Last night saw my return to Zwift racing after a multi-month respite. I've been focusing on the great outdoors and back-filling Zwift rides as recovery efforts, so I haven't really been doing the kinds of efforts required in a team time trial, and I hadn't really cared much about it until I got a surprise invite on Tuesday to race with the CRYO-GEN Eagles.
That's not a lot of time to prepare, and I have been enjoying a LOT of cookies this summer.
I was able to shed 2 lbs by race day--not back to spring fighting weight, but enough to make the watts-per-kilogram numbers a little less upsetting, especially since the target power was 5.5 W/kg. That's a big number, and well beyond my threshold. The plan also had each rider taking 30-second pulls, and we were running a full crew of 8 at the start, so there should have, at least in theory, been plenty of time to draft below threshold between pulls.
But the plan had a harsh reality to overcome: the circuit was my 2nd least favorite Zwift course: Harrogate. Blech. Gross. Literally only the jungle is worse. Gimme a drag race up Ventoux, or boring laps of Tempus Fugit. But Harrogate? It's just false flats all over the place, and that long drag up Otley Rd is so punishing. The downhills are barely long enough to recover, and the climb to the finish is really tricky to time right. I don't care for it.
Anyway.
We got out of the pens and organized far more quickly than with my previous team, and rotations settled in early. One rider was performing team car duties excellently, calling up rotations and keeping overall calm. Otley Rd claimed an early victim, but our remaining team of 7 soldiered on to the first climb at a crushing 4.55W/kg average. I was on the ragged edge for most of the race, struggling to find consistency on the front, and struggling to get my heart-rate under control OFF the front.
By the time we'd done Otley Rd on the 2nd lap, we were down to 5. With a minimum of 4 riders needed for a team result, we were determined not to lose anyone else, just in case someone had a network/power/vmechanical issue. That meant big efforts and a couple of skipped pulls, which really sucked to have to do. We gave up 22 seconds on the 2nd lap, which is pretty daggone respectable given that we lost 2 riders early. But the way we gave that time up suggests the strategy could use some refinement.
Let me be clear: this is a FAST team with some very strong riders. Everybody on the squad was in A, with 2 A+ riders in the group. Looking through Zwiftpower's sign-up list, everyone had recently held at least 4.3W/kg. And our lap times showed that: we were over 2 minutes faster in our first lap than the Vultures were back in February. So power was NOT an issue here.
But looking at the lap-over-lap analysis, it seems trying to hold a consistent power may not have been the best approach to this course.
The first lap saw an average wattage of 296, with a stupid high peak of 560, and an average heart rate 1 beat into Z5 for me @ 175.
What's fascinating to me is what the 30-second intervals did to my body compared to the climbs. From the turn onto Otley Rd to the sharp drop on Pot Bank, my heart never comes out of Z5. I wasn't frankly sure I'd survive the first lap, and even with a brief reprieve into the very tippy top of Z4 on the descent, I was pushing on max HR before we even hit the first KOM run. This is not a recipe for success for me.
But then things get interesting. I was able to settle into exactly 5.5W/kg for the first half of the KOM, letting off the pressure just slightly on the flatter middle plateau to 5W/kg to bring the group back together, and while my HR soared to 183 for the 2:40 climb, it actually recovered very well on the descent, hitting its lowest number for the rest of the lap @ 168.
The group was, at this point, disorganized and gasping for breath, but we held a consistent 280W--still slightly over 4W/kg--to the end of the lap. Looking at the top chart above, you can see we lost no time lap-over-lap after the KOM, and in fact my average power and heart rate were identical between them, again with 2 fewer riders.
To me that suggests we were letting the terrain be a greater influence on our output than choreographed power targets, and the data in the visual above proves it out: when the ground goes up, so does my heart rate.
Because we allowed that natural use of terrain only after getting shattered on the climb, it further suggests that approach could have been employed to greater effect on the front half of the course.
For instance, our first run up Otley Rd took 7 riders 2:54 with my average power sitting at 317W. The 2nd run, gasping for breath and down 2 more riders, was completed 7 seconds slower @ 3:01 & 306W. 11 watts, smaller draft: 7 second penalty. That trend continued as we pushed through the lap, except I was having to skip pulls to stay with the group.
By the 2nd false flat (finishing Otley & onto Pot bank), we were down to 3 or 4 riders pulling, with a 4-second loss and an overall power loss of 31W compared to the first lap. That's a big drop-off, with almost identical losses on the 3rd lump.
Conversely, we were losing almost nothing on the descents, irrespective of power output.
And that's where our race was decided: on those 3 false flats in the first half of the lap. Big crazy power numbers on the first lap, deflated riders on the 2nd.
But then we hit the KOM again and pretty much stopped losing time, and looking through my data, it seems that while I was off from the 5.5W/kg on the first half of the first run, I wasn't off by much. A 22W loss brought me to 5.1W/kg, again backing off slightly to identical first-lap numbers after the mid-point. Both 5+W/kg intervals were just over 70 seconds, suggesting that's my sweet spot for bigger numbers. And just as with the first lap, the following descent saw my lowest heart rate and best recovery of the lap.
Next time I think I'll advocate for longer turns on the front with target variations for the terrain, and be happy to get either.
All in all I was extremely pleased with our performance, and thrilled to be able to lay down the watts after a 3 month break from Zwift races. I need to add it back into my regimen, but figure out how to do it without turning back into a 1-hour specialist, because outdoor races WILL come back at some point (please please please).
Total: 39:26 / 26.5 mph / 290W (4.46W/kg) / 175bpm
Lap 1: 19:22 / 26.8 mph / 296W (4.55W/kg) / 175bpm
Lap 2: 19:43 / 26.3 mph / 285W (4.38W/kg) / 175bpm
Otley Rd Climb (1 mile @ 3%)
Lap 1: 2:54 / 20.7 mph / 317W / 172bpm / 7 riders
Lap 2: 3:01 / 19.9 mph / 306W / 179bpm / 5 riders
Otley False Flat (1.1 miles @ 1%)
Lap 1: 2:23 / 27.8 mph / 313W / 177bpm / 7 riders
Lap 2: 2:27 / 27.1 mph / 282W / 172bpm / 5 riders (no pulls)
Yorkshire KOM (0.74 miles @ 5%)
Lap 1: 2:40 / 17.2 mph / 331W (357 / 309) / 178bpm
Lap 2: 2:42 / 17.0 mph / 321W (331 / 309) / 178bpm
KOM top to finish (3.1 miles @ -0.7%)
Lap 1: 6:23 / 29.2 mph / 281W / 174bpm / 7 riders
Lap 2: 6:19 / 29.5 mph / 282W / 175bpm / 5 riders (back in rotation, sprint finish)
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