I knew this one was going to be tough for several reasons. Some are obvious:
- I’ve been dropped once already on the Aqueduc KOM this series
- Then today we would have the Petit KOM also
And some are less so:
- Lack of sleep last night
- One slice of toast 4 hours earlier was all I’d eaten
But whatever. I can throw out excuses all day long, we all know by now I’m never coming first, so what does it matter?
Not much.
The main thing is: turning up.
Turning up, and working as hard as I can, under the circumstances. As I say, I’m tired. Saturday night / Sunday morning was a terrible sleep. Then Sunday evening I slept for 12 hours. However, I woke up fresh, but not fully refreshed. Still suffering from dehydration, I think.
Then last night I couldn’t get to sleep. And when I did, nightmares. Bad times.
So today I’ve been thrashed.
And as I said back at the start, we hadn’t defrosted the frozen bread, so only one crust was available this morning. Not exactly the winning start to the day I imagine the Tour pros are used to, but then I’m no Tour pro.
Anyway, come lunch time I was actually quite in the mood for this one. Of all the ride I was most looking forwards to the Petit KOM. Imagine.
I think the main thing is to convince yourself you like the climbs. That way they don’t feel quite so demanding.
For this race we took on the Casse Pattes route. Apparently that directly translates to “Leg Breaker”. The reasoning being the sudden changes in gradient. Personally I didn’t find that anything like as much as back in Stage 1.
Heck, for the first 12km this one is basically flat. Within the first 5km we’d only done 1m of climb. Nuts. I think that might be the flattest patch across all of Zwift.
The strangest part of this race was how slow we started. After the typical 10 second surge from the line, we fell into a rhythm of tempo, and at times, endurance pace. Unusual for a race. Power ups today were Aero and Draft Van, so speed was always going to be high once things kicked off.
I knew it would all be determined on the first climb. And by “all” I mean whether I finished within visible distance of the front runners, or further back.
Well, I tried. I mistimed the attack in, being set off once again by the initial pick up to 8% before it just-as-quickly flattens out again, and then it truly goes. I foolishly held my Draft Van power up at the bottom, hoping to use it over the top as a means of clinging on. That didn’t work. And when I got to the top and saw the banner, I knew I could then use it (not where I planned) or I’d miss out on another one going through the arch.
Yeah. Whoops.
After that I couldn’t get back on. I kept in touch, for a bit, but I didn’t have the legs to bridge to the small chasing group. Those riders did manage to get back on, but I couldn’t tell you if they held on, as our new bunch managed to catch up several smaller batches as we made a good pace towards the bottom of the Petit KOM.
Once we hit the climb I went well. I was either with the front, or leading right up to the top.
The sad part was that I couldn’t maintain any sort of lead over the top and into the descent. I ended up having to use my Aero not to get dropped as five or six riders absolutely shot passed me.
From there it was a long down hill, with about 1.5km at the bottom that saw us racing to the line.
At 400m out I was doing well, and by 300m I was overtaken by practically everyone. Boo.
I can’t say I didn’t try, but I definitely didn’t try my absolute hardest. Had I done that, I think I could have got back on after the first climb. But how that would have played out, we shall never know.
Never mind, another Tuesday race with a solidly mid table finish. Or bottom third, if you look on Zwift Power 🙂
All in all, a good start to the week.
