Finishing work for the day around 2pm, I enjoyed a luncheon of Asda own brand Fruit and Fibre with some additional nuts (two whole pecans, two whole almonds, one and a half brazils, and a handful of sultanas – I do spoil myself) as we were fresh out of bread. So no sandwiches for Chris.
Giving that bowl of true indulgence a chance to settle, I was on the bike around 3.15pm, but mucked around first seeing if I could get GTA 5 Bike mod installed. Well, it turns out GTA 5 was not installed (no surprises, as I have just re-installed my gaming PC), so I set that off on download. 88 gigabytes. Absolutely mental. They fit an entire universe on a floppy disk (Elite) back in the day… jeez Louise.
After mucking around with GTA 5, it was about 3.30. I decided I’d just do another SST Session and that should see me right for tomorrow’s initial stage of the Zwift Tour de France ride.
Queuing up the ride, I did just happen to spot that there was a Crit City race starting at 3.45pm, and I briefly umm-ed and ahh-ed over whether or not I should get involved.
Well, I figured I’d have to enter the B Category, what with getting “disqualified” via Zwift Power if riding in C.
And actually it was that that swayed it. I figured I didn’t have too much pressure on in B. I’m pretty much bottom of the group as it’s 3.3-4.1w/kg, so I had nothing to lose. Except, well, a bit of pride / ego. But what the hell, I don’t have much of that anyway – have you seen my prior results?
And so I used the ten minute gap before the start of the race to do a hot lap of the Volcano.
Probably a little too hot, truth be told. I went into the red too soon, and only had a couple of minutes left before the event kicked off in order to try and settle myself down and get ready for what was to come.
In some ways jumping in to the event with very little time to think about it was helpful.
Out of the gate I was with the pack, but they were pushing me well into the red. Unsustainably so.
My mind was on sticking with the front pack as long as I could. In my head I had lap 4 as my target. If I could hold on with the front bunch until lap four, I’d feel alright enough about getting dropped off the back at some point after that.
The early few laps were punishing.
In particular the little hilly section after the first hairpin bend is where things seem to really get shaken up.
Within the first two laps the first rider had fallen off the back after the hills. I was consistently holding on the rear, and those around me seemed to be well into the 4w/kg’s, which really had me panting.
I managed to get a couple of helpful power ups – one feather, and two draft helpers. I misused the feather, dropping it too early. But the draft power ups really helped on both laps.
I think 13:13 is the fastest I’ve ever done 10km… ever.
And boy was I feeling it.
Yet, somehow, I was holding on.
I’ve seen it before in races like this where I’ve fallen off the pack, only to see their average wattages dip later in the race. If only I had been able to keep with them, the easing of the pace was just a few KM’s away.
Well, today I did manage to keep with them.
So when the easing came, boy howdy was I relieved. You can see it clearly in the graph, suddenly there’s a hint of green, and not quite as much red.
After the half way point, and realising I’d managed to smash my own little target of holding on past lap 4, I started to think about the finish.
Again, nothing too crazy here. I wasn’t expecting to win it or anything. But I did start to plot how far things were in terms of the finish line. Get some perspective on distances, gauging my points as to how long I could sustain a big uptick in watts.
I knew I’d struggle on the roller section. If I could keep a decent position through these, I could – by and large – do a fair bit of mid-pack coasting during the remainder of the lap.
Unfortunately during the rollers my heart rate was pushing upwards of 190bpm, and it was taking me a good minute or so to recover after this.
I was frankly amazed to still be in with a shot of a top ten position come the final lap.
No doubt about it, I was hurting. This was hard.
I couldn’t work out if the front runners had suddenly dropped us or what, as frankly I wasn’t paying a huge amount of attention to the screen for large chunks of the lap. I was head down, sweating, trying not to die.
The end was, of course, a sprint finish. I saw people around me pushing double digits in the w/kgs but the best I could do was a ~7 or so… at least, that’s all I saw. Sadly not enough left in the tank by that point to be in any real contention.
But happy enough with how it went all the same.
When it had all finished, and I’d come back to my senses, I figured that this ride must have been a new record for me. Frankly it seemed harder than my most recent other hard af effort, so I was hoping to see an uptick in FTP.
Zwift had me down as 10th, Zwift Power has me down as 7th.
No idea how I averaged 3.8w/kg for 21 minutes. That just seems madness to me. Technically I have Zwift set at slightly a too high weight also, but only by a kilo. I have lost yet more weight as of late, now down to 10 stone 6lb. I really should update this.
Bit concerned I’ve absolutely smashed myself ahead of the 9am Tour de France Stage 1 Zwift ride tomorrow, mind.
But at this point I’m happy to do that as a fairly laid back affair. See how it goes.
As ever the Zwift read outs and end of ride reports are a bit messed up. It’s not really showing that this was my most intense ride ever. But it was.
And it certainly felt like it.
Not to say I didn’t enjoy it, but it was a tough one today. Glad I’d had the rest day yesterday, and honestly glad I did this as a spur-of-the-moment / last minute kinda thing, as often the anxiety of the waiting for the event gets to me and freaks me out.
At this point it’s a case of enjoying tomorrow’s ride as best I can – bit disappointed it’s not a new map yet. Just another trip up the radio tower :/
But also I do have GTA 5 almost downloaded, so I have that to enjoy during the week, as we are due rain from now until the end of time, it seems. Such is the UK summer.
Clearly the key factor in today’s ride was the bowl of Asda own brand Bran Flake. I need to get on to Walmart about a sponsorship. It really is a tasty meal, particularly with added nuts for variety. Bits of dried banana in there if you’re lucky.
And keeping with the Asda theme, I rewarded myself with one of the kids Asda own brand rip offs of the Feast ice lolly after my cool down. The diet of champions.
