Donovan's story: Sea Otter Classic

BaseCamp athlete Donovan Mathias shared his experience at the 2026 Sea Otter Classic bike race in California.

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Inspired by Coach Tina's parting comments from the 2025-2026 winter program, I went out of my comfort zone and registered for the Laguna Seca circuit race as part of the Sea Otter Classic. Coming out of the winter program, I purchased a Coach Tim training plan to bridge the gap to the event.

I went to Monterey the day before the event to pick up my packet and try to orient myself. Whoa! It was really intimidating! I made my way to the hotel for the night and had very unkind thoughts about Coach Tina. ;) At one point I called a friend of mine who is a former pro, and he had much good advice, "Start in a big gear. It is okay to get dropped right away. Watch the lines at the porta-potties before the start. And no one but you will care how you do."

Race day was early, cool, and pretty disorganized. There was no indication of how to get to the start line, and a group of us were pedaling around the infield until we came across someone who had raced the event before. She just pulled open a gate and led us all onto the track.

The gun went off, and I thought back to the BaseCamp Zwift racing. Yes, I was in a big gear and went HARD off the line. I found myself in the top 5-10 spots when we made the turn for the climb up to the corkscrew. Much like the BaseCamp events, I found myself alone and hoping a group would catch up to share the work. It turned out to be an amazing and hard 45 minutes. It took a few laps to get used to the track but by the end was nothing but fun. When it was over, I was beat and looking forward to 2027 (spoiler, no circuit race at Sea Otter 2027).

My friend was wrong about one thing...after the event, not even I cared how I placed. :)

Fresh off the excitement of the circuit race, I decided to show up for the XC race the last day of SO.

Note: I haven't seriously ridden MTB since college and registered when a buddy and I agreed to give the course a try together. He bailed. I was going to bail but decided to 1) show up, 2) start slow, 3) stay out of the fast riders' way, and 4) finish.

This experience could not have been more opposite to the circuit race! I drove down the morning of the event and wound up in a long line of cars trying to park. I rushed to the start line, and my head unit wouldn't turn on (in spite of charging and testing the night before). Foreshadowing? According to the announcer, my age group of the XC race was the single largest start of the weekend. So much for goal three above. We moved to the line just in time to hear sirens and see emergency vehicles heading toward the course. We wound up with an extended hold time due to a serious crash in the previous group.

When the gun went off, I was pretty tense and just hung with the group. Of course, once we turned on to the single track, everything got hard and fast. At this point it was single file and hard to pass on the climbs (and get passed on the descents). We weren't that far into the race when the course became really rough on a steep descent...there were water bottles everywhere on the trail. About this point I made a rookie mistake and found myself off course lying in the bushes. Bike okay. Rider okay except for the pride. Carry on. After two more close calls, I accepted that I was in over my head and that there was no way I could ride at my pace and stay out of the way of the groups behind me. I took the first bailout option and reflected on, "We succeed or we learn." Learn a lot I did.

Turns out during my crash I lost my phone. First learning, phone and keys in zippered pockets!!

While pretty disappointing, in retrospect it was a a valuable experience. It motivated me to work on the skills needed and give it a go again in 2027 (my buddy promises to join this year 😉.

Afterword: When I got back home, I was able to track my phone, and Avery (the content creator for the YouTube channel Alexey and Avery and The Cooldown with Keegan and Alexey) had picked it up while shooting B roll. Another drive to Monterey, and I was able to recover my phone! I was pretty sore the next day and wound up in urgent care for what turned out to be an unrelated issue...all good now but complicated the summer training.

And...thanks for the push, Tina, it was a great experience!