort through. On one hand, I am of course sad to make mistakes that cost me a whole lot of positions and a chance for me to demonstrate my true abilities. On the other hand, I got to see so much improvement across lap 1 and 2 and ultimately my greatest mission in this sport is to constantly improve and move forward so for that I can be happy. This is another chance to hold two emotions at once and to focus on the growth. And…we’re just getting started.