The first race of Zwift Racing League was here, and I was stoked! Stoked because I knew the competition would be fierce. Stoked because this was the biggest race series ever to happen on Zwift, and I was going to be part of it. And stoked because my dad was visiting from South Carolina, and would be sitting in to watch me race for the first time.

But I was also scared. Scared because this race included 4 timed KOM sections, including the Volcano KOM which has seen me dropped from the front group in every single race attempt I’ve made.

ZwiftPower Rankings: the Beauty and the Madness

The crazy thing was, I was the top-ranked B racer in our event (EMEA E, Pool 6). ZwiftPower rankings are funny, because they really only apply to the types of races which suit you best.

You see, each rider’s ZwiftPower ranking score is based on your best five results in the last 90 days. So it’s really only a picture of how well you do in events that are ideal for your phenotype. I don’t do well in races with significant climbs, so my ranking is based off of five good results in flattish races.

So while comparing ZwiftPower rankings is a helpful way for me to assess the competition in flatter events, I knew going into this race that it would take everything I had just to stay with the front of the race. I also knew the long uphill finish meant I wasn’t going to finish on the podium. But I resolved to give all I had for my best result – because even though I’m a 41-year-old man, I still want to make my dad proud!

The Warmup

In an attempt to gain every advantage for the big race, I did several things before the race began:

1. Chewed some caffeine gum – three pieces instead of the usual two. Because more caffeine is always better, right?
2. Applied PR lotion to my legs about 45 minutes before the race began. More bicarb=less burning.
3. Donned the Nopinz Subzero kit I’ve been testing out for the last couple of weeks. Because I love the feeling of popping a fresh, frozen gel pack in just before the final effort of the race heats up.
4. Jumped into the Coco Cadence group to start spinning my legs, then as soon as the “Join Event” prompt popped up, I clicked it so I could save a spot near the front of the pen.
5. Took my time warming up, putting in a solid 45-minute warmup with a few sprints to get my heart rate up into threshold zone.

Soon enough it was time to rejoin the start pens, so I clicked in and took a deep breath. Let’s race!

The Start + Early Climbs

The clock hit zero and we piled out of the desert start pen. There were 131 riders in our race, and while the initial effort hurt a bit, riders were clearly saving their legs for the big climbs down the road. 330W average for the first 3 minutes kept me in the front group of riders, and that front group was large. Unlike most Zwift races, where 1/3 of the field is quickly dropped, it looked like only a handful of riders were dropped through the Fuego Flat section.

Titans Grove KOM

Soon enough we were at the first climb of the day: Titans Grove KOM. Typically I can finish this climb in just over 4 minutes at race pace, and it’s really the final 3 minutes where the big effort comes in, as the first 1 minute is quite flat. I was pushing hard, but not on the limit – 348W for the final 3 minutes of the climb kept me nicely placed in the front pack as we crested the KOM. My teammate Snowy Pruett came over the line first – bonus points!

• 

• 

Clearly, we were still saving our legs for steeper and longer climbs! Still, the hard push up the first climb made the first big selection of the race – we had a front group of ~45 riders, and those who were dropped would never rejoin.

Knowing my history racing up the Volcano KOM, my goal was to take every bit of recovery I could get when not climbing… and to remain in touch with the front group over each climb. I breathed deep and did my best to keep my watts down as we descended toward downtown Watopia.

Hilly KOM

We arrived at the foot of the good ol’ Hilly KOM 7-1/2 minutes after cresting the Titans Grove climb, and I’m not going to lie: I went into this climb with some fear and trepidation. I’ve been dropped on this climb many times in races past, but the one I remember best was when my teammates waited for me at the top, pulling me back to the front group to defend my Morning Grind Fondo ranking!

This climb is just long and steep enough that it puts me on the limit every race. I had a feather powerup in my pocket, and decided to save it until the second portion of the climb, instead of using it on the steeper initial portion – because I always lose my places near the top. This strategy seemed to work – I definitely struggled more on this climb than the Titans Grove KOM, but I was still in touch with the front as we went over the top! And the front group was whittled down still further, to a pack of ~35.

The Volcano KOM

This was the big one, and everyone knew it.

