Today I skipped my lunch and decided to do my first race on Zwift since June 2023. I decided to enter one of the current Zwift Unlocked series – Stage 5 which was an 18km sprint on The Double Borough course from Central Park down to Manhattan, across the Brooklyn Bridge and back.
I had no idea what to expect other than some pain but given my last race was a similar distance it would be a good comparison to see where I’m at in the fitness stakes.
As I started, the usual sprint off the line didn’t quite happen and it settled down quickly. The pace remained high (for me) for most of it. There are a couple of dips into the subway en-route with a couple of short, sharp kickers out to raise the heart rate but the main climb is a 2km power drag over Brooklyn Bridge which saw me blowing out my arse both ways.
There were times when I just felt like I needed to stop but I dug in and even mustered a pathetic sprint to finish.
So let’s look at the stats.
From a starting pen of 32, it quickly whittled down to the lead group I was in. I finished 12th in the race which was filtered down to 4th in my category but that was a D which I’m a bit upset about lol.
…but if I look at my power compared to two years ago I’m about 25 watts down which, given I haven’t been racing for two years isn’t an insurmountable amount to get back to. Anecdotally, I felt pretty comfortable on the flat, it’s the surges and long climb which caused me trouble so some short VO2 max intervals to do there I think. Yuck!
So on the whole, not great (I just want to be as good as I was!) but a positive start with work to do.
psssst……if you listen carefully as I finish you’ll here me squealing like a pig in pain 🙂