For this evening’s ride I took part in my third race of the Tour de Zwift 2020, this time hitting Watopia’s Hilly Route in reverse.
Unfortunately I hit technical difficulties on this one, so it would appear that my race has no been counted this time. More on that later.
For a midweek race night, this one was fairly well attended. 245 riders in Category C, not quite sure of the final numbers in the other categories, but certainly a solid turn out for a 17:12 start on a miserable Tuesday night.
Being completely unprepared, I thought this one was Watopia’s Hilly KOM forward route. Alas no, this was the reverse route. And that was enough to throw me almost immediately.
As usual the start was hard, and I fared only slightly than normal on the Esses. Being fairly fresh, and hitting them in reverse made them a little bit easier than usual, but I still wasn’t particularly comfortable with the constantly undulating rollers.
I’d perhaps gone a touch too hard in my pre-ride warm up, or maybe it’s the constant high intensity rides at the moment that is catching up on me, but almost immediately this one turned into a struggle.
At various points in both laps I found myself isolated. During the first half of the first lap I managed to pick up a feather power up and imagined myself picking up a bunch of places – or simply getting back in with a group – when hitting the 10% part of the reverse KOM.
This kinda worked. I managed to put in a fairly solid burst and sit in with a strong pack towards the top. Gearing went OK, smoother than expected, but I definitely mistimed the second little climb after the first steep turn.
Heading over the top, through the KOM arch, and then onto the descent was the first of two major mistakes for me today.
Feeling quite tired after the effort, I decided to opt for a cheeky super tuck on the descent.
What I drastically failed to realise is that if everyone around you is in a pack, and they keep pedalling, you will get dropped like a stone.
And so I did. I watched as the small group I’d fought so hard to stick with prior too, and then up the climb left me completely in the dust.
I tried, twice, to press on and rejoin them, but there was frankly no chance. They weren’t letting up, and collectively they were simply waaay too fast for me.
Frustrated with myself, tired, and with a 16 second gap between me and the closest rider behind me, I had to accept that my race as it had been up until this mistake was now over.
I found it really hard to shake this from my mind, and I was left kicking myself for pretty much the remainder of the race. I feel this had a negative impact on my physical performance from this point onwards also, as my pace dipped.
It’s a solid lesson learned.
As we hit the start of the second lap I tried, in vain, to make the new pack I was with quicken their pace in an attempt to catch the pack that had just dropped me.
I wasn’t strong enough to do this. And again, this contributed to just kicking me when I was already feeling down. My legs felt more and more tired, worse so than if I didn’t have my brain working against me.
Where things had gone well for me on the first lap in terms of power ups, on the second lap no feathers were to be found. I had some small hopes of using my weight to my advantage up the second stint on the reverse KOM, but my performance was nothing special when push came to shove.
At this point it became a fight to make it to the line without starting to drop even further down the board.
Hitting the top of the KOM I managed to pick up an Aero power up, and decided the best use for this would be in the final sprint to the line.
By the time we’d made the second descent down the steep part of the KOM (this time remembering to keep pedaling!) I found myself in a head to head with a single other rider.
I saved my power up till 300m to go, downed a gear and bolted for the line.
Getting within less than 100m to go… disaster…
My WiFi dropped out and took a good minute to kick back in. By this point I’d crossed the line but seemingly if your connection drops your time is not registered.
Sad trombone.
It wasn’t going to be a world beating time. But it’s disappointing to not have my race registered none the less.
I have no idea where I finished, but at a guess 154th? I’ll never know how my head to head sprint finished, which is annoying.
Anyway, congrats to the winners, and to all who took part.
Whilst not my finest hour, and whilst incredibly disappointing not to place, it was a solid workout. I must be down to about 1500 calories left to go on the January 10k calorie challenge by now. That’s something.
Perhaps I over did it in my warm up.
I have a bunch of confusing thoughts about things that I could have done better today. I messed up in several places, the descent error being the most critical. It’s all a learning exercise.
Looking ahead, I will be doing the next Tour de Zwift Stage 3 Group Ride on Thursday night.
I may opt to take tomorrow as a rest day, or go for a very easy, and potentially fairly short ride tomorrow. I’m not sure at this stage. Physically and mentally I guess I didn’t really want to do this ride today. Sometimes that’s how I feel on a Tuesday. And certainly I’m not used to racing this much, or midweek.
Also I think Zwift is getting very confused with me doing a warm up as a workout prior to the race, and then exiting the workout directly into the race. It seems to be screwing up the ride names in the companion app, and in Strava / Training Peaks.
Let’s forget about today and focus on the next ride.