The first 1/3 of the climb was fairly tame, and as the road leveled out to take us through the volcano, I was happy to still be sitting in the wheels, conserving watts while others pushed the pace with their noses in the wind. Then the climb began again, and the real pain set in. One of my teammates (Justin Wild) went to the front and pushed the pace, stringing out the pack. On one hand, I wanted to yell, “Don’t push the pace!” On the other hand… riders were falling off the group, and I was staying on. I just kept pushing.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The final 1/3 was the toughest, both in terms of perceived effort and actual average wattage. I had saved an aero powerup for the final kick across the line, and while it wouldn’t help a lot at slower climbing speeds, it was better than nothing.

I hammered hard up the final steep kicker, and even though I was on the limit, I kept hammering to get up to speed once the road leveled out. We were strung out coming up the final kick to the line, but I figured between my 82kgs and the riders near me, we could catch the small number of riders up ahead. I latched onto the wheels ahead and a group quickly formed, swallowing the lonely riders up the road.

As we descended from atop the volcano, there were no riders left to chase. Our front group had shrunk yet again, to ~25 riders. This was the pack I would be competing against across the finish line.

The Finish – Titans Grove KOM Reverse

The pace was (relatively) easy from the top of the volcano to the entrance of Titans Grove, with everyone taking a few minutes to recover before the final kick to the line.

We turned a right into Titans Grove, and one rider attacked off the front. The pack sped up a bit, and this is where I made the biggest mistake of my race: I didn’t join the chase soon enough. Instead of ramping up my power to stay near the front of the chasing pack, I tried to conserve, which quickly resulted in my getting spit out the back of the front group over the roller coaster rollers.

This meant I had to dig… hard… burning a match just before the finish of the race. I was able to get back into the group, but it took everything I had. My dad saw it, too, “Way to get back in there!”

Now I had just a precious ~60 seconds to recover on the downhill rollers before the final ~90-second KOM kick to the finish line. I tried to breath deep and keep the watts as low as possible, but I could tell my legs were cooked.

I recruited my dad to activate my aero powerup for the finish, because I’d be out of the saddle going all-in for those final seconds. I knew the climb leveled out in its final seconds, and many riders go too hard too early. So my goal was to save a bit of a kick for the final ~15 seconds with my aero powerup, hoping to of grab a few places from blown-up riders.

I stayed seated for the first minute or so of the climb, then got out of the saddle. I was in 19th place, but there were riders just ahead if I could go harder. My body wasn’t cooperating, refusing to even hit 500 watts! But I kept pushing, then said “Go” to my dad when I thought I was the right distance from the line. Keep hammering. Monica had popped into the Pain Lab and was yelling “Go! Go! Go!” I was absolutely on the limit, out of the saddle hammering with poor form because my body was done. But I passed one rider… then another… then another.

I crossed the line in 15th place, with teammates Justin Wild and Snowy Pruett up ahead in 4th and 5th, respectively. Ouch.

See ride on Zwift.com >
See ride on Strava >
See race results on ZwiftPower >

Takeaways

The Volcano KOM, combined with my misstep in Titans Grove and that killer uphill finish made this my toughest race in recent memory. Maybe my toughest race ever? (It’s funny how the mind works – you forget how hard the race was, don’t you? Perhaps that’s the only reason we do this over and over again!)

While 15th place isn’t amazing, I was happy with the result – because this is the first time I’ve not been dropped up the Volcano KOM! Could I have finished higher? Perhaps by a few places, if I hadn’t messed up on the run into the finish. And that’s my lesson from this race: a lapse of attention can result in the burning of crucial matches.

Your Comments

If you races ZRL race #1, how did it go? Share your thoughts below.

Hey Zwifters!

I’m excited to announce the launch of No Breakaways, a new YouTube channel focused on sharing racing tips, tricks, tactics, and more with the Zwift community!

Our first episode features 2018 USA National Champion Adam Zimmerman. Adam breaks down a race with an amateur racer, Dave Shafron, as well as one of his own races. Planned upcoming content includes previewing the WTRL Zwift Racing League courses, live coaching streaming, publishing shorter videos on specific course segments and tactics, and more! If you’re looking for actionable advice on how to improve your Zwift races, check out episode 1 and subscribe!

Calling Amateur Zwifters

We are looking for amateurs to join episodes so if you’re interested in being a guest on the show, please apply here.

Calling Pro Zwifters

If you are a Zwift pro and interested in making some content, let us know by emailing us at [email protected].

Do you have ideas for future content for this channel? Do you have segments that give you trouble? Do you feel stuck at your current level? Share your ideas for future topics in the comments below!

