Forum menu
Add in a 15 to 30 minute endurance pace around 130 to 150 watts after races.
Awesome well done Tom- sounds fun!
I’m certainly not questioning your power or right to race C 😉
See @Weeksy Tom has made the same suggestion too- race hard to deplete your glycogen stores and then settle in at your endurance pace. It gives a similar effect to a long steady ride without having to give up on the racing scene.
Getting a little hot in here!
I had a frustrating race tonight. 2 laps of tick tock. All cats off together which have a big lead group. Perfect for a bit of break practice. Lap1 before we even got to the lake I started the attacks. Ins group of maybe 40 sat at the back and then went up to 6/7wkg. Ended up with such a speed differential by the time I hit the front that I pretty much jumped 5seconds off the front. No one wanted to play so sat there for a minute before letting the group catch. So lazy group then. Onto the ramp out of the desert town I went again. This time got a reaction with some closing me down at 12wkg and blasting past. This attack broke the pack in two with around 20 left.
The pack speed was quite low, I could sit in at low 3 wkg and 140ish HR for periods. That meant I could keep applying the pressure with a repeat on every ramp. It was pretty much got the same few riders reacting at high power.
Getting into lap two it's was clearly starting to get to some riders as gaps started to appear but I just couldn't motivate those catching me to keep the speed up and snap them. We whittled a few off the back leaving 15 by the time we hit the underwater section.
There was a good bit on banter flowing as we cruised along the tunnel. I got too involved in that and looked up to find a 4s gap. So annoyed as I put in loads of work and threw it away. I tired but couldn't close back up so did a self punishment ITT to the end as hard as I could.
14th in the end but could have and should have been better. https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=232350
I got good gains adding 15-30 minutes or extra laps after events end of last year. I stopped doing it for some reason and am now trying to get back into doing that as I've gone backwards recently.
LOL good report matey. 🙂
OOOOhhhh errrrrrm
Rest day today yeah....but but.. there's a Richmond Flat Roads... :O we all love a bit of Richmond now don't we !!!!
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=232761
Sheesh.. .tempting.
I can think of many things I'd rather do than Richmond Flat roads.
You're not fat. It's easy to enjoy different layouts when you're a whippet
See @Weeksy Tom has made the same suggestion too- race hard to deplete your glycogen stores and then settle in at your endurance pace.
I can barely stand after a race, let alone pedal more!
That’s the whole point. Simulate the last 90minutes of a long day in the saddle.
If the long day in the saddle is as hard as a race, then I've already put the bike on a train and I'm in the bar drinking 9% beer
🤦🏻♂️🤣
It doesn’t matter whether the event is 3 minutes or 12 hours- the reason you ground to a halt is the same. You run out of glycogen.
You could force the adaption needed to train for this event by giving up Zwift racing and doing long steady endurance rides.
Or you can carry on the racing you enjoy and add these short endurance sessions to the end to create the stimulus for for your body to adapt.
If you carry on racing flat out for 35-70 minutes then you’ll just plateau and not really achieve anything.
But I’m sure I wrote all this somewhere else the other day 🤷🏻♂️
You're assuming I read it all?
Well you liked them 🤷🏻♂️🤣
But if you did then it’s worrying 😬🤣
Ha ha. Fair point.
I'll try it tomorrow after the 10:32am P race. I wanna see a load of C's.
Just got back into using/racing on Zwift.
My weight has crept up to 76kg, lost my will to cycle... but then I signed back up to Zwift and the buzz seems to have come back! I’m doing it alongside 30-45 mins gym every morning and jogging 4km at lunch most days so my results aren’t going to be at the level they were in my head 😆
I’ve returned as an A as my base FTP seems to be around 315 and even at my new weight it’s 4.1w/kg+.
Saying that though, and I’ve picked flat routes on purpose lol, I’m not doing too badly with two silvers and a top 10 so far.
https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=98508
(Btw in the handicapped race: B was A and A was A+ :lol:)
Plan is to enjoy cycling/running/gym for a few months, then start a training plan for some real life races next year!
I'm very impressed with how your form has come back mate. It makes me think that sometimes we're in the situation where you either have 'it' or don't and no matter what, you're kind of there or not there. To come back after very little with a 4+ is just bonkers.
Welcome back.
Afraid yesterday's silver doesn't count though as that was a team event not solo. It's a great format. If you look on the BRT Facebook page you should be able to join in one of the squads.
