This one went about as well as expected.
Once more I misjudged the route. I checked it out last night in the app, and when I saw the curly loop around I, yet again, figured we were doing the full reverse Hilly KOM.
But no.
This one is the same route that starts at the bottom of the Reverse Hilly KOM, takes the first steep corner, and then turns off early, cutting out all the rest of the climb and immediately dumps you on to the down hill section back to Downtown Watopia.
So that’s to say that I tried to pace my first climb thinking I had much more to go, but by the time I saw the front runners turning off early, I was already dropped.
No big deal. A typical race result really.
Eagle eyed readers will notice today that there are far fewer pictures than usual.
The reasoning for this is that on Sunday, after my walk, I leaned forwards to undo my boot laces whilst still outside waiting for the front door to be unlocked, and in doing so, my phone dropped out of my pocked and smashed.
To cut a long story short, I have switched from Android to iPhone for the first time… not quite sure whether that was the right decision just yet, truth be told. But as a result, I’m having a bunch of teething issues.
Some of the issues today were:
- No music, forgot to connect my headphones via Bluetooth before hand
- Even if I had, I literally have no music on the phone anyway
- The Zwift App wouldn’t connect, except for if I turned off WiFi, reconnected it, re-opened the app, then pulled down to hard refresh… and even then it kept dropping almost immediately.
- Phone not connected to the Garmin
Probably others. I can’t remember them all.
I have to say it was truly weird not to be constantly tapping my phone for screenshots. I do like how I have that as a distraction when the going gets tough.
Speaking of the going getting tough though, it was about 15 minutes into the ride when I realised I’d basically been flat out since the off. I desperately wanted to ease off, but in my head I figured I might as well push on and try for the full 20 minutes. Something of an FTP road test. Always fun.
In the end I managed to do the full race, barring 30 seconds on the second and final descent of the reverse KOM where I was pushing my hardest at all times. I managed a really impressive (by my recent standards) 3.6w/kg for the full 22 minute 18 second time it took me to complete the race. There was no standing during this period.
Zwift clocked me in at 246w average for the 21 minutes 22 seconds.
I was not expecting this, but my God I worked for it. Shame it doesn’t reflect much in finishing 31st of 36 riders according to Zwift Racing App. I’m so out of my depth in B Cat it’s ridiculous.
