Wow. So I’m actually in quite a bit of pain after this one. And not for the reason you would probably think.
I cramped up so hard on this ride that my calf muscle is bruised. I’ve had this before, but never quite as painful as this one.
But, I guess that’s just a teaser as – fortunately – the cramp hit me about half way up the Alpe du Zwift.
Before that, we had two smaller climbs to get out of the way.
I’d planned to do this ride at midday. There was no way I wanted to “save” this one for Sunday morning. The idea being here that I’d hit this at noon, knowing it would take approximately 2 hours, and that the calorie burn would be so severe that I’d more than build up a deficit to enjoy a takeaway curry tonight with absolutely zero guilt.
By half ten this morning I was itching to get it done. Fortunately these Tour of Watopia 2023 events run on the hour for us GMT folk, so rather than wait till noon, I figured let’s just get this over and done with.
And so by 10:50 I was prepped and ready to go.
Of course, even with a decent amount of time to prep, I somehow still managed to forget to grab a banana (mid ride snack), and I left my bowl of tasty Sports Mixture just out of reach. But that’s a benefit of having children – they can go and grab you your essentials without you having to get off the bike.
Today’s route was Quatch Quest.
I’ve not done this route before, because I’m not crazy. Chances are, unless “forced”, this is one that would very much have remained unridden. But clearly the sadists at Zwift HQ looked at the stats, figured no one rides this route and thought, yeah, let’s fix that.
Looking back at the Queen Stage routes for the previous years Tour of Watopias, we typically done the Alpe du Zwift… but on its own. This time around it would be the third of three climbs.
The first would be Titan’s Grove Reverse KOM.
The second would be the Epic KOM.
And then after the somewhat unusual “other way around” the Jungle Circuit (descent only), we would be on the third and final climb of the day.
My plan was pretty simple, if a little naive.
I figured I’d do the transitions at tempo, and the climbs at the lower end of threshold.
That kind of worked for the first two. But I just couldn’t hold it on the Alpe.
I think I need to be a little more realistic on this, in hindsight. This was something of a learning experience, and I misjudged my pacing for sure.
I’m going to gloss over the first two climbs because I definitely paced the Titan’s Grove climb correctly. No issues there at all.
For the Epic KOM I feel I did alright, never really going too hard, chasing, or feeling like I was burning too much fuel considering what was ahead. I wanted to push myself without killing myself, and I reckon I did pretty good on this one.
My measuring stick was basically: will I come out of the top with a new PB?
If the answer was: yes, then I had royally screwed up. But I wasn’t even close, so all good.
Going into the bottom of the Alpe I was feeling pretty good. Still fairly fresh, but not “fresh fresh”. In fact I was very sweaty. But whatever. I had my banana in the transition and hit the bottom of the climb in good spirits. After all, I would say that the Alpe is one of my favourite routes on Zwift, which definitely helps with the pain somewhat.
Things went wrong by me aiming for 235w per corner.
That was the wrong move, in hindsight.
230w would have been a better target.
It sure doesn’t sound like much, but with 670m and an hour already in the legs just as I hit the bottom of the climb, I feel my target power was unrealistic.
What happened was that the first 5(?) corners went alright, but on each one I pushed slightly too hard to give me a buffer over the 235w target, so I could ease off a bit and let the average fall down towards 235w. But each time it got close I pushed up again too hard, and slowly but surely began to burn my reserves.
I really tried to keep up that 235w target but by corner 12 I had to concede to myself that it was an unrealistic expectation, and that I could allow myself to ease off for a few corners to recover. Secretly though I knew if I dropped off, I was unlikely to recover – even with recovery – so dropping was a bit of an admission of failure.
Easing off sounds good, but the truth is that on a relentless climb like the AdZ, dropping 10w barely feels any different. You just seem to be exerting the same effort but going 10x slower.
Somewhere around corner 8 a guy went past me stood up and, feeling a little numb in the bum, I decided that yeah, maybe that’s the solution.
Do a minute out of the saddle.
What could go wrong?
Well… yeah.
Horrendous cramp.
I could feel it as I was stood up – the tell tale signs. I would liken it to that scene in Alien where they can see the alien moving around under the skin. I can’t remember the details, but that’s exactly what it feels like it my head (or … err, leg) when it happens.
As soon as I felt it, I sat back down and tried – in vain – to spin it out.
That just made it worse. And worse.
Fortunately I do know what to do. Get off the bike and stretch it. But I’d left it too late. And the final nail in the coffin was the twisting heel motion to unclip, which sent me over the edge, and down on to the floor, moaning and groaning.
Jeepers creepers the pain.
I’m not even sure how long I was down on the floor. Minutes for sure. Long enough to stretch it out, which does solve the issue.
My wife brought me ibuprofen and a drink with an electrolyte sachet in. And then I figured well, why not just pedal on and see it out. It’s a weird thing, easy come, easy go.
There was still at least 20 minutes hard riding from that point on, but I really wanted to see it out.
Fortunately there were only a few threatening niggles from then on, but I definitely dropped the pace after this to something a little less ambitious.
I’m guessing it was a combination of fatigue and dehydration. I had been drinking water during the ride, but likely not enough. Always learning.
Those final ~5kms were a real slog, and I felt pretty down about losing so much time on that problem.
Bit nuts really.
Anyway, glad to have seen it through. Disappointed not to have a sub 60 Alpe, but I tried.
Hopefully that’s the hardest part of this years Tour of Watopia out of the way. I was thinking about some kind of ride tomorrow morning, but right now I reckon I’m going to skip it and take the rest.
Wew, that one was hardcore.
