How the Race Was Lost: Unconventional, Controversial, and Barely Successful (ZRL Semi-Finals)

Yesterday my team (the DIRT Roosters) took on 21 other teams in the second race of the ZRL Semi-Finals. This race field had some very strong riders – certainly a more competitive field than we’d seen in the regular season, and that was a tough season in EMEA W B1! On top of that, my fitness was nowhere near its peak, and the punchy course didn’t suit me well.

So I chose an unconventional approach to grabbing race points. Controversial? Perhaps. Successful? Also perhaps. Read on for the full story…

The Warmup

The race began at 12:30 (it had shifted an hour thanks to last weekend’s time change), so I was on the bike a little after noon to spin up the legs with Coco. I had chewed two pieces of caffeine gum and applied PR lotion to the legs… my typical race prep.

The Plan

This was a points race on 10 laps of Scotland’s Glasgow Crit Circuit… which is just nuts, if you think about it. This 3km circuit has 2 segments (a short, flat sprint and a punchy, short climb) per lap, and we would be contesting those segments on every lap for first-across-the-line (FAL) and fastest-through-segment (FTS) points.

This course is punchy enough as a scratch race. But throw in points at every intermediate, and you have attacks every two minutes for 40 minutes!

So I decided I’d try something unconventional. Instead of trying to hang with the front so I could come across the finish line in the highest place possible, I decided to sit up and take it easy for the duration of the race, apart from chasing points on the Champion’s Sprint segment. This is an approach I’d never taken in a race, although I’ve seen it done by others.

My specific plan was this:

1. Go all-out from the gun in an attempt to grab FAL points the first time through the sprint
2. Sit up, get a good powerup, and let the pack lap me. I would then sprint with them in an attempt to grab an FTS slot.
3. Repeat step 2 as many times as possible, if grabbing FTS slots seems realistic
4. Bonus: consider going for Clyde Kicker FTS, if the times on the leaderboard look beatable.

I realize this sort of racing may rub you the wrong way, and to be perfectly honest, I’m not a big fan of it either. But it’s completely within the rules of ZRL and in fact, one could argue ZRL’s rules actually encourage this sort of thing.

In the end, it wasn’t hard to rationalize my decision, because I knew four things:

1. I wouldn’t be able to hang with the front group for the duration of the race. The competition in these semi-finals is even stronger than in the regular season, this is a difficult circuit that doesn’t suit me, and I’m nowhere near peak form currently.
2. If I was struggling to hold onto the front pack (and I knew I would be), I didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell at grabbing any segment points. I would just be trying to survive every segment.
3. My sprint is not first-class, but my fresh legs vs the tired legs of better sprinters probably stood a good chance at grabbing some points.
4. This wasn’t a life-or-death decision – my team is sitting mid-pack in the semi-finals results, and we probably won’t even field a full team for next week’s TTT. My paltry points, no matter how I earned them, wouldn’t matter much.

I had informed my team of my plan, and they seemed to trust that I knew what was best for me. The rest of them would be trying to hang with the front while grabbing intermediate points wherever possible.

The Lead-In

The first step of my plan started at the gun. I had already saved a spot near the front of the start pen, and I knew I had about 40 seconds of hard effort to the first banner. My goal was to be one of the first riders across the line, thus grabbing FAL points.

I tried to sit in the wheels while staying near the front. Teammate Clem flew off the front, and another teammate (Dejan) was next to me as the sprint began and we went all-in. I was the 4th rider across the line, with a sprint time of 11.45s. A good start!

Sit Up and Sprint, #1

After the sprint, I just sat up and pedaled easy. What a strange feeling to let the race ride away! I could have stopped pedaling entirely, or pedaled super slowly, so the pack would lap me on this first lap… but that felt much too slow. So I decided I would do two laps for the front group’s three.

Even then, I didn’t time it very well. I should have worked even less! I had to stop on the side of the road and wait for the front group to catch me, then I hammered out a Champion’s Sprint attempt using my draft boost powerup.

But I held everything too late. The group caught me too close to the start line, I didn’t hit the start line fast enough, and I was off the front in the wind by the end of it, crossing the line ahead of the pack (but of course, a lap behind). My sprint time was a pathetic 12.352s… not even close to top 10 in FTS.