Stay tuned. It’s an exciting time to be a Zwift racer.

Ride On!

Like many of you, I follow Eric Schlange’s How the Race Was Lost (or sometimes Won) series, and going into Thursday afternoon’s ZA Race #1 race, I fully expected my experience to be a cautionary tale describing how important it is to have a proper warm-up and how easy it is for larger athletes to get dropped by the field once the hills arrive.

This isn’t that tale though. I’ve been participating in Zwift Academy, and even before that trying hard to increase my Watts/kilogram since August 18th. My motivation on this was two-fold: My Facebook memories showed that a year prior I had been fit and in France about to begin Paris-Brest-Paris (my write-up of which can be found here), and I’ve been working from home and wearing what my friends call “soft pants” since March, so when I had to put on slacks there was a bit of a scramble to find some that fit. I wasn’t on Zwift (and didn’t know my FTP) in August 2019 but I suspect I was then a Category C racer and now (despite this story) am still solidly a D.

Zwift’s information page for the Zwift Academy Race #1 helpfully included a link to the Zwift Insider 2015 UCI Worlds Course Route Details which I studied on Wednesday night and for the first time ever looked at the Guest Worlds Schedule. I determined that I could very carefully and slowly do a lap just to see exactly which hill Peter Sagan got away on, as well as scope out the scene right then.

I selected the Thursday afternoon race because I’ve been trying to do the Bear Mountaineer (BMTR) Fundo on Saturdays and their Mini Fundo on Sundays, both in a fasted state. I knew that if I wanted to do well in the Zwift Academy races I would need to be fueled, which meant a non-morning race, and because of some other scheduling I didn’t manage to ride Tuesday or Wednesday. Indeed, my pre-ride Wednesday night was done halfway through an adult beverage and was not in any way rigorous. My legs were rested and I pretty much managed to keep them rested.

Looking at the route profile I saw that someone nearing 100 kilograms such as myself had an opportunity to push the pace on the downhills but needed to do so carefully in order to be prepared for the grueling task of keeping up with lighter-weight riders on Libby Hill, 23rd Street, and again on Governor Street. The route looked like I would be fine for the first half but on the second half I was concerned I would be left alone struggling uphill.

Knowing that I’m a rather slow climber, one of the things I’ve done in road races in the past was move to the front of the field approaching a hill so that they all have to work to pass me, giving me a chance to make contact with the tail as I finally huff to the top. In Zwift they just get to pass through me like I’m not even there, but at least the distance could make a difference. I went into it vowing that I would try to hit the hills ahead of the field if I could.

WARMUP

The race I signed up for was at 4:13 pm and thus I was pretty annoyed with myself that I forgot that my coworkers would probably schedule a teleconference just prior. I got the email sometime Thursday morning that it would be from 3-4 pm. The next scheduled race wasn’t until pretty late at night, so I figured I would just have to make it work.

Before my conference, I put on my shorts knowing they would only see my t-shirt anyway. I also mixed up some lemon-lime Heed and sipped it throughout the meeting. At 3:55 I unplugged my laptop and carried it down into my basement and plugged it in for my usual Zwift set-up. I put my shoes and heart rate monitor on and stood in front of it waiting for the meeting to wrap up. A coworker commented that I looked as if I was standing in a beam of light, and I had to explain that was my basement window, showed them the heart rate monitor on my arm, and explained I really had to go. I started up Zwift and immediately joined the race, relying on those few minutes of trainer time at the start to try to loosen my legs. They were not very loose.

LAP 1

At the beginning of the race I fully expected things to start off hard. I spun up and was ready to do whatever I had to do in order to keep contact with the group. My avatar moved quickly but oddly veered left and then stayed on the left side of the road as we rounded the corner, meaning I was alone without a wheel to follow. I had to work hard to keep pace with the group on the right side of the road and it seemed to take a long time to finally drift into the draft.

Once I was in the draft it was OK and got my breathing under control. My goal was to stay toward the front, but not actually on the front, as much as possible, so when we went around the hairpin turn leading into the Monument Avenue Sprint I was right there when two sprinters took off for it. I decided my legs could use a bit more of a stretch so I impishly took off after them. I didn’t win but that wasn’t the point. The three of us let up after the banner and I fully expected the field to show up any second.

