A little late in to the week, and definitely feeling this one in the legs even before I got underway, we set off on Zwift’s July 2023 racing series, this month titled “Beach Party”.
For Stage 1 we were tackling three laps of Fine and Sandy.
At some point earlier this week I was sure I had read that this was ~32km with ~180m of climbing. Give or take. However, yesterday I read somewhere else – not sure where right now – that this was 23km.
It’s entirely possible that it was a typo. Or that I had misread 23 as 32, or vice versa.
Even so, I was caught out today when we got underway and yes, it definitely was the 32km variant, not the 23km one I had thought.
It’s interesting that these races are billed as being a one hour workout, such that each race should only take approximately one hour to complete, which is also including the warm up and cool down.
Definitely not the case today.
I was on early, so that definitely contributed to my longer time than planned on the bike. But with a 30km distance to cover, even at Zwift speeds, once you throw in some climbs (of which there was a healthy 6 repeats of the Mech Isle Climb today, that time estimate was certainly pushing it.
By comparison, some of the recent races have been easily half this distance. I’m not complaining, just be aware that this one is pretty much your whole dinner break (and more), if you do things like I do.
I said yesterday that this one was going to be a struggle. Basically, I expected to get dropped on the very first climb. Which I did. And the very first climb comes 1.6km into the race… so yeah, out the back and that’s that.
I won’t bore you with my oft-repeated rant about Zwift’s ridiculously wide categorisation system, but once we had done the first climb the maximum spot I could hope to achieve would have been 20th.
So it became a solid workout, more than a race.
Fortunately though, I wasn’t the only one to be dropped. What ended up happening was a small bunch of us grouped up, racing for that coveted 🥇 20th place Gold medal 🥇
Even in that pack I knew I wasn’t going to come out on top. Each climb was where I struggled, and those climbs were on us often.
Each lap begins with a trip up the Mech Isle Climb. From there it’s a fairly long recovery of around 12 minutes before you do the climb again just before the end of the lap.
But then the climb at the start of the next lap comes very quickly… and so it repeats, each lap. Of which there were three. Tiring, to say the least.
Tiring, but good.
I feel I did alright on each climb. I was fortunate to get some feathers, not for every attempt, but for a good number of them. They definitely helped.
There were plenty of times were my pace was drifting and, had I not had that group around me, my pace would have dropped and my time would have been far slower.
I think my only real fail came at the very end of this one.
Knowing the four other riders around me were outpacing me on every climb, I figure it would be a challenge to get a good ranking – 20th was the best as previously mentioned, but I was expecting 24th, unless something magical happened.
Well, like an absolute gibbon I went far, far too early.
At 700m out I’d begun my push…
And at 500m out I was spent 😀
Hilarious.
I was then promptly left several seconds back as the bigger boys showed me how it was done.
Whoops.
Anyway, an enjoyable race – largely thanks to the good company. The actual circuit was brutal. My knees are feeling it right now. Heck, I was tired during my warm up. 37km or whatever I ended up doing didn’t help that.
Who knows what’s in store for next week though?
Between now and then I am hoping to get in another stab at the Climb Portal. Surely that can’t be any harder. Surely?
