Paracycling | Pre-Training Camp Panic!

With the first big ride of the year done and dusted, it was time to shift towards training camp and the Track Nat Champs. The aim is to do track on January 19th and focus on more endurance building for the training camp. 

That meant one session on the track bike to understand what the front wheel makes in reality - it’s rapid, and I can actually steer the bike! Mathilde and I shared the track doing 4km efforts and it showed me the difference raw power and aerodynamics. Mathilde has the full set up and I have the “first time on pursuit bars” set up (which to be clear is what I am after at this stage). So it was really good motivation to have her fly by and then do my best to keep up.

The first effort was more about understanding the new bike dynamics as shown in the first corner when I went onto the cote and then up to the red. I eventually got more use to it and finished feeling more comfortable with holding the black line. That said the effort was also not too bad with it being 5mins29secs at 366w (367w NP) for my (just over) flying 4km effort.

The second effort was a flat-out effort, I was still a bit all over the place especially on the 2nd corner of the lap. That said, this was a proper race effort and the power shows it. I went out on fresh leg pacing with the first 25seconds being at 461w, but settled down to 4mins43seconds at 368w (374w NP). The total effort was 5mins18seconds at 375w (375w NP), once again it was a flying 4km but included the lead-in. Presuming the timings were in the ballpark, that would give me a 20second advantage over what I did in Glasgow - obviously, the difference being the additional distance vs the standing start. The other thing to note is that on fresh legs I should be able to do 420w at minimum - that means there is another 50w in the legs. 

Having done those two efforts and feeling more confident - perhaps more importantly, on my limit… I decided to focus the third effort on being smooth (for clarity, I still did 353w for 5mins30seconds so it wasn’t “easy”). As a result of focusing on line rather than power, it felt really quick and the timing showed with a similar time to the 1st effort, but this time over 10w easier. The first 2mins20secs were at 375w, but the remaining effort was 3mins5seconds at 336w (338w NP). As I felt that I was struggling to hold the line, I took the brute force power off and instead just focused on keeping to the black line throughout. The goal will be to combine both but knowing that I can just hold the line is great news.

The final effort of the day was flat out and was slightly quicker than the 3rd effort. It felt smooth, not as smooth as the 3rd effort but smooth enough. The legs were also on their limit as shown by the middle part of 2mins17seconds at 335w (338w NP). 

All in all, a great session and I can’t wait to get back on the track after training camp! I have 6 hours on the track on the weekend of the 15th- 16th January which will be great fun!

With all things rushing back from the commute, the (Mad) Monday Zwift race didn’t go exactly to plan in that I forgot my HRM so got DQed - but the effort matters more. I also didn’t do any warm up and it went straight into 2x 90second efforts. If you were serious about the race results, then the first 90second was a flat out sprint, but I wasn’t, so I just paced myself each lap. I surprised myself by crossing the 2nd climb in the lead group each time as the legs felt horrible. I also put in a late attack before the final climb as otherwise it would have been 2w/kg and that isn’t useful for me so I finished up with 5mins36secs at 351w (349w NP).

As you can see from the chart below, it was very much a VO2 interval session with quite a lot of Z1 and Z2 for a 43minute race.

I finished the ride with a cooldown to get to what I thought was 100TSS, but was only 90. So I’ve double checked that everything is the correct FTP.

Tuesday, I did back-to-back Tour de Zwift rides which meant that it was either Z2 or flat out. It’s a weird group ride vibe where it is very much no one rides on the front but the moment there is a hill, you sprint like your life depends on it. I made the mistake of being late into the pen so the initial effort was horrible - especially with no warm up. 2mins at 363w while the legs weren’t feeling great wasn’t fun and it took all the way to the reverse KOM for the ride to settle down. This was after a 7minute30second effort at 352w (352w NP) as part of a longer effort of 9minutes at 341w (342w NP). The final two efforts were 75seconds at 380w and to finish the ride/race, it was 2mins at 367w.

The legs were on the limit and luckily the next group ride was slower. There was a single effort of 336w (339w NP) for 6mins52seconds, but the rest of it was pretty easy. 

