This morning I took part in Zwift’s New Years Day Le Col (Quarter) Century ride. This was a quarter imperial century, so ~40km rather than 25km. Even so, I had expected this to be a full metric century, so mentally was roughly somewhere in the zone to attempt / complete this ride.
Not a bad way to start 2020, I figured.
As it happened, however, I had misread the ride notes and there were, in fact, three different rides in progress. There would be a quarter century ride on Watopia Flat (4 laps), which is the one I did. Then there was a metric century that had over a thousand meters of climb, and then a full imperial century which covered everything in Watopia, forward and back, with the exception of the Alpe Du Zwift.
Now, given that I have never completed a century ride before, the idea of doing something that intense as my first century ride was quickly very off putting.
What I decided to do instead was to ride this quarter century route, and then continue on to do the full 100km.
Whilst I didn’t go crazy yesterday (hey, I had two beers and a glass of wine whilst cooking tea), I did have a fairly heavy ride on Monday which took something out of me. That said, I am making serious excuses here as yesterday I didn’t ride at all, so in theory I should have been fairly fresh for this one.
Pretty much as soon as I set off today, I knew I wasn’t going to be putting in a stellar performance.
My legs felt tight, in particular my thighs. More so, mentally I just wasn’t quite there. I didn’t have the desire to push harder than ~2.5w/kg.
In particular today, and on other rides using Watopia Flat come to think of it, I really struggled with the Esses.
In case you’re not familiar with this route, the Esses are a short section of “bumps” (for want of a better term) that come after the bridge sprint, and that lovely little incline that sets you up for what’s ahead.
I don’t know if this is something I need to get over mentally, but I find these little rollers quite challenging. There’s a constant need to shift gears, and for whatever reason, I can never seem to carry enough speed from the descent into the short ascent.
I’ve lost well won positions in races on this section.
In short, they keep beating me. Today was no different.
By the end of the first lap I was looking to find a pack riding roughly 2.5w/kg who I could stick with and see the distance through. Fortunately I found a fairly sizeable bunch who seemed to have similar ideas.
As usual, the pack split up on the small climbs such as the one coming out of the under sea tunnels, and again, on the Esses.
Because there were so many riders, there was never a difficult in finding someone ahead to latch on to, catch up with, and ideally take over. However, as I’d started so tamely, I found it very difficult to gain too many places today. Not that this was a race, but the competitive nature of me does like to finish better than I start.
This was definitely a social ride. Lots of chatter. Many, many people from all corners of the globe wishing each other a happy new year. Very nice to see. As it was early morning there were plenty of people from Japan and Australia / New Zealand etc. Always nice to ride with people literally on the other side of the world. Love that about Zwift, and especially cool as a way to start the new decade. Together!
One new thing I noticed today was the running circuit – see below.
As best I am aware, this is a new 400m track for runner people, one of which I am not, and likely never will be. I have bad memories of even worse knees from my short stints of running at the gym.
Anyway, it’s cool that Zwift are doing more for runners, and that track looks very cool. I have no idea what’s needed to do running on Zwift, so maybe I need to watch some YouTube videos… for science purposes only.
Whilst I enjoyed this ride on a social level, I have to say I struggled physically today. Had it not been a special day I can’t say I would have been doing a long ride, or a hard(er) ride.
With that in mind, when I got to the end of the ride, having done the ~42km or so, I was wondering how many people might carry on and see it through to 50km or more. As it happens, I didn’t find many who were interested in continuing. On that front, I guess I wasn’t alone.
After I pushed through to the finish line, I decided to just keep pushing and see how I felt. I found I dropped right down to about 100w, and looking at the times and doing a bit of mental calculations, I figured I’d be on the bike for about 3.5 hours.
The thing is, I’d rather spend the time with my family today than solo-ing it to a 100km just because.
Given that I just wasn’t in the mood mentally I figured I’d call time at 50km. I should be content with this, and I shouldn’t need to do a 100km for no valid reason.
So at this point I failed my 100km goal. Not the best way to start the year, but on the plus side, 365 more days to try again. And yes, that maths is right – 2020 is a leap year.
This is quite good, in a way. Whilst it would have been nice to start the year by beating a big goal like that, 50km is a still a good enough way to start. It puts me up to ~79km on the week so far, so well on track to beat my 100km weekly riding goal (although 16km of that was not on Zwift).
I know the Manchester to Blackpool bike ride is 60 miles, which translates to ~97km. Therefore I do need to complete a Zwift metric century before July in preparation for that ride. Maybe even more than one. That would be ideal.
The problem for me is not the energy required to do it, it’s the time. Spending 3+ hours on the bike makes me feeling like I’m wasting my time. An hour to two hours is a good use of time, but after 2 hours it kinda feels like diminishing returns.
Happy enough with my finishing position today. I could have done better. You can see that from some of the graphs below.
Kinda crazy that over the same distance, given the same criteria, first place beat me by over 13 minutes. Reminds me in many ways of watching the stronger opponents dropping me like a stone on the Tacx rides.
Congrats to the winners, and to everyone who took part. Getting out of bed for an 8.30am start on New Years Day is a victory in itself, in my opinion.
OK, so 843 calories done. That’s decent. I didn’t do too much damage to myself yesterday so a great start all round. I’m feeling tired now, both in my legs and my eyes are stinging, so this should put me in good stead for getting back to the routine of 6.10am wake ups that resume tomorrow.
There was a short, unsuccessful sprint at the end of the ride where I tried to catch two riders in front of me. Hitting 700w shows I had probably left quite a lot in the tank.
Probably the most telling metric today was the hour timer on the critical power chart.
Looking at the positives, I’m glad to know I’m capable of much more.
Oof, that 0.01km is killing me. Damn you Zwift with your inaccurate read outs!
Next ride will almost certainly be tomorrow, and will almost certainly be active recovery. Sorry legs.
