Onwards, into Stage 3 of Zwift’s Race Like A Pro series. And today’s race was over France’s R.G.V route, a mostly flat, very fast single lap of 25km with 129m of climb. Note that this is slightly more climb than the official route itself, as there was a short lead in. I know that now… but it caught me out during the race.
Being somewhat blessed with extra time for cycling at the moment, I decided to get on the bike 30 minutes early and do a pre-race warm up. I am aware of some race specific warm ups, but once I got in game I couldn’t find one. With time ticking down I selected Openers, a workout from Zwift’s Racing series of workouts. It wasn’t the right choice.
I’ll admit to only reading the first sentence of the workout preamble. The part about this being a great workout to do before your race. It was only once in the workout and already pedalling that I realised this was to be done the day before your race. Whoops.
I figured I’d do the first few intervals and then skip out and spend the last 5 minutes before the race doing a spin in the start pens.
However, once I’d done the 12 minute ramp up I figured doing the 3 minutes at 270w would be a bad idea. I had looked last night on Zwift Power to check out the results of Monday’s Stage 3 races. As best I could recall they had been ~25 minutes for the front runners to finish. I figured if I was on the edge for 25 minutes, having done a 3 minute 270w effort would probably see me burn out.
Well, that was my excuse anyway, so I skipped through the rest of the workout and did a few kilometres at tempo before jumping into the pens. It was probably for the best as it wasn’t only the climbing metres on this one that I got wrong… the average finish time for the front runners is around the 33.5 minute mark. Double whoops.
With all the work crap I’ve had on over the last few months I thought I was done with anxiety. Alas, no.
One of the reasons I was on the bike so early today was the thought of this one was making me edgy. The longest race yet, and both flat and fast. Would I be able to keep up?
Almost immediately today I messed up. Wanting to get some of my usual screenshots I found that the Zwift App had crashed just as we hit the GO banner. Unfortunately I didn’t get any screenshots of the first 500m of the race as a result.
Whilst messing around with the app I was very much in danger of being dropped. It took a strong effort to get back on the front group, though today that front group was huge. By huge I mean something around 80 or so of the 100 riders who started were one giant bunch.
As seems normal now in these Race Like A Pro races there was only a handful of power ups on offer. Today we had:
- The Burrito
Disable draft for any riders around you for 10 seconds - The Ghost
Makes you invisible for 10 seconds - The Feather
Everyone’s second favourite racing power up – good for climbs, friends with the aero helmet
As soon as we passed the 1km start banner – lead in done – we all got our first power up. Burritos appeared the order of the day, and without realising it I was once more in danger of falling off the back, having lost the draft. It took yet another concerted effort to get back on. Thank God I hadn’t bothered with those 3 minutes at 270w in the warm up.
From here on out it became a case of riding as conservatively as possible.
Having done some pre-ride recon I knew there were two sections to this map that would cause the chaos.
The first is the Aquaduc KOM Reverse. That would be the only true climb of the map. Short and fast, it is more of an uphill sprint than a climb.
And then second, in the latter stages of the map, starting about 4km out from the line come a section of rollers.
The only thought on my mind was positioning and pacing. From the Crit City race late last week I was aware of the necessity to get a good entry into the climb, ideally in the bunch which would use the momentum and draft boost to pull me up faster for the same exertion.
Assuming I could get to the top with the pack, it would be a case of clinging on for dear life into the inevitably rapid descent.
Again, my pre-ride recon came somewhat undone in that I was expecting the Aquaduc KOM Reverse somewhere around the 11km marker. It actually came around the 13km mark, and as such I’d mistimed my approach a few times already. Whoops.
The pack had the knowledge though. From around the 12.5km mark the pace suddenly ramped. A noticable split emerged between the strongest riders on the front and the rest of us. I thought I might manage to bridge, but no. Hitting the top of the climb I was cooked and the front runners left me for dust.
Thankfully I wasn’t alone.
As there had been such a large group hitting the bottom of the KOM it was pretty much a guarantee that some of the riders would be a similar make up to me, and would also need recovery and fellow riders to sit with.
Ahead it was a case that two groups had formed on the descent. There was a sizeable front group – maybe 25 riders – and then a smaller group a second or so behind, of what looked like 10 to 15 people.
Unfortunately I had absolutely nothing in me to catch them. Descents are not my strong point – the weight loss does not play in my favour. Frustratingly it doesn’t seem to help much on the ascents either, but let’s not get into that right now.
At this point I figured my race was kinda done. Down in ~50th it was going to be a bit of a disappointing finish position, considering I’ve managed ~30s for the last two.
Following the descent there were a couple of kilometres of consolidation. What had started as a small bunch of 5 or 6 had double up to 10. Ahead, the two groups that had emerged had converged once more into a single pack, and several of the stronger riders in our group successfully bridged on to the back of them with 8km or so to go. A strong effort, and one that I got pulled along on for free.
At this point it became all about what would happen in the rollers.
I had grand visions of managing to cling on in the pack, riding smart (and ideally, not that hard), and be in contention with what would likely be a huge bunch finish.
The pace slowed here as the group seemed to be catching its breath. Some chatting even took place, which is unusual in my experience, particularly for a late stage of a race.
It was the chat itself that seemed to trigger the break. Around 3km or so to go, one of the riders said they needed to stop speaking and start concentrating.
At that point the faster guys put the hammer down and … well, so long.
Once more, two groups were formed. The front guys left us for dust.
My group seemed strong, certainly strong enough for me. I was maxing for each roller and recovering at threshold, very grateful indeed to see less than 1km left to go. Also at this point I was cursing my pre-ride recon of the climbing for the race – thinking we would be in for 107m as per Zwift Insider’s route description, yet seeing >130m on the boards. Ouch.
Holding a ghost power up I decided to drop this with 800m or so left to go, and put down a “sprint”.
I do put sprint there in quotes deliberately, as 6w/kg doesn’t constitute a sprint in B Category.
But that’s all I had left.
And I’d gone far, far too early.
Whoops.
With 300m to go my power up expired and … no, I wasn’t out in front. But I was in a good spot. If only I could keep up the pace…
No.
The riders behind me killed me in the final 200m.
Really annoying as I feel like aside from the very most important part of the ride I had played this one as tactically well, and as efficiently as I could have hoped too.
Ahh well.
I tried. I really did.
I got a bit excited when I saw my post ride stats on Zwift:
But I trust the Garmin stats a little more:
Close then, but no cigar.
Actually I’m not surprised by this. As I say I tried to ride somewhat conservatively and sensibly today. Use the power where it mattered, but conserve energy as much as possible where it didn’t. As such I wasn’t expecting to set new records. But still, a close one.
I feel thrashed, honestly. The next race is next week – the gap between Christmas and New Year. It’s also the hardest race. Mercifully I do have some rest days before then.
However, for now, I have a few hours before I’m out for a Chinese. Got to get them calories back on somehow.