Eyeing the Clyde

Somewhere between my two sprints I took a look at the Clyde Kicker leaderboard, and realized I didn’t stand a chance of getting on it. I would need to improve my PR (26.57s, set in a strong race) by over 2 seconds, which just wasn’t possible.

This wasn’t particularly surprising, given the strong riders in this race.

If I wanted points today, they would be coming from the Champion’s Sprint.

Sit Up and Sprint, #2

Once again, I did two easy laps following the sprint. Well, almost 2. This time I stopped on the side of the road earlier, letting the front pack catch me sooner so I could get my position dialed in before the sprint began.

I had also burned through powerups until I got an aero, knowing it would help me more than the draft boost on the sprint.

This time around I felt I executed the sprint well – starting near the back of the pack and sprinting through, with my powerup running out as I crossed the line. But even though I had the fastest time of anyone on that lap, my time of 11.563 didn’t even beat my attempt on the lead-in!

I was frustrated. I could already see that my best time of 11.45 wasn’t even in the top 10 for FTS, and I didn’t seem to be able to improve that time.

With no better ideas, I just pedaled to the finish, coming in 103 out of 104 riders.

See activity on Strava >
See results on ZwiftPower

Watch the Race

Takeaways

Reviewing my race video, I realized I could have cracked the top 10 FTS if I’d just timed my sprint better. I had the power numbers, but my timing was poor. This is a good lesson for anyone chasing fast sprint segment times in any context, so I’ll unpack it here.

• I should have let the group catch me well before the sprint. Perhaps I could have waited atop the Clyde Kicker? This would let me get my legs spinning and heart rate normalized early instead of spiking it with just seconds to go before the sprint effort.
• I should have the started my sprint effort about 10 seconds earlier. I hit the start line at 54kph, but got up to 68kph on the sprint! That means I should have hit the line much faster. Doing some quick math, this change alone would have put me into around 6th overall in FTS.
• I should have started my sprint effort from further back in the pack, so I had more riders and a stronger draft for the duration of the sprint.
• I should have triggered my aero boost powerup 4-5 seconds earlier. I still had a bit of it left when I crossed the line, and it’s usually best to have these end 1-2 seconds before your sprint finishes.
• I could have stopped pedaling and done just 1 lap for the front pack’s 2, giving me 5 sprint attempts instead of the 2 I took.

In my second sprint, I did a few things right: I was in the draft the entire time, and I had the right powerup. But if I’d done the 5 things listed above, I would have earned FTS points. Probably on multiple sprints!

In the end, I earned 8 points for my team: 7 from my 4th place FAL on the first sprint, and 1 finishing point. Could I have earned more points by trying to hang with the front pack? Possibly. After the front group of 33 riders, there was a large pack representing places 39-84. I think I would have finished in this group. The question is, would I have outsprinted them and earned 15 finishing points for 39th place? Or finished in the back, with just 1 finishing point?

We’ll never know. But I won’t lose any sleep over my result, because even if I’d finished 39th, it wouldn’t have moved us up in the results. In the end, the DIRT Roosters finished 4th on the day on the back of strong performances by Clem, Arjen, and Tim, who all finished in the front pack while grabbing some FAL points.

Will I be trying this approach in future races? Meh. It’s really not a fun way to “race”, so after trying it out this time, I think I’ll only be keen to do it as a last resort in extreme situations.

Your Thoughts

Go ahead, throw your tomatoes. Let me know what you think of my approach to this race, and share if you’ve ever done something similarly unconventional.

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Zwift Chase Race Basics, Strategies, and More

When it comes to Zwift racing, the classic first-across-the-line scratch race is the most popular format by far. You’ll also see many points races, where riders accumulate points at the finish line and on intermediate segments (think ZRL). And of course, there’s the “race of truth”, the time trial, which comes in individual and team formats.

Today I will unpack the chase race format, which is sort of a blend between a scratch race and a team time trial.

Chase Race Basics

In a chase race, riders are grouped by category, and category starts are staggered, with slower categories starting before faster categories. (This is why chase races are sometimes called “handicap races”.)

