Minuteman Road Club

MC Pare and I did the Zwift EVR B race Thursday night. Four laps on the Watopia "Hilly Loop", 5.7 miles and 329ft of gain per lap. Just like any other race it started out really freakin fast.... and then it hit the punchy hills and rollers. The climbs weren't that hard, heck I didn't even get a PR in the race. It was just like in a real race, the pace getting to the climbs and the descents were where people were smashing it.

I was sorta with the lead group for the first lap with MC Pare. These dudes were sprinting it out from the gun. I was popped as we hit the hill for lap two and raced with the chase group for a while but was separated again when a few guys attacked on the descent. OK, so now group three! I was feeling blown out and ready to stop because you know... it's just a video game, but I saw MCP was close so I went into teammate mode, catch up and ride together. OK, maybe I went into "OH MAN HE POPPED! MUST. BEAT. PARE!" Apparently me passing gave him new life because he was right there for the rest of the two laps. So back to teammate mode in our little group 8? I was mostly in first person mode so I never really saw how many people I was with.

Lap three was more of the same, steady up the climb and punch the rollers....

Lap four similar situation, steady climb but more punching on the rollers. I knew I was feeling like crap on that last lap so I decided to play the "when in doubt, lead out" (standard cop out play) and pushed the pace at the end to the finishing straight. I had a feeling that MCP would be back there ready to pounce so I pushed the pace to the finish trying to give a lead out and praying he was guessing what I was doing and hit it when I pop. Sure enough I could see the power and w/kg levels start glowing red and people were coming around. In the end... MCP won our little group sprint for 13th (19th on the prelim results) and I was left off the results (maybe I should contact JD to review the tape). I finished around 22nd per the preliminary results. http://www.zwiftpower.com/v2/race.php?id=1868 Not sure if you can see the results without creating a profile and all that jazz.

In the end it was a good workout... that's all I was after. Will I do it again... heck yeah. I really like what they are doing in this world to make riding the trainer easier to get through.

I can't believe you wrote a race report, that's just sad.... so here's mine:

Except for a couple easy rides in the last week I haven't turned a pedal since my crash on 10/3. Fitness is near all-time-low levels. So of course why not enter a race and destroy myself for an hour because that's smart. Because I have zero self control I went with the front group from the gun and basically pinned it at V02 heart rate for 10 minutes before epically imploding. Soft pedaled for a while and probably would have quit but for Mkidd behind me. Hopped onto group B.2 for bit but wasn't fully recovered from the implosion so I got dropped on the next hill. Then I soft pedaled again and waited for group B.3 and Mkidd. We managed a reasonable-but-hard pace for the rest of the race, heck I even took a bunch of hard pulls in the second half of the race as I could see an MTB buddy of mine was 30 seconds up the road and isolated with just one other guy (and we had a group of ~8). It would have been great to catch/beat him but alas we weren't able to close it down. The sprint was exactly as described, Mark burying himself and doing lots of work at the front in the closing kilometers. I waited a fraction too long and someone jumped and got a quick 20 meter gap so I went all in and managed to catch/pass him just before the line.

There's definitely not a more training-efficient way to spend an hour on the bike. It's basically an hour-of-power with several prolonged V02 intervals mixed in as well as an all out sprint at the end. Good times! Not sure it would be wise to do more than one per week though...

It's also obvious that there is rampant sandbagging in the virtual world just like the real world. "B" race my a$$

pace21 wrote:Fitness is near all-time-low levels.

I bet Mark appreciated this part

JeremyC wrote:

pace21 wrote:Fitness is near all-time-low levels.

I bet Mark appreciated this part

Very, and then it made me feel worse... he'sgonna get stronger real quick