I positioned myself in between the two of them and the one in front wasn’t working super-hard but she also wasn’t soft pedaling. I could see on the mini-map that there was actually a gap between us and the field and I realized such a gap would be very helpful to me once we got to Libby Hill. Here’s a map for reference:

I was thinking that it would be a dream if we managed to stay away, and I suspect that at least one of the other women with me was thinking the same, for we rotated all way down the hill (with the exception of a little jockeying for the Broad Street Sprint). R.Vaisanen, J.Cooper, and I took turns deploying Helmet powerups at the front, and by the time we got to Libby Hill I actually could not see the main field dot on the mini-map.

On Libby Hill, though, I was pretty sure my fears of being left were being realized. Vaisanen darted around me and I had to work on the downhill to close the gap. I was grateful I weighed a lot at that point, for mashing a big gear downhill made that possible. I hadn’t quite figured this out yet, but Cooper didn’t make it up the hill with us, and I went into the 23rd Street climb assuming Vaisanen would again beat me. I was very surprised when I was able to power through to the banner there and again at the lap line.

LAP 2

I was really taxed from the Governor Street climb going into the first lap. When we got to the Monument Avenue Sprint Vaisanen again went for it and I really didn’t want to give her a gap so I stood up and hammered. (I didn’t go into this knowing I would win so I did not take any screen shots. Usually there is at least one that Zwift includes with the ride but mine was blacked out for some reason.) Vaisanen gave her permission for me to use her picture here and I think it was taken about at this point in the race. You can see how strung out the field is on the right but my eyes were not good enough to see how things stood. I imagined the field was somewhere together behind us, working to catch us still.

I wanted to know how things stood though, so at this point I called my husband and asked him if he had a few minutes to come and read things for me. Vaisanen did manage to close that gap and I could see that she was right behind me. I tried to see if she would share the work to help keep us away but every time I let her in the front we dropped down to around seventeen miles an hour. I didn’t want Cooper to catch us, I didn’t want anyone in the field to catch us, and I certainly didn’t want to pull sprinters around just so they could dart past me at the finish. I knew I had to lose her.

My husband came downstairs and let me know the field wasn’t coming, but he agreed I needed to get away. Vaisanen darted ahead for the Broad Street Sprint and this time I let her.  I then put the hammer down just afterward, gave it all I had and got an achievement for going over 700 watts for the first time.

On the big downhill I pushed a big gear slowly, sat up, and took deep breaths, trying to keep my distance while recovering enough to handle the hills without cracking. I felt like the possibility of cracking was real. I asked Jesse to get me a mini-Coke from the fridge and drank about half of it, glad for the sugar and caffeine. That was my last rest.

I refused to let myself drop below 3 W/kg on Libby Hill (a pace that was really hard for me) and cursed when I got a Truck powerup at the top. My husband reminded me to use it anyway, for maybe I would get a Feather next. I did and got the Feather.

THE FINISH

The rest of the race was a pile of pain. I pushed as hard as I could on the downhill after 23rd Street and brought my gap to 40 seconds. Vaisanen and Cooper looked like they were meeting up and would work together to reel me in but then separated again on the hills. I deployed my Feather when the grade turned orange on Governor Street and kept telling myself that it could only hurt this badly for a few more minutes.

My husband sat silently on the couch. (When asked about this later, he said he didn’t want to say anything, for fear I would let up.) I was sure that was bad and really dug deep into the red. There isn’t an overhead arch at the end so I actually didn’t know I was at the line until I was crossing it. It was a surprise to see the finish screen pop up with my name at the top.

I slow pedaled and stuck my arms in the air. My husband congratulated me and went over to my laptop and gave the other women Ride-Ons as they started coming in 45 seconds later. It took so long I thought there was some mistake – how could I have grown my gap on an uphill finish?

TAKEAWAYS

I still can’t believe that I won. My average output was 2.4 W/kg, appropriate for my category and lower than the women who came in 2nd-4th. I got away after the first sprint and stayed away, and then managed to lose the sprinters on my wheel and time trialed to the finish. It sounds like some ridiculous fairy tale and yet I’m talking about myself.

I’m carefully watching ZwiftPower to see if they append “Almost C” to my category anytime soon, but so far it hasn’t happened. I’m hopeful it will eventually, but with the way it stands now I’m solidly a D. I did get called a sandbagger on Saturday, after which I took another picture of my television:

Your Thoughts

Share your questions and comments below!