Post by r0b1et on Feb 12, 2017 11:57:34 GMT
After nearly killing my 7yo at park run in the morning (she ran the 5k in 25:36! well proud!), I took to zwift, spotted a short race an hour after I got on, and it fit well with the hour and a half I had planned... So i made it a sweet spot warm up and then a total smash of a 11.2km race.
I wasn't sure how to pace this one - I felt good, on the shorter London circuit - race from the tower to Trafalgar square, round the Strand and up the Mall, then a lap of the classique. I decided I'd have a good chance in a sprint, but was in danger of being dropped by the heavy power houses on the flat, my best chance would be to hurt them on the rises (into Trafalgar square from embankment). I hit an aero powerup on the early rise by the tower - it's not steep, but enough to make me being just 64kg give me an advantage, had a little effort to get the big guys chasing... and the lead group was slimmed from >30 to 6 - perfect, race simplified. I settled into the group to the bottom of the real ramp into the square. Knowing that this ramp was my real advantage, and we'll do it twice (actually slightly different versions, but the same basic hill), the second time about 2km from the end, this time more like 3.5km in. I hit the ramp at the back of the group of 6 and attacked, my plan here was to do the ramp at 500W(7.8W/kg) (that should hurt the big guys!) and then TT a bit, see if I can hold them off. Attacking from the back of a small group works well on Zwift, unless they are in a strange view, by time they see you've attacked, it's too late to get my wheel, and I quickly escaped, they shattered trying to chase me up, but by the top I had 8s lead with the others a little split. At the top I settled into TT mode (aiming for 350W) HR in the low 170s, this will be just about sustainable to the end, but will kill any sprint. At the top they took quite a while to regroup and I had a 12s lead for a while and was getting confident this was my chance, but once they regrouped, they were gaining, quickly enough they'd have caught me at the base of the Trafalgar climb, so I eased up enough to let them catch me up Constitution hill - that was a decent recovery and HR back to the low 160s, which I can sustain for over an hour - I'm definitely recovering. So the plan now will simply be stay with any move and go flat out with 250m to go for the sprint. Nothing spectacular happened until that rise, when there was an attack from the front of the group (bad move), 3 of us held that wheel to the top, I actually did a small pull at the top to keep the 4 of us away and there was another attack under the flame-rouge, I'll admit I missed this a fraction and was lucky to catch the wheel of the other guy who was sprinting to catch that guy... he got there, but had nothing left and faded with 400m to go leaving me to drift up to the leader and lay down 900W with 250m to go, couldn't hold it, but it gave me enough acceleration to hold on for the win by 1.09s - and a HR of 183bpm, the most I ever recorded indoors.
www.strava.com/activities/863110660/overview
I wasn't sure how to pace this one - I felt good, on the shorter London circuit - race from the tower to Trafalgar square, round the Strand and up the Mall, then a lap of the classique. I decided I'd have a good chance in a sprint, but was in danger of being dropped by the heavy power houses on the flat, my best chance would be to hurt them on the rises (into Trafalgar square from embankment). I hit an aero powerup on the early rise by the tower - it's not steep, but enough to make me being just 64kg give me an advantage, had a little effort to get the big guys chasing... and the lead group was slimmed from >30 to 6 - perfect, race simplified. I settled into the group to the bottom of the real ramp into the square. Knowing that this ramp was my real advantage, and we'll do it twice (actually slightly different versions, but the same basic hill), the second time about 2km from the end, this time more like 3.5km in. I hit the ramp at the back of the group of 6 and attacked, my plan here was to do the ramp at 500W(7.8W/kg) (that should hurt the big guys!) and then TT a bit, see if I can hold them off. Attacking from the back of a small group works well on Zwift, unless they are in a strange view, by time they see you've attacked, it's too late to get my wheel, and I quickly escaped, they shattered trying to chase me up, but by the top I had 8s lead with the others a little split. At the top I settled into TT mode (aiming for 350W) HR in the low 170s, this will be just about sustainable to the end, but will kill any sprint. At the top they took quite a while to regroup and I had a 12s lead for a while and was getting confident this was my chance, but once they regrouped, they were gaining, quickly enough they'd have caught me at the base of the Trafalgar climb, so I eased up enough to let them catch me up Constitution hill - that was a decent recovery and HR back to the low 160s, which I can sustain for over an hour - I'm definitely recovering. So the plan now will simply be stay with any move and go flat out with 250m to go for the sprint. Nothing spectacular happened until that rise, when there was an attack from the front of the group (bad move), 3 of us held that wheel to the top, I actually did a small pull at the top to keep the 4 of us away and there was another attack under the flame-rouge, I'll admit I missed this a fraction and was lucky to catch the wheel of the other guy who was sprinting to catch that guy... he got there, but had nothing left and faded with 400m to go leaving me to drift up to the leader and lay down 900W with 250m to go, couldn't hold it, but it gave me enough acceleration to hold on for the win by 1.09s - and a HR of 183bpm, the most I ever recorded indoors.
www.strava.com/activities/863110660/overview