If your back to racing then you join the A team Facebook chat planning chat?
Thanks Weeksy. I think once you have trained the base fitness it’s very quick to get it back to a certain level again. For me that seems to be around an FTP if 315 - so quite lucky I guess. I wasn’t completely off the bike, maybe a cycle a week for an hour, but certainly a few periods were I didn’t touch a bike for a couple of weeks.
Lol Nixie, I was in my own team representing STW 😆 I don’t want to formalise anything as I will struggle to commit due to unreliable trains out of London. But please do send me an invite if possible?
I'm in debate mode for this morning/today. The Tea race at 10:32 now has 17 entrants which isn't bad... But 2 things, 1. It's not a course that suits me. 2. My legs are feeling VERY heavy at the moment. I'm more tempted to jump outside for 45mins/1hr for a ride before the rain arrives that's seemingly on it's way here.
@nathb, you should be in the chat now (assuming I got the right facebook account).
I went outside for an hour 🙂 sorry.
@weeksy I don't doubt that but if you can recover for 5 minutes then do 15 minutes or a bit more at whatever you can manage but not too hard hence on assumption of your FTP then max out at about 130 watts.
A win for me in the 10.32 tea race (cat c).
Gave it loads off the line and started fast in the top 5 and then a few faded out and it was relatively high paced but comfortable.
Had 18 seconds before the uphill finish and thought I was clearly home and dry and then remembered how hard the second placed rider hit the climb on the previous 3 laps. Gave it everything to stay ahead at the finish and pipped him by 3 seconds. Felt pretty faint getting off the bike!
LOL that's proper proper remarkable when you consider where Salts and GUTS are in the rankings. I don't see you staying in C for long though.
@weeksy - i've just looked at their rankings and i'm shocked. LOL. It was a small field though.
I think that course suits me. I need a climb as I struggle on the pace/endurance circuits.
I feel that Zwift is definitely helping me get some quality efforts in and i'm feeling the difference when I get back outside.
Guts is meant to be a B so should be binned out of those results.
You're likely to be upgraded, well done, as you are a good chunk over the limit. You might sneak in as a C for another race or 2.
Quick scan of a couple of races a lot of over category Cs are still in C race results even though they were already classifed as a B.
You can report it on the forum and Sticky will sort it...
I won't though as he may lose his Gold 🙂
Yeah, looking at it I was over but in my previous races I've been under. Guess I've been getting stronger.
Do I need to enter a B race next time?
Nopes.... Not yet... in your profile you'll see when you're a B.
Basically click on 'info' and you'll see your total.
Once it's over 3.20 you're a B. Until then, be the King of C
It's not like you've won every race you've been in like the 2 you beat ;0)
Another performance like that and you'll be upgraded but you may as well keep in C for another race or 2. Also check your trainer calibration, weight and height just in case something is wrong as if you correct it later after upgrade you'll be stuck in B cursing it.
Hope to start Zwift racing again soon, have got back into Zwift over the last couple of months but mainly just sessioning the Epic KOM & Alpe so I could unlock the Tron bike (accomplished last week 😎) So I hadn't gotten around to trying any of the new stuff until today. Rode Titan's Grove (nice route, pretty hilly, dinosaurs!! 🦕), tried the new MTB route (and unlocked the MTB by scoring 9/10 on my 3rd try lol)
Anyone else tried the steering course? Got to say it was a lot of fun! It works really well IMO. I can see how this will add an edge to some races as a lot of times otherwise on a descent you can just be twiddling your (virtual) thumbs. Also, as soon as the MTB segment was over and you're back on the road bike, it just felt weird and restrictive not to be able to turn! So hopefully they'll implement that for normal riding, even if it's just for visual interest & doesn't actually affect the ride at all (except for making turns at junctions, that would be really cool).
Done one loop of the MTB track. Found it a great way of distracting me from the fact I was actually kicking out a fair whack of power. Think there is a future in those tracks.
Yeah, there are some steep climbs on that MTB route! Can't wait until they do some proper races!
Yeah was surprised at how fun it was! Took a couple of goes to unlock the mtb though.
Nearly didn’t ride this evening but that kept me amused for an hour.
Would definitely make for some interesting races.
OMG second hard race in two days and I feel dead. Doing the BRT thunderbolt series. It's GC over the 5 events so the London flat yesterday kicked off with very cagey racing. Along with one other BRT rider I tried to mix it up with lots of attacks. With DD enabled this was never really going to work well. Paid the price in the end finishing 15s being the leader.
