bobinski
Legendary Member
- Location
- Tulse Hill
I am with you Adds. Too competitive for my own good. If someones a few minutes ahead i will try and drive myself forward to catch them. If the legs and lungs can cope then great. Even worse is i try to hold a little in reserve not just to make the pass but to then dig deep and gain some time on the rider. After all, there is likely to be someone else up ahead anyway. If the course is long and bumpy enough I try and time the pass for a crest or downhill. But I blame Bill
and LB and AAAC. They set the bar and made it worth chasing. 18 months ago I wouldn't be able to get near them. It is nice to have progressed and that's a common theme for us all here, progression. Its great.
But when the race started I found myself on my own with no one to draft with and an Adam 1 minute ahead of me who seemed to be going as quick as I could comfortably go. A re-assessment was required so I decided to give it everything in an attempt to catch Adam as quickly as possible and then try to draft him the rest of the session. To my frustration I was only catching him when I was at over 400 watts and I just couldn't keep that up. I got to about 20 seconds away and Bob was still a minute behind at that point. I think this was about half way and before it started to steepen. My heart rate felt like it was at 190 but no HRM (yet) but just couldn't keep going at that effort much as I tried. Forced to back off to 250watts or less for a while Adam pulled away to near enough a minute ahead again and Bob reeled me in. Had quite a good game going with Bob though (thanks Bob I quite enjoyed that). I honestly couldn't keep the power on at that point so could only muster the strength to pass you every so often before needing a rest again. That last pass before the end was about the hardest I've ever tried on the turbo and I had nothing left to race to the line.
Otherwise my plan was also to draft with you in hope of bridging to Adam. Internet woes including a router reset meant i hadn't warmed up much except for 5 miles in Zwift. I needed to warm up more and drafting would have helped. Pretty annoyed with myself and so bided my time watching you chasing Adam thinking you were both burning bright. But then he seemed to pull away a bit and i thought you were waiting for me so that was when i really gave chase again with visions of us chasing down that pesky Caravan owner, the benefit being i had warmed up now. It really makes a huge difference for me. He got away no doubt with the intention of putting that Caravan slap bang in an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The to'ing and fro'ing between you and I was good fun. I should have held back a bit so we could draft each other more but i am a mistrustful type and past experience has suggested you often have enough gas in the tank to pull away when the slope steepens. So I tried to push on. After that I just wanted to get it over and done with. My legs were hurting, my heart pounding, i felt like i could hardly breath, and when i realised i had miss timed the finish
I all but collapsed. Momentum kept me going as i looked at the screen anticipating your sudden emergence as you came past. Yep, I think one of if not the hardest turbo rides so far.