For example, a chase race may have these category start times:

• Category D – 12:00
• Category C – 12:03
• Category B – 12:05
• Category A – 12:07

Start time gaps between categories are calculated by race organizers with the goal of giving faster categories a chance to catch the slower groups ahead near the end of the race, so multiple categories are together for the finish.

Typically held on flatter routes, chase races begin as team efforts. If your category’s pack isn’t working together to keep the speed high, they will be unable to catch the group up the road and may be caught by a chasing group from behind. But chase races always end as individual efforts as you sprint for the line against members of your category, and often members of others categories as well!

Chase Race Strategy

Note Pack Sizes

Pack size is a big determiner of pack speed on Zwift. While A riders are stronger than B riders, a pack of 60 B’s will probably not get caught by a pack of 20 A’s, because the B riders get more rest between hard pull efforts on the front.

The larger your category group, the less discipline is required to keep pack speed high. In fact, you may be able to sit in the draft for all or most of the race! Conversely, smaller groups must be more organized in rotating hard pulls to succeed.

Work Together

When the race begins, your default mode should be to work with the other riders in your category to keep your pack speed high. It will take at least several minutes to figure out how quickly you’re catching groups ahead and being caught by groups behind. Best to get organized quickly!

Know/Watch Time Gaps

Know the gaps between groups at the start, then watch those gaps change during the race. Time gap knowledge is vital if you want to race smart, as illustrated in these three examples:

1. You’re a B rider 10km into a 40km race. The C group began 3 minutes before you, and that gap is now down to 90 seconds. Clearly you’ll easily catch the C group well before the finish, so you can ease up your group pace.
2. You’re an A rider 20km into a 40km race. The B group began 2 minutes before you, and that gap is now down to 1 minute. Your pace is spot on.
3. You’re an D rider 30km into a 40km race. The C group began 4 minutes after you, and that gap is now down to 30 seconds. Your group is going to get caught by the C’s well before the finish, so you need to decide if you want to up the pace and bring other D’s with you, or just ease and wait for the C’s.

The examples above are oversimplified, of course, because you can’t always make decisions based on gaps to just one group. You may be a B rider easily catching the C group, but the A’s are also catching you, so you shouldn’t ease up!

How do you see/calculate gaps between groups? This data isn’t available easily in game, but it can be found using different tools and methods. Here are four:

• ZwiftPower‘s Live view is a good tool for tracking group time gaps, if you have another browser screen available. (Just navigate to your chase race event on ZwiftPower, then click the “Live” link.)
• Sauce 4 Zwift‘s groups feature is an excellent tool for tracking time gaps between groups.
• The minimap at the top-right is actually a handy tool for calculating group gaps. Click the map to zoom out, then note your ride time when main category groups pass a particular spot on the course. Compare that time to your time, and you can calculate gaps easily.
• Lastly, you can often determine gaps in game by riding to the front of your pack and noting the gap to the next category rider ahead, or dropping to the back and noting the next category behind. This approach is far from perfect, though, since you can’t always see riders in the main category group.

Predict and Respond

As you begin to track time gaps and note how strong you’re feeling on this particular day, you’ll want to start predicting how the race is going to unfold, so you can respond appropriately to maximize your individual result. A few examples:

• You’re in the C group, the largest group in the race, and it looks like you’ll be catching the D’s and staying away from the B and A riders behind as well. If you’re a sprinter, you should sit in the draft and wait for the final effort.
• You’re in a smaller A group, and as you get close to the end of the race it’s clear you won’t be catching any of the categories up the road. You can treat the rest of the race like a standard scratch race, attacking if you feel strong or perhaps sitting in and waiting for that final sprint.
• You’re in the B group, and it’s clear the A’s behind will catch you several kilometers from the finish. Don’t kill yourself on the front of the B’s. Rest so you’re ready to go hard and grab wheels when the A’s ride through!

Got caught? Survival mode!

If your group gets caught by a faster category from behind, there’s no need for your category to keep working as a team. In fact, it’s impossible to do so! When that faster category catches you it becomes every man (or woman) for themselves, as you’re just trying to hang onto the wheels of the faster category.