The following day, Wednesday, I did the same course twice which was the first group ride I did on the Tuesday. It was a bit more punchy and I ended up in no-man’s land between lead group and chase group and caused myself a massive effort. You can then see where I got dropped too, which was even more annoying after all the effort. 100seconds at 358w, 4mins5secs at 376w (375w NP) where I found myself slightly off the back of the lead group and it took an 3min22sec effort at 352w (357w NP) to get back in. Only for the front group to sprint all out for a sprinters jersey… Those three efforts combined for 13mins16seconds at 325w (343w NP)! Having done 345w NP for 20mins, it’s not on the limit if fresh, but the legs were dying before the ride. Z2 ride followed with two big efforts where I decided to set the pace as the “favourite” within the chase group - the first effort being 1minute at 405w. Not easy, but not flat out. The final effort was a long sprint to go solo with just over 1km to go. The sprint to get away from the group was 34seconds at 500w was followed by 95seconds at 386w which in the end got me 2nd in the group as someone followed me on my move. Not the highest numbers, but all things are relative.

The second effort was actually really slow and I’m a bit annoyed I didn’t make the lead group as both groups went much slower than normal. I was happy with it being slow as I was dying. The 7minute33second effort was at 320w (322w NP) as I just didn’t have anything left. The final sprint is non-existent too.

I had a few days of enforced rest due to my paracycling classification confirmation assessment which confirmed I am a C5 - there were some changes, but none of them impacted me. What that meant is that I needed to Sunday’s effort on 7-8 hour travel legs - not ideal. Funny enough, the legs didn’t feel great but they did well enough. That said, the goal was to be in the lead group on the final climb and see what happens. 

With the course (as seen below), the assumption was that there would be a lot of Z1/Z2 riding and a lot of high VO2 efforts with a total of 8 climbs. The race wasn’t the most exciting to race with 3 attack points (Forward KOM, Volcano Climb and Forward KOM on the second lap) and would be a race of survival.

And that is exactly how it played out. It took 15 minutes to get to the first climb, but from there the race was on. I’ll just post the key data points and charts for the first 10 efforts as I did nothing but sit at the back of the group the whole of the race until then.

Effort 1: 10mins18secs at 306w (319w NP). 3 spikes: 81secs at 359w, 3mins at 359w (356w NP) and 30secs at 389w. 

Effort 2 (Forward KOM L1): 2mins5secs at 446w including 34secs at 522w. Was in main chase group, few small splits but nothing big enough to not be brought back.

Effort 3 (Volcano L1): 7mins32secs at 349w (356w NP). 3 spikes: 2mins20 at 355w, 77secs at 382w and 96secs at 397w.

Effort 4: 6mins52secs at 320w (335w NP). Bumpy Road with 1km steady climb meant lots of ups and downs. 2 main sections with slight downhill between. 3mins57secs at 311w (309w NP) and 98secs at 424w to finish.  

Effort 5: Was on the flat when people decided it was time to create a breakaway (for once it wasn’t me). 75secs at 397w was actually the minimum I could do as I sat in the draft. 

Effort 6: Another attempt (again, not me). 40secs at 386w. 

Effort 7 (Reverse KOM): One of my favourite efforts, big sprint to start with some rolling terrain that you can create splits on and recover if you are smart. 24secs at 517w for the main effort as part of a total effort of 4mins6secs at 345w (352w NP) - a lot more tame than normal. 

Effort 8: 76secs at 339w as more breakaway attempts happened.

Effort 9: More lumpy climbs with a total effort of 2mins55secs at 312w (309w NP). Two spikes which were 10secs at 400w and 22secs at 377w.

Effort 10: After a couple mins at Z2/3 after Effort 9, it was time for a flat out effort. That effort being 2mins38secs at 370w (363w NP) with small sections of rest, but not much.

Effort 11 (Forward KOM L2): The most decisive climb in the race with it being only 10km to go and the only time that the draft doesn’t really matter. The effort is, sort of, split into two where the first 113secs are within the lead group and then I just couldn’t hold on. That 113sec effort being at 424w with the following final 15secs of the effort being at 338w as I just died. When I needed to be able to do 500w, I could only do 340w. 

This is where it got interesting and I’m not sure if I made a mistake or not, but I sat up and waited for the group and the group really didn’t pace that hard. I think in hindsight, I should have gone solo for the final 10km. That said I was confident I would win from the group behind and didn’t really fancy a 20minute TT. 

Effort 12: Volcano Climb* (I also should have checked where the finish line was as it wasn’t at the top of the Volcano climb so I didn’t go all out thinking I had another 20secs sprint to do.). That said, the effort was 7mins16secs where I followed for the start and then tried to pace it up the steeper parts. Which included 1minute at 388w which felt comfortable. A bit of a rest as it flattened and I’d not split the group before another surge of 90seconds at 383w where I was expecting to do my sprint off. However, the race ended there and I had so much more left in the tank. 

