When I woke up this morning I felt thrashed already. Not a great nights sleep. Up every 3 hours for no good reason.
However it wasn’t the bad sleep that had me not wanting to do today’s race. It was how my legs felt this morning after yesterday’s Stage 1 ride on the Tour of Watopia 2023 Ride ride. I put a lot into that one. Too much, probably. And regardless of how I usually do poorly in my races, today’s was down even on normal.
The route today would be two laps of the Beach Island Loop. That’s a pretty flat course with only 88m of total elevation over 25.9km.
At race pace, that shouldn’t take too long. Providing you can stick with the group.
I was struggling pretty much from the off.
The first lap was a slog. With the route being mostly flat, people took the few little risers as their chance to put the pressure on. Pretty much every time that happened I found myself drifting off the back, with several big efforts required throughout the first lap just to get back on.
I knew it was going to be a challenge to make it all the way to the line with the bunch.
Somehow I made it around lap 1 still in the pack.
But on the little climb out of downtown Watopia and up to the Volcano bridge turn off, I misjudged the necessary effort to stay with the pack up the hill, and whilst I did try to get back on, the level of effort needed just wasn’t within my legs today.
As such, at the start of lap 2 I was dropped.
Neither surprised, nor really that bothered, it became something of a slog to see out the remaining ~12km.
I was hoping the other rider, 6 or 7 seconds up the road, might slow slightly and we could work together to see it out. That wasn’t to be.
Instead a guy holding 4 w/kg behind took over me, where I promptly deployed my tactically reserved Draft Van, got myself a slight bit of momentum up one of the many little uphill gradients today, then promptly fell off his wheel once my power up timed out.
Such as it was, I never really saw anyone again after that. Just a grind to the line. On very tired legs.
I’m so glad tomorrow is a rest day. The Garmin reckons I need 3 days recovery now. I’d say personally I don’t feel far off that idea for once, either.
But that won’t happen. Saturday is the longer ride of Stage 1, so the legs will just have to cope.
Anyway, a slight dip in points on Zwift Racing App. My potential career as a pro feels to be slipping away from me.