Gaps Close Fast At the End

One key thing to know is gaps tend to close quickly near the end of the race. This is probably due to two factors:

1. Lower-category riders on a whole have less endurance and poorer pacing than higher-category riders, so their pace will fall off near the end of the race while the higher category riders have more to give.
2. Categories behind may be coming together and forming bigger, faster-moving packs. That is, near the end of the race the solo D group may be chased by a combined pack of the fastest A, B, and C riders.

It’s hard to predict just how much faster gaps close near the end of the race, so just keep in mind that you may not be as safe as you think.

How Chase Races Get Broken

Because of how Zwift (and humans) work, it’s easy for specific chase races to be “broken”. Here are a few ways that happens:

• Sandbaggers: overpowered riders are a big problem, especially if a race doesn’t use category enforcement. Race organizers compute time gaps based on realistic category pacing, but if an overpowered rider joins and puts in big pulls on the front, a category will go faster than it should, breaking the structure of the race.
• Bad group gaps: calculating group start time gaps is no easy task. Organizers need to predict group speeds which are a factor of pack size, route length, and the hilliness of the route. Sometimes they get it wrong, and sometimes it’s off by just a bit, because Zwift doesn’t let you set start times that include fractions of minutes.
• Unexpected big differences between pack sizes: typically the C or B packs are the largest, and race organizers account for this in their time gaps. But if a category is unexpectedly larger or smaller, the gaps may not work well.
• Nobody willing to work: this is just human nature. Many Zwift racers get used to sitting in the draft, but if everyone does that in a chase race your category will never get to the front before the finish! Sometimes it helps to have a group DS who encourages people to take pulls, calls out time gaps, etc.

Chase Race Improvements

I’ve got two ideas for improvements Zwift could make to boost the chase race experience:

1. Dynamic start times: the game could automatically calculate precise start times for each category based on the number of signups and the chosen course. If everyone knew that each category stood a good chance of making to the finish first, everyone would work harder.
2. More precise start times: instead of (or in addition to) the above idea, let race organizers set group gaps in increments of seconds instead of minutes.
3. Visible time gaps: show gaps in the rider list to categories ahead and behind.

Finding Chase Races

Chase races aren’t easy to find on the calendar, as they don’t consistently use the “chaserace” tag. Here’s a ZwiftHacks list of the next 7 days worth of events which contain “chase” or “handicap” in their title. (Most of the events on the list are chase races, although a few are group rides.)

Some of the most popular chase races:

• Rhino Crash Chase Race
• DIRT Dadurday Chase Race
• Cat & Mouse KZR Chase Race
• WattFabrik CE Chase Race

Questions or Comments?

Got other chase race strategy tips, or ideas for improvements? Post below!

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How the Race Was Lost: Sickness Leads to a DNF

I’ve completed 963 races on Zwift, but the number of races I’ve DNF’d can, I think, be counted on one hand.

This isn’t because I’m some mental or endurance giant. It’s just because I hate getting geared up for a race, then pulling out before it’s done. So even if I get dropped, and even if it’s because of some strange mechanical or technical issue, I’ll almost always keep pedaling to the line.

But last Saturday’s race was a bit different. Here’s how it unfolded…

The Warmup

The race began at 9:30am, so I was planning to be on the bike by 9am to spin up the legs with Coco. I had chewed two pieces of caffeine gum and applied PR lotion to the legs… my typical race prep. But I got distracted processing Tiny Race results and ended up with only 15 minutes to warm up.

The shorter warmup wasn’t a big deal, but I did note that it felt harder than usual to produce high-end power, and my heart rate seemed a bit higher than normal. Typically I can chug along in the Coco group at ~125-130 bpm, but today it was more like 135-140.

This wasn’t altogether surprising, as I’d been a bit sick for a few days. It was one of those annoying cold/flu bugs where your nose is running just enough, you’re forced to cough just enough, and you’re feeling just tired enough to know you’re sick. I wouldn’t have called myself super sick. Generally, I try to pretend I’m not sick anyway, so I wouldn’t have even called myself sick. Just a “bit” sick.

I was hopping into this race, hoping the sickness was minor and wouldn’t affect my riding. But I was beginning to think that wouldn’t be the case…

The Plan

The race (part of the EVR Winter Series) was on 2 laps of London’s Greatest London Flat, a course that generally lives up to its name even though that longer, slack climb in the Richmond Park area always feels a bit too suffery:

This race used two settings I typically don’t see in the races I frequent. First, all categories began together. Secondly, double draft was enabled. So I joined, hoping I’d be able to ride smart and stay with the A’s in front for the duration of the mostly-flat race.

