Absolutely annihilated.
That about sums up today’s race.
Now, I blame power ups. But we will get to that shortly.
Tuesday is my regular race day, and it’s been a while since I’ve done Downtown Dolphin, so was glad to get back there. As best I am aware, Downtown Dolphin is effectively Crit City reverse. However it’s the route I’ve done most when it comes to that map, so for me it feels normal.
Or as normal as ~20 minutes of hard, hard riding can feel.
The only downside to today’s race was that 8 laps of Crit City is usually a fairly quick, and short affair. It comes to about 15km which isn’t a vast distance on Zwift. As I say, about 20 minutes.
However it’s also thoroughly exhausting, so keeping on afterwards doesn’t ever feel like a good idea. In an ideal world I’d get on early, get in a nice warm up, and then hit the pens a few minutes before setting off.
Unfortunately I don’t live in an ideal world.
So with about 3 minutes to spare, I did a very short stint with a pace bot, and then it was in and off. Not warmed up, and straight into the usual hardcore Zwift race start.
Tired.
But fresh enough from a day’s rest, we set a strong pace on that first lap. I felt good up the first pass of the Prime KOM board. Less so on every subsequent lap 😀
Power ups.
That’s where things got interesting today. With a fairly typical field, and a fairly short race distance, it would come down to good use of the right power ups to determine the front.
On offer today were Draft Van, Feather, and Ghost.
Ghost, in my eyes, is absolutely useless.
I guess if you’re strong, it’s good. For the remaining 80% of Zwifters, it’s a fairly pointless power up that feels like a missed opportunity.
I got lucky on a few laps, sometimes a Draft Van, sometimes a Feather. And with the latest Zwift patch, the Feather now has a decent amount of duration. I think 30 seconds.
What that means is you can drop the Feather on the corner before Prime, and still be getting use out of it as you’re just about to hit the rollers before the end of the lap.
If you were unlucky and didn’t get either the Feather or the Draft Van, the lap would be a lot tougher. I think that hit me three times. One lap I didn’t get anything. Two others I got the Ghost.
And of course, after moaning about it mid-ride, I jinxed myself and got the Ghost on the last lap.
Even with a Feather I don’t think I would have managed to stick with the front runners up Prime, but as it was I got hard dropped.
Problems had begun on lap 6 where I’d nearly been dropped thanks to getting the Ghost power up, and then having to go deep into the red to get back on after Prime. With my heart rate above 190bpm it was always going to be a challenge, but I did manage to dig and just about find a wheel.
Lap 7 was easier as I was rewarded with the Feather.
Perhaps I ought to have saved it for the last lap.
As it was, I didn’t, and it was back to Ghost.
So it is what it is. I had my head down going into the bottom of Prime, and by the time I looked up I was already falling quite significantly behind. Certainly any chance of getting back to the front was long gone. No matter how much I tried, there wasn’t much left in the legs. I gave it my all but I couldn’t catch the stragglers even.
It was a bit of a sad affair.
I wonder if I could have done better?
Maybe. Maybe with a Feather, or a Draft Van, I might have eeked out a few more spots.
But yeah. I tried. But I failed, really.
Anyway, a good workout albeit a short one. And a tough one.
Tomorrow is the Spring Training series, but I might have another stab at Race 2 on Saturday. Maybe. Not committing to that just yet. I do feel like I could do slightly better.
