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Who chooses these routes? Best of is entirely subjective, let me tell you.
See, back in my youth, playing a game of Total Annihilation was a fun experience. I was actually pretty good at it. Heck, I’d compete way more than twice a week.
Now that I’m 41, getting totally annihilated twice a week is a lot less fun.
![](https://i0.wp.com/cyclingindoors.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/best-of-2023-stage-2-castle-to-castle-b-4.jpg?resize=825%2C464&ssl=1)
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Anyway, more of the same this week.
Typically I don’t do that badly on my mid-week race. However, I’m wondering if I’m suffering now from mega fatigue. It feels like all I have done lately is hard workouts and / or races.
No rest on that front for the rest of this week. I still have Race #2 of the Zwift Academy 2023 to see out on Thursday. That’s three laps of Richmond UCI Worlds Circuit, and then there’s Saturday’s 81 minute Workout #6 to finally finish off the ZA2023.
Yikes.
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Unlike in the Zwift Academy races, we were back to a fairly normal field size today. I think the total rider count was 55 at the gate.
Typically I find myself finishing in the final third, so I was looking at or around a potential finishing spot of 35th or higher. Rough estimates of course.
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Straight away the pace was high. Not much unusual there.
Sometimes you get lucky, though.
Sometimes the pace does slacken off a tad as you get past the first kilometre or so.
Not today.
I had to gun it early doors just to keep on the pack on the first 3% uptick of the day, and I knew there and then it was going to be savage.
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Sure enough, 5km in I got dropped.
Actually though, why I got dropped was a little worrying. I tried to keep up, but I suddenly got pins and needles down my arms and legs, and so I just immediately called a safety and eased off.
Well, I say eased off, I mean I dropped my pace to about 95% FTP for the next 20 minutes.
During that time I was fortunate enough to ride with another person, who forced me – in a nice way – to keep my average pace higher than I would have otherwise.
I should say that I only did this because I felt I could. As in, I didn’t feel like I was going to die – I figured the pins and needles may have come from sitting on a nerve after I’d been out of the saddle in that early attempt to stay with the bunch. I didn’t think it was a heart attack or similar.
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I want to say that we kept up a decent clip for that ~20 minute effort.
The truth of it is, it was mainly the other rider doing all the work. I was maxed and unable to give much of anything, let alone any big pulls.
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Inevitably a larger, faster group was eating up the distance behind us. I could see the front of that bunch – a couple of riders – consistently sitting over 4w/kg, chewing down the kilometres faster than we would have time to reach the finish line ahead of them.
They caught us with about 5km to go. No surprises.
It took a pretty big effort just to stick with them.
In fact I found this particularly challenging. Their average pace was about 40kph, which on my already thrashed legs was a big ask.
From this point on I was highly inconsistent, relying on small out of the saddle surges, and much needed power ups to keep on the last wheel.
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The last few kilometres seemed to go by at a glacial crawl. I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
At around 1.2km to go, we hit the final arch that gave a power up, and everyone sprung theirs. I got a feather and held on, using their draft.
My plan was to go at around the 200m marker, but I ended up dropping the feather and ‘sprinting’ at 300m-ish.
You know it’s bad when you look up expecting like 50m to go, and it’s just dropped below 200… ouch.
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I have no idea how I did compared to those around me. I crossed the line and collapsed in a heap, pouring sweat into the towel and trying to get my heart rate back in to triple digits 🙂
Well, that’s what it felt like.
Absolutely dead.
And I think I’ve done my left knee in for my troubles.
A real result then. Got to keep up the fight for … 36th.
Jeepers creepers. And another one to go on Thursday. Anyone want to swap?