How the Race Was Lost: The Long Finish

For the next article in my How the Race Was Lost series, let’s take a look at a recent Crit City race that seemed perfectly manageable… until it wasn’t.

Like many outdoor crits, things get crazy in the final Crit City lap. You may have hung with the front group for the whole race, but if you don’t have the legs/lungs/smarts/powerup to position yourself best in those final seconds, you won’t see the podium.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Warming Up with a Gold Medalist

Race prep began at 5am with my typical ritual: a piece of caffeine gum and some PR lotion on the legs. (If you’re wondering: the caffeine gum helps me be alert/focused and gets the blood pumping for the 5:35am race. The PR Lotion reduces acid burn in my legs – I just don’t suffer as much when I use it.)

Then it was off to Tempus Fugit to spin the legs up and get everything firing in the correct sequence before the race began.

I got on the bike 27 minutes before the race, just the right amount of time for my typical 20-minute warmup. Funny thing: as I hit my harder intervals, I saw messaging pop up from a group ride that must have been nearby. Kristin Armstrong was leading it (former pro racer, 3-time gold medalist, cycling coach) and her cues to the group seemed to perfectly match what I was doing. Thanks for the encouragement, coach! 😄

My legs weren’t feeling great, but I consoled myself with the thought that the race would be short. 8 laps of Bell Lap, here we go!

The Start

We had 46 riders in the B group, more than double the size of my previous Crit City race. So I knew the overall group pace would be higher. I averaged 410 watts for the first 40 seconds, up to the top of the twisty rollers, then it settled down into the typical Bell Lap rhythm: hard up the rollers, ease a bit on the brick descent, bump it up a bit on the false flat to the esports pavilion, then easy through the finish line before we start it all again.

Zwift HQ Spotting

One thing I love about Zwift is the people behind the game. Many of the key leaders in the company obviously have bikes in their blood. Not only do they love cycling – they’re good at it! If you’ve ever ridden with Eric Min, Scott Barger, Charlie Issendorf, or Mike McCarthy you know they’re no slouches on their bikes.

Just yesterday I hopped on to recon the latest Rebel Route and Mike McCarthy joined me for the first part of my ride. We had a nice chat. And just last week I noticed Eric Min won a B race in Crit City – I don’t see him race a lot on Zwift, but he’s still got it! The fact that Zwift leadership rides on the platform themselves is a big deal, I think.

In today’s race there were two riders from HQ: Steven Wu (who I’ve raced with before) and Scott Barger. Scott is a Zwift Co-Founder… he met with Eric Min and Jon Mayfield at Jon’s house to see the initial prototype of what would eventually become Zwift (read more of the Zwift origin story).

Steven would hang with the front pack through the end of today’s race, but Scott got dropped at the hard start. I pinged him afterward and he explained, “I’m coming back from knee injury, so slowly getting my punch back.” A torn ACL, in fact. That’s no minor injury, so we’ll give Scott a break this time. Get well soon, man!

The Middle

Our group of 46 was quickly cut in half, and that group of 23-24 would stay together until the end of the race. I began looking at the riders, finding names I recognized as stronger racers, seeing who was pushing the pace at the front.

One rider I didn’t recognize was named “T. Works” – a woman racing under the Japanese flag who powered off the front a few laps in. Was this racer legit? I doubted it, but at the same time, I couldn’t just let her ride away for the win. And there’s the rub of unenforced race categories: you’re taking a risk if you let them go! More on this later…

Aero Helmet Catch-22

I love the strategic element of powerups, especially on the Crit City course where you can pick one up each lap. And everyone loves getting the aero helmet in a short, punchy race that will surely end in a sprint finish.

But there’s a dark side to getting the aero helmet: you have to decide if you want to hold onto it, or use it immediately. That’s an easy decision if you only have a lap or two left on Crit City, but I got the helmet with five laps left today. Knowing the distribution of Zwift powerups, I knew I had a 20% chance of getting the helmet each lap. Should I gamble and use it now, or hold onto it?

I didn’t have the legs for any hard attacks today, but it looked like I would be able to hang with the group to the finish. So I held onto the helmet for a little finishing sprint help, which meant no more powerup usage for me until the final seconds of the race.

The Finish

The final lap started off just like all the other laps – a short, hard effort up the twisties, then a bit of recovery down the bricks.

Then it all broke loose.

Our Japanese lady “T. Works” hit it hard coming out of the bricks. I was well-positioned near the front and decided to try to grab her wheel – perhaps she would tow me to the finish ahead of the group? She popped an aero powerup, and I just tried to hold on.

Then a Zsun rider (real name Dylan Jones) and several others counter-attacked, coming past me. This was really starting to hurt! I couldn’t seem to catch the wheels of the riders ahead – we still had a couple hundred meters before the sprint typically starts, and I was on the rivet.

The final 90-degree left-hand turn comes ~15 seconds before the finish line, so that’s where I usually go all-in by popping a powerup and sprinting hard. That’s what I did here, but the riders ahead were too far off for me to catch. In the end, I finished 7th according to Zwift, and 5th according to ZwiftPower.

New PRs

That final lap was a new Bell Lap PR for me in Strava (2:25). Average wattage: 400! I also got a TrainingPeaks notification of a new threshold power: I made a huge leap from 300 watts to… drumroll please… 301!

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

Takeaways

My takeaways from this race are:

• I need to work more on going from race pace to a harder effort to sprinting. That’s how these short Crit City races often end, and if you’re already gassed before the sprint begins, you lose!
• A little research would have gone a long way: turns out T. Works isn’t on ZwiftPower, and was using virtual power. The rider averaged 382 watts for the race (but only 4.2 w/kg, so still within bounds). A little ZwiftPower research before or during the race would have told me I didn’t need to chase that wheel.