That meant that the overall effort was just under 2hours20mins at NP of 294w (262w average) which is my best ever, but I also had a lot more in me which makes me think I can do 300w for 3 hours. At some point I’ll organise myself another 3hour TT, but for the time being it’s not on the cards as I focus on repeatability of VO2 efforts. 

There were two more workouts to do until tapering for training camp and they were benchmarking gym efforts (deadlift and pull ups) followed by one more VO2 workout in a Zwift race. The benchmarking lead to two new PBs as well! I did 3x 85kg (1x 85, 2x 85) and did 3 pull ups straight after. While it’s not a lot, it is progress and you have to start somewhere. I think especially for lifting, I can pick up the weight fairly comfortably but the technical element needs some improvement. And then 3 pulls ups are three pulls ups.

The final workout was a Zwift race called TFC Mad Monday and the course really was mad. Within a 47minute race, I spent 20minutes over threshold, but also 14minutes in Z1 or Z2, essentially it was a long VO2 interval session to contrast from the KISS100 Short VO2 interval session the day before. There were 3 climbs which are all slightly different to each other, the first one was a steady effort, while the second one was a bit lumpy and then steep before returning to steady climbing for the final effort.

It was Z2 efforts to start before the first climb. But once we started it was brutal with first 70seconds at 342w but it then got steeper with the final 5mins11seconds at 393w (391w NP). Perhaps more interesting is how I climbed with two big sections of the effort done out of the saddle. With the effort containing 2x 90 seconds out of the saddle efforts. The first being at 64rpm and the second being at 60rpm! Which is quite a contrast to how I’d see myself normally climb. For race context, I was in the peloton knowing that my legs weren’t feeling amazing but clearly better than I thought (two riders sprinted ahead before getting caught at the bottom of the next climb).

The second climb was an odd one because it was very cat-and-mouse to start off with. We could have probably gained a lot of time by someone setting the pace - but oh well, I didn’t mind the recovery that I got. The first 2mins5secs were at 294w before it steepened and became more consistent effort. That consistent effort felt like forever but it was only 5minutes - the power was at 379w (376w NP) with it bouncing around slightly as the gradient shallowed slightly. The big thing for this climb was that it flattened at the top and you had to continue the effort. So there was another 83second effort at 318w to try and get back into the group that I lost touch with as they sprinted for the KOM sprint.

The effort after the climb surprised me because it felt sustainable. Not that I’d want to and wasn’t dying from the 5minute effort, but I felt like the body reacted better to how I thought it would. 

I think the big thing for this climb was that I had Zwift descending skills and therefore also had faith that I’d make it to the lead riders so I knew it wasn’t a “I need to be in the wheels” kind of effort. And unsurprisingly, I made it to the 3rd group on the road and went straight past them and then did the same thing to the main chase group and then caught up the leaders. 

The final effort was slightly different because it contained the climb but also the descent and small climb to the finish. I also knew by this point that I wasn’t going to win the race and it was just about holding a pace that I knew wasn’t too hard. In the end, I was towed up the climb by someone with a similar pacing strategy. The big part of the Box Hill climb is the bump after the top and ensuring that you aren’t in the red before it. The pace meant we were a few seconds off the back, but they slowed as they got to the top and I accelerated which might not be logical but it was just about ensuring I didn’t go into the red. You can see the dips in power to ensure I wasn’t going past the rider in front of me. The climb being 6mins7secs at 354w (353w NP) before a small slow down and my attack to get back to the lead group which was 32seconds at 379w. I caught the leaders just as the road steepened and did my all out effort which was 18seconds at 459w (maxing at 738w)… and the lead four went up the road again. It was good enough to be in chase group though at the top of the final climb. Then it was about utilising my Zwift skills and I broke away from the group. Just enough to surprise the group and then it was all super tuck until it flattens slightly and you attack again. The final effort was a bit longer than I thought and once again I got back to the leaders for them to sprint up the road again - the final sprint being 52seconds at 467w. 

The race really was those three segments as the overall ride was 47mins6seconds at 291w but 325w NP. If I was fresh, I think I would have won that race as I was that close without the legs feeling great. 

And that was the final workout before the Training Camp in Girona started! I took a few days off to try and go in fresh and in the best possible fitness I could be in. The biggest thing in the past few weeks has been increased confidence in repeatability of efforts and knowing that I can go into the red and recover fairly quickly.