Tonight was two laps of Innsbruck UCI. The big climb and leg snapper, twice. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Got numb arms on the first climb I was trying so hard to stay in touch. Finished quite a way off the lead group but well ahead of a lot of the riders above me in the GC table. so tired now and somehow got to get it together for a TT tomorrow (thankfully only 20k) and two more days. Very much looking forward to the rest day on Tuesday. Plus side this is already my biggest zwift week ever and more to come. Great kickstart to project a+.
WKG round 2 today on the Watopia big loop including the Epic KOM so really not ideal for me. Usual frantic start and I settled in with the 2nd group of C riders, onto the climb and the group split, i just did my own thing and was pleased to arrive at the top in 23rd. Solo on the descent, going towards climb to jungle I had a group of 4 about 15 seconds ahead so I tried to reel them in, finally caught them on the jungle descent, we kept picking up stragglers around jungle loop and by the time we finished the jungle we were a group of 12. One rider kicked going from Italian village towards Volcano he quickly pulled out 4 seconds, I made the move to join him and pulled the group with me. In the volcano someone got a 2 second gap, I put in a 400W effort, caught and past him, minimal reaction from the group so I kept going by the end of the tunnel I had 15 seconds on the group with 1/2 a mile to go, cruised to the line for 8th C. Happy with that result on this course, ap of 251W for 1:25.
That's great riding, nice obe
Nice work. That's a great average power for that long.
Did my first race today. C race in DBR Monday night Race League. Was Yorkshire. 12 laps. Not particularly hilly. Finished 13th in my category, I didn’t use a heart rate strap so not sure if that’s why my ride doesn’t appear in Zwiftpower?
Was 1 hour 2 minutes, averaged 3.3 watts per kg. Still finished a full 7 minutes down from the category leaders, the guy in second place averaged 3.1 w/kg.
I didn’t notice any benefit from drafting. I tried to ride in groups, when I took it easier I lost the wheel and when carrying out at same pace I’d either drop them or I’d get dropped. I couldn’t really sit in a group though. I’m on a Wattbike pro, no erg mode. I manually have to change to a harder gear on climbs.
No idea how people can do races on back to back days, I’m zonked!
Good fun, nice change from Sufferfest. Easy ride tomorrow and will do another race later in the week, probably Thursday.
Assuming your Paul Woods6289 then yes filtered out for no NR. On the results page there is a 'filtered' button. You appear in that list.
Nice effort though. With that power you belong in B not C.
Thanks Nixie, yeah that’s me. I’ve not really done much real riding or training for the best part of a year, just getting back to fitness, had no idea on what category to enter.
Just checked and it was 3.4 watts for the hour, so yeah will move to B soon. As should the other C’s who finished minutes ahead of me!
The hills got me though, I was having to go to 4.5 to 5 watts per kg to keep up with the group, then at the top of the climb no recovery. Aim is to get back to 65kgs and 280 watt ftp. Not sure my age or my chocolate addiction will let me though!
They don't as they aren't above category limits and none of the first 3 at least look like sandbaggers. 3rd will be getting an upgrade soon by the looks of it.
Contrary to popular belief there is some skill required in Zwift racing rather than pure watts. Drafting is a skill, knowing when to make an effort to stay with a group and being able to sty with them. When to attack or sprint. I regularly beat people pushing higher WKG even those of a similar weight but my power profile is good (for a C) for the flat and short hill routes. Not so good on the 5+ minute climbs.
Were you on a TT bike so unable to draft?
Anyway good start and you've been upgraded to a B on ZP.
so decisions decisions today.
Do i race in the TT at 3pm..... I've ridden it the past 2 weeks, same course and roughly the same results, 34th and 38th, they're open races, so i think i've done OK personally. But they're both 0 points in the Zwift Rankings and TBH i can't see how i can improve enough to pick up any points. If i race in a different one today i think i at least have a chance of picking up a point or 3.... even if it's only a couple of them.
There's the 3:30 Carl Ras which is 4 laps of the Innsbruckring, i sort of enjoy the circuit but struggle on that hilly bit compared to the lightweights and lose wheels every time. Maybe not on lap 1, but deffo later.
Then there's the 16:05 which is the Volcano CCW which i quite enjoy as far as layouts go, but 8 of them is pushing my boundaries....
Decisions decisions.
OK, i'm going for the 3:30pm Carl Ras if anyone else is about and fancies a whirl.