Your Thoughts

Are you able to hang with the front of the race on these Crit City events? Got any tips for me? Share them below!

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How the Race Was Lost: Racing As a Workout

Have you ever laid in bed at night, made big plans for the next morning’s workout… and regretted them as soon as you woke up?

That was me today. Sitting on the edge of my bed at 0-dark-thirty, wondering where I get these terrible ideas.

Because this was my morning plan: to put in a harder ride around 60 minutes long, then follow it with a short Crit City race where I would put in regular attacks while trying to still finish with the front. The pre-race ride would put some fatigue in the legs, then the race attacks would force me to burn matches every few minutes while maintaining a threshold pace in between.

So I was treating today’s race as a workout, training my body to withstand repeated attacks at race pace – something I’ve historically struggled with. I had no plans of winning – I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to stay with the front group. But I knew by the end I would be spent!

I argued with myself for a few minutes in the dark. Then I got up, grabbed my kit, and went upstairs.

Warmup

As mentioned above, my typical 20-minute race warmup was being replaced today by a longer tempo ride to tire the legs a bit. I had intended to go for an hour, but a misplaced heart rate monitor and small Zwift Insider website emergency meant I was delayed getting on the bike. (I didn’t skip my pre-race ritual either: a piece of caffeine gum and some PR lotion on the legs.)

I settled for a 45-minute ride, averaging 230 watts around Watopia’s Figure 8 with some harder efforts included to get my heart rate up to race levels.

The Start

With only 22 B’s in the starting field, I knew the group speed would be a bit lower than I’ve seen with larger packs. That meant my attacks would be more fun, as I’d be able to get away a bit easier. Perhaps a few riders would join me, splitting the field into small packs with a handful of riders?

We’d find out soon enough! The clock hit zero and we were off – 8 laps of Downtown Dolphin.

Things quickly settled into the typical Downtown Dolphin rhythm: hit it hard for 15 seconds up the brick climb, keep the power up until you’re back up to speed, then recover on the rollers and flats before you do it all again 2 minutes later.

Plan of Attacks

My workout plan was to attempt an attack every other lap. Attacking on the brick prime section didn’t seem like it would work – I have a hard enough time staying in contact there as it is. And I would be a bit too gassed after the bricks to attack into the twisty descent. So I decided to attack before the bricks, on the false flat leading to the eSports pavilion. I figured nobody would expect it, and the slight false flat would help me gain a little extra ground.

My first attack came on the second lap. I managed to get a few seconds on the group, but they caught me as we hit the bricks. (And yes, in the screenshot below, that’s a DIRT teammate at the front of the group, pulling them back to me. A big no-no! In his defense, he was probably trying to bridge up to me, although it didn’t work out that way. No big deal.)

My next attack came on the fourth lap, and this one made things interesting! I hit it hard at about the same place, but got a bit more of a gap than the first attack, probably thanks to an aero helmet powerup. The group caught me near the top of the bricks, but our pack of 13 was stretched out, with gaps opening everywhere.

As we crested the small hill and built speed into the twisties a few riders counterattacked, but I didn’t try to chase their wheels. Instead, I sat in with the larger chase group, figuring we could mop up the breakaway quickly enough. And we did!

It began to feel like the pack was expecting the pace to ramp up in the section where I was attacking, so I surfed the wheels through that segment on the sixth lap, then hit it hard at the bottom of the twisties for what I hoped would be a surprise attack. It worked!

We quickly dropped a few more riders, and before we hit the bricks on the penultimate lap our front group was down to 7 riders. (Or maybe 8. There was a strong rider in a pink kit who started blinking in and out at this point in the race.)

The Finish

I decided my final “attack” would be the sprint to the line, so I just tried to recover and stay in contact on the last lap. When we hit the bricks, one rider (D. Dzik) went hard, breaking away from the front group. I figured we would reel him in, so I kept surfing the wheels, staying with the pack and preparing to go hard at the bottom of the twisties.

Unfortunately for us, D. Dzik has a kick! He stayed away, although just barely. I gave everything I had in the final sprint – but it wasn’t much. Looking at my stats, I only averaged ~570 watts in those final seconds, which is 100-150 watts lower than normal. Not surprising, given the matches I had already burned. (A powerup would have helped, but the Zwift gods hadn’t smiled upon me in the final laps.)

In the end, I finished 6th according to Zwift, and 5th according to ZwiftPower.

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

Takeaways

My takeaways from this race/workout are as follows:

• Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan: I’ve never regretted getting up early to do my planned workout. This is what I need to tell myself each time I wake up and don’t want to get out of bed and do the work.
• If you animate the race, others will too: this was the most animated short Crit City race I’ve done so far, and I really feel like my attacking off the front sort of loosened up other riders and got them to try their own attacks as well. So this was an interesting social experiment, if nothing else.
• A fun way to get a hard workout: this was way more fun than setting up an ERG-mode ride and doing intervals. I had done this “racing as a workout” thing before, but it had been a while. I’ll be doing it again.
• I’m stronger than I thought: I didn’t think I’d have anything left for the finish, but I ended up #5 on ZwiftPower even after riding quite “inefficiently”. That tells me I could do more attacking in real races and still survive.

The Testing Grounds

I’m reminded again of an aspect of Zwift racing that I really appreciate: it gives me a place to try new things. Zwift races are always on the calendar, there are no entry fees, and no travel time to get there. So the cost is very low – just my time and watts.

This frees me up to hop on and try new things – different strategies, different courses or equipment, or even just using the race as a workout with no intention of finishing well, like I did today. If it works out – great! If it doesn’t – that’s fine too! It didn’t cost me anything, and I completed a solid workout.

Your Thoughts

Do you ever use races strictly as workouts? How do you structure things? I’d love to hear your thoughts and stories… comment below!

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