Lead-In and Lap 1

We began with 143 riders across all categories, but the first selection happened quickly, with a front group of 58 riders consolidating in less than 3 minutes. Then we hit the short Northumberland Avenue climb up to Trafalgar Square and the group was whittled down to 48. (Most of the front riders were A or B category, although a few cagey C riders had snuck in.)

As we finished the lead-in I saw a message from “Old Andy”, a rider I had raced recently in Makuri Islands where we found ourselves together, unsuccessfully chasing a breakaway. “I see you young Eric @ ZI”, he wrote. I had barely beaten him to the line in that last race, and he had later commented, “But there’s always next time. Keep up the good work Eric, and watch out for Old Andy trying to chase you down.” I figured Old Andy would be doing his best to beat me to the line this time!

Despite being mixed in with A riders, the pace for the lead-in and start of lap 1 wasn’t bad at all (thanks, double draft). I was averaging around 270W, but then one “L. Swatowski” (a rider using virtual power) attacked. I promptly messaged “zPower ranger attacks!” partly because it’s funny, but also in hopes of dissuading people from chasing.

But that didn’t work. The pack strung out, powerups flew, and the chase was on. And that’s when I began to feel the effects of being a bit sick.

As noted, I had already noticed that my HR was 5-10 bpm higher than it should have been for the given effort. But when the pace picked up for more than a few seconds, things just got suffery and miserable. My body didn’t want to perform.

At 14.6km I decided to pull the plug and drop from the front pack. I messaged the group to let them know I was dropping due to high HR/sickness. I also messaged “Good luck Old Andy! Stick it to the A’s!” He replied “Take care” and I dropped off the back and spun the pedals for a few minutes before signing off.

Old Andy: your 11th place finish in the Bs certainly beat my DNF. Chapeau!

See activity on Strava >

Watch the Race

Takeaways

After the race I checked my numbers to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. Here’s my HR distribution for this race:

Here’s my HR distribution from a similar (but slightly harder) race effort one week later:

My weighted average power in the second race was 289W, while the race I quit due to sickness was only 273W. And yet, the sick race had me at threshold HR for 58.8% of the ride, while the race with higher power output only had me at threshold or above for 17.9%!

So I wasn’t imagining things.

I asked my cycling coach buddy Alan Dempsey for his thoughts on training while sick. He said:

There’s always a risk of myocarditis from doing that.

General rule of thumb is if it’s in your chest, don’t exercise.

If it’s not in your chest, max zone 1/2.

That’s pretty solid advice. He went on to say:

I look at it this way… you can’t work hard enough to gain fitness when you feel like shit. All you do is prolong the illness.

Adaptation from training is not dissimilar to an immune response. Damage >> repair.

So you’re not getting better. Riding easy might help maintain fitness while you’re sick, but still might extend the illness.

For me, recovering from sickness as quickly as possible is the best course for getting back to training healthy and staying fit. And when you’re sick that’s rest, fluids, and healthy eating.

Good stuff, Alan. It reminds me of this paper I read in the early days of the Covid lockdown when I was researching the links between our immune systems and exercise. The paper had a lot of good stuff, but two key takeaways were that “Acute exercise is an immune system adjuvant that improves defense activity and metabolic health” and “the best evidence supports that high exercise training workloads, competition events, and the associated physiological, metabolic, and psychological stress are linked to immune dysfunction, inflammation, oxidative stress, and muscle damage.”

Or to put it simply: low to mid-exertion exercise is an immune system booster, but high-exertion exercise stresses the immune system so it doesn’t function as well.

The common rule in cycling is, “If it’s above your neck, you can ride. If it’s below the neck, rest.” Not a bad rule, but I would expand that rule a bit and say if your heart rate is elevated, or you’re feeling sick at all, keep it at zone 1-2. Don’t stress the immune system that’s already working hard to make you whole again.

Your Thoughts

Have you ever ended a race or workout due to high HR from sickness? What are your personal practices when it comes to riding while you’re sick? Share below!

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