“Welcome to my favorite and least favorite time of the week…”
That’s how Titanium Ben starts off his latest VO2sday race video (below), and I think that sums up how most riders feel about these races. They’re so hard, but also so rewarding. (I also included a video from Bike Bonk Biff, where you can watch him experience VO2sday for the first time and regret his choice repeatedly.)
This week, I’m excited to announce the launch of beta race results hosted by Leadout Esports. But we need your help! More on this below…
Sign Up for Race Results from Leadout!
Leadout Esports, created by OG Zwifter Nathan Guerra and his team, is a platform that enables high-level esports competition on Zwift and other platforms. They’ve mostly hosted individual elite races thus far, but I’ve been working with them to build out a results engine for VO2sday since ZwiftPower can’t handle results for time-based races.
VO2sday races are 4 minutes long, and the goal is to get as far in each race as possible. The overall winner across the 5 races is whoever travels the furthest. These are the results Leadout enables – a ranking based on your total distance across all 5 events. You can also click to filter results by category or gender, and drill down into individual race results. Amazing!
We’ve got the beta results pages set up, and they look so good:
Tomorrow’s races will be our first live beta of race results with Leadout. But we need your help! Because of how Zwift’s API and privacy work, you must create a Leadout account and link it to your Zwift account. This will allow your details to appear in the Leadout results… otherwise, you’ll just show up as “Unregistered User” in the results.
Creating an account is free and easy – just click “Log In” on their site, then click to create an account. Sign up now >
See June 16 race results at leadoutesports.com/vo2sday/7 >
Disclaimer: results are still in beta, so there may be some issues that pop up this week.
June 16 Race Details and Signup
We’re back in France this week – here are this week’s courses:
Races are held at three different times each Tuesday:
- Zone 1: 11am UTC/7am UT/4am PT
- Zone 2: 5pm UTC/1pm ET/10am PT
- Zone 3: 11pm UTC/7pm ET/4pm PT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/vo2sday >
VO2sday Distinctives
VO2sday Micro Races are unlike any other Zwift race you’ve experienced. Here’s a complete list of what makes them special:
- 5 back-to-back races in less than an hour – that’s 5 hard VO2 max intervals.
- Time-based: While the vast majority of Zwift races are distance-based (eg, race one lap of a particular route), VO2sday races are time-based. Currently, each race is 4 minutes long. The goal? Ride further than your competitors by holding the highest power you can muster across all 5 events.
- Important note: Because these are time-based races, ZwiftPower will not display results properly. The individual race results you see on the finishing screen in game, in the Companion app, and at zwift.com are accurate. For overall results combinging the 5 events, see Leadout (more info above).
- 5 races in less than an hour – that’s 5 hard VO2 max intervals.
- Compound Score Categories: Race categories are based on Zwift’s Compound Score, which factors in your 5-minute power and body weight. Compound Score categories for these events are set to:
- A: 1600+
- B: 1200-1600
- C: 900-1200
- D: 900 and below
- Mix of courses: Each week’s race courses feature a mix of flat, climb, rolling, and even downhill parcours. Riders with lots of pure watts have the advantage in some races, while riders with strong w/kg have the advantage in others.
- Mass start: While riders are broken into categories for results, these are mass-start events with all categories starting together, so everyone has riders ahead to chase. (Again, the goal is to push as hard as you can for the duration of the race, not to sit in the pack and conserve so you can sprint to victory in the last 15 seconds!)
- Drafting is disabled, so these are effectively time trials. (Yes, you’ll want a fast TT setup.) Hopefully this forces you out of the “sit in then sprint” mindset, and into “hold steady high power for the duration” mode.
Questions or comments?
I’d love to hear your feedback after you’ve completed the latest set of VO2sday races. Share it below, along with any questions or comments you’ve got beforehand!
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