Ohhh. Well I can tell for sure you tomorrow when I get to the track.
I don’t recall a temporary bridge being put there during previous races, and haven’t been down on the track since they finished the work done last year.
If it’s traffic control, well yeah there’s a cluster waiting to happen.
Any boots to the ground? They sent an email to follow along with the Instgram live feed, but there hasn’t been an update for an hour and nothing about the women for 2 hours. 
Well, that was fun! Way faster than I expected - lots of PRs. They really do put on a great event.
As a first time Sea Otter attendee and first time riding in California, that was fantastic! Very fun course, great volunteers, riders were chill, had a blast. And I liked the water bottle handup. I’ve never done that before. Felt like a total pro.
And that one descent before the last big climb was great. Glad we got to do that twice!
Also, greatly appreciate everyone shared their course knowledge. It was very helpful.
Congratulations to the finishers.
I didn’t make any corral improvement but finished the XL which is a thing by itself.
Will do a proper race report when I get home, but yeah I was questioning my life choices on Lap 2.
Congrats to all. Serious question though. I’m an experienced racer (even have won a couple of gravel races in the last few years) and came into the season with a reasonable base and have been following the TR Grand Fondo plan really well since December (High Volume). This was a B race for me, but I came in relatively well rested…but I did terrible! I just didn’t have it today. I was nearly an hour off the age group winner. My question is, did anyone who is following a TR plan do well? Well can mean either well for you or well “overall”. I’m questioning if the TR approach is effective.
Is this for XL or Gravel?
Fort Ord is really up, down or into the wind. 
For a race of those distances you need to have some of those really big, long endurance days (that’s what was missing in my plan due to time availability). Due to the amount of climbing (8-9k in the XL) you are probably either doing VO2 or trying to recover at tempo/sweet spot. Downhills aren’t much reprieve as you need to stay focused due to ruts and sand. Your legs aren’t doing much work but heart rate is still high.
I did the gravel race but made my own plan. Long tempos, 30/30s, lots of 3-5 min reps at VO2 were the meat of my training plan. Didn’t do much threshold as I wasn’t going to be in that zone much.
But that’s me.
I had a good race in that I finished, second lap was harder (duh) but I had the energy to stay pretty close - often times faster - than lap one efforts, and I feel pretty good today after a recovery ride on Saturday.
I too feel that some longer + harder days would have helped my results. The chatter on some of the descents from the brake bumps made even pointing down hard.
Physically, I believe TR was great. the only thing I needed was some long days on rough roads/ trails in order to help bring up my IF a bit.
Solid video recap of XL. Amazing how fast the pros are… pushing almost 14 mph up lookout! 
Probably the best grand prix video so far IMO and definitely has me excited for the season. The on course e-bikers, helicopter & drone footage really heightened the race coverage.
On that note… noticed there was a crash on the first turn heading out from Leguna Seca (9:03) again… and who was crashed at 17:28? Was that the same spot from a couple years ago?
Thanks for the replies. Good to hear how others are doing. I just compared my 2 and 3 hour NP to the 100 mile Shasta Gravel Hugger I did about 6 weeks ago and it looks like my power was up about 15-20 w for those durations, so maybe TR is working and that I’m just slower than I’d like 
It was John Borstelmann that crashed at 17:28. I think that was the bumps turning into the bottom of 36. It is one of those hard sand humps that just keeps slowly eroding away. Hit those low enough and you get traction, but if you catch it a the right angle, you’ll have minimal contact patch, but all the same weight. At that point the sand just brakes lose and all your traction is just gone.
The 2022 crash was the same sort of bump, I think 39 to 38. It was on the Gravel course that year and sketchy AF, because it was a bump, drops into some eroded sand, then a huge bump on the other side. Try to do any inputs on the front that require traction and BAM! on the ground.
I really enjoyed the XL- went in with pretty attainable goals (finish, don’t get lapped by the leaders) and am planning on coming back next year with a bit more focus on performance.
A pre-ride would have helped make the first lap a little less nervous, but rain and life got in the way. Huge thanks to @webdev511 and everyone else for all the course information leading up to the race.
As one of the single speeders, I was a bit worried about my gear selection. Ended up going with a conservative 46/28 that was OK but a bit frustrating on the gentle descends and flat sections.
Hope to see everyone again next year!
Same here that was rough. I lined up in the wrong group and had to give chase when the 40-49’s got released. Ended up passing 70 people and ending in 40th place… Was totally smoked after teh first lap and just hanging on for dear life after that
Was there an outfit doing race pictures for purchase for any of the races? Asking for a me, as I’m my own best friend, until I blow off some eat prompts then I don’t get along with me as well as I used to.
I did terrible here too. The other XC races I’ve run don’t have the same amount of single track, nor the sheer number of steep punches that are required. It’s hard to separate which part of it was my fitness and which part of it was how I attacked the course. Big learning experience for me though, so was worth the time!
I definitely saw people taking pictures
Makes you wonder…. Does the chip timing get you as you cross the start? So if you start later are you given a chip time or gun time? What if someone started in an earlier wave?
I am pretty sure that official timing is from the gun time for your registered wave though to chip time for crossing the line. I think technically you could be ranked #1 for the whole event if you started in a later wave and got within 5 minutes of the winner, but that doesn’t seem at all likely.
