Heads up: I know these races do not come under the Tour of Makuri Islands. These are from the Race Makuri series. I covered this here. Whoops!
One down, and one final race to go. Two for the price of one today.
With Stage 5a in the bag, we had ~10 minutes to rest and recover before jumping straight into Stage 5b, the 6th and final event of Race Makuri.
Where the previous ride was flat and fast, this one was hilly and no doubt just as fast.
The route for this one was Valley to Mountaintop which is a fairly dirty / gravel road which, I believe, is best tackled on a gravel bike if every second counts. But let’s be real, it was unlikely to come down to mere seconds for me. And so I used whatever bike it is that I am currently configured to use… which I have forgotten.
With a ten minute breather between Stage 5a and 5b I was feeling alarmingly vibrant going into this one.
And as soon as we set off I was shown how naive that feeling truly was.
So I’m aware that on pretty much every Race Makuri event I have been able to stick with the bigger boys until the climbs. Once we hit the climbs I tend to get a sharp wake up call, and unceremoniously dumped out the back.
Today I couldn’t even stick with the front runners as they smashed their way up through the Golden Forest.
Actually I should call out that the Golden Forest is one of the nicest looking parts of Zwift. Every so often there are little sections of Zwift routes that are really pretty, and this is definitely one of them. Unsurprising then that there is a section here where the camera auto switches to a panoramic view.
There’s really two climbs to this route. The Golden Forest climb is a bit of a teaser – something to whet the whistle for the Temple KOM from Castle Side which is the true main event.
So it goes:
- start
- little down hill
- Golden Forest climb (1.36km @ 2.4% for 32m)
- little flat bit
- Temple KOM from Castle Side (1.88km @ 3.5% for 67m)
- Finish line at the top of the KOM
By the time we hit the start marker of the Temple KOM I was sitting in 28th.
But I wasn’t racing their race. Not for a climb.
For a climb I do it my way. There’s no point trying to keep up. I will blow up and that’s just pointless.
Instead I played this one a little differently today.
On a longer climb I’d tend to find a gear that lets me sit around 95rpm. Wattage-wise I’d aim for FTP.
Being a shorter effort though, I paced this one on the fly. No plan.
I was around 100rpm and for that I was keeping ~270w / ~4.0w/kg.
Was that sustainable?
Well… somehow, yeah, it was.
I actually surprised myself. Though I was very grateful to see the KOM arch on the mini map at around the 700m to go mark as I was really starting to flag. At one point I downed gears and dug in, just to try to bring up the pace, but that really threw my rhythm so I quickly reverted.
While I’d gone over the KOM start marker in 28th, I finished in 23rd.
At 2 minutes off the pace of 1st, and a minute behind 10th, it truly shows how far I’d have to go to be contending for those top ten spots.
But overall, very happy.
Not just with the two races today, but with the whole Race Makuri series. I’ve really, really enjoyed it.
This back-to-back stage was new to me and definitely a different challenge.
I’ve signed up for a new race series in December, can’t remember what it’s called off hand but I’m hoping it’s similar to the Race Makuri series – weekly racing.
I’ll see how I feel tomorrow about doing some kind of high intensity workout, but equally may treat myself to yet another hour at Zone 2. It’s all good for the legs, I’m sure.
For now though, rest.
