This afternoon I took part in the second stage of the Tour of Watopia 2020. This was “The Loops” stage, and was a race in Category C of one lap of Sand and Sequoias.
It feels like as of late, I often start with excuses.
No major excuses today (just a bunch of minor ones).
I was feeling far from fresh going into this one. Even though I’ve only done two rides this week, both have been fairly exhausting, and this one was shaping up to be more of the same.
Being as Saturday’s usually are for me, I got less than 5 minutes warm up for this one. Bad times. Definitely would have benefited from 20 mins or so of very light spinning, I feel.
Straight out of the gate things were typical Zwift racing. Full on, at my limit just to keep up with the pack I had in front of me.
I feel my mistake – if you can call it that – at the moment is to think I am capable of sticking with the lead group. I am not not.
Not yet, anyway.
I mean, I can stick with them for a while, but sooner or later I inevitably get dropped.
What was surprising, to me at least, was that on this ride there was a break away. I’ve never seen this before. At least, not in person.
The front runner took off and I don’t think anyone in our group thought he realistically keep pulling away… or maybe we collectively figured we would catch him and reel him back in.
Not so.
The front runner dropped all of us like a stone. Fair play. Perhaps not a true Cat C rider. Or maybe I’m just a big old cynic.
By the half way point – in terms of ride distance – I had been pretty much at threshold for the full time. I’d tried to sneak in small spots of recovery – but even these were caught at like 2.8w/kg. Most of the time I was at between 3.1 and 3.5w/kg. I’m OK at 3.1, but higher is largely unsustainable for me.
Still, it felt good to still be with the bulk of the front runners.
However I was deeply uncertain about how I was about to fare on the hilly portion of the lap.
Not for the first time in a Zwift race, I found myself quickly dropped off the back of the pack when we hit the rollers.
Disappointingly I didn’t even make it to the top of the rise out of Fuego Flats with the front bunch. That was depressing.
However, I consoled myself with thoughts that realistically I am just not that fit. So, who the heck am I trying to kid by keeping up with them?
Yeah, not the most consoling of thoughts to be fair.
Regardless of being dumped, I was still sitting fairly well in 27th. Not bad going for a hacker like myself.
Sadly though, I was unable to maintain a consistent pacing.
And this made me think:
Perhaps for racing I should ditch the realistic riding difficulty and just stick to a steady cadence?
However, a large part of me thinks that is only cheating myself.
Still, it would be certainly interesting to compare.
It was mid way through the Jurassic World portion of the lap that a small group behind me caught me up.
Excellent, I thought, I’ll just stick with these guys instead.
Alas, not so.
Try as I might, I just didn’t have the legs to stick with them, either.
Sad times.
Again, I was dropped.
The steady climbing KOM portion of the route went average at best. I found a rhythm but it wasn’t great. As best I recall, most of this portion was done at 3.1w/kg, but that was the maximum.
I was really struggling by this point.
Cresting the KOM there was little in the way of respite.
Whilst the climb had been tackled largely by myself and one other rider, on the descent another four or five riders joined us.
During the descent I realised what this portion of the track reminds me of:
The Esses.
Yeah… not my fav part of Zwift, to be fair. I really struggle with these little up-and-down roller type hills.
I think I need to suck it up and practice riding on them, over and over.
Once down and back on to the flats I was much more comfortable. And this was partly because the pace slipped back to around 2.9-3.0w/kg. But also partly because I find it so much easier to be consistent here. It felt more like slipping back into the routine – a bit like a standard SST session.
That said, if I had been tired earlier, by this point I was absolutely knackered. My legs were screaming at me: “Just get it over with!”
As the little pack had slowed somewhat, I decided to push the tempo up a little higher, taking them up to 3.1w/kg at the front for a kilometer or so.
Then, with 1km left to go, I raised it up to 4.1w/kg, knowing this pace was fairly unsustainable but hoping to tire legs before the final sprint.
With 500m to go, and me being fairly maxed out, at least four of the others went for it.
I tried to follow but have no idea what numbers I was putting out. I think I saw ~7w/kg as I pushed for the line, but I only managed to sneak one place. The rest had well and truly beaten me.
All this being said, I feel if I had been fresher I definitely could have done slightly better today.
Whilst I don’t think I could have remained with the front runners much beyond where I’d got dropped, I would like to think I could have stuck with the second bunch for much longer than I had managed on this occasion.
Still, I definitely gave it a solid 9/10 today, and am pleased with how things went overall.
One hugely reassuring number from today’s ride was in hitting 3.2w/kg average for the race.
Really pleased with that figure. Considering how tired I felt going into the race, I’m frankly amazed I was able to do that well.
Other good news bits and pieces:
- Hit my 100km weekly riding goal – kinda crazy in 3 rides
- Hit the 3hr riding goal
- Burned over 500 calories
Also good today – the 20 and 30 minute critical power figures. Not quite my best, but very close.
Tomorrow is two more laps of Sand and Sequoias on the Stage 2 Longer Group Ride.
Bit meh on that one. Going to take it easier, I feel.
Kinda crazy ‘cus Stage 3 sees the Longer Group Ride heading up the Alpe du Zwift. I didn’t know that was included in this years Tour of Watopia. And whilst I’m glad it is, it sucks that the rides fall on Mon-Fri this week… so it’s either before or after work.
And I can only imagine how knackered I’m going to be after that and doing a race in the same week. Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans.
