Gave myself a bit of a fright tonight - almost got caught out by the same Crit City issue that others on here have experienced; where you accidentally go so hard that you end up getting promoted! In the end I didn't, but I came quite close and had to wait a good hour until ZwiftPower had fully analysed the power metrics before I was sure whether I was still in D or not.
It was 10 laps of the anti-clockwise Crit course (opposite direction to my effort last week) and I did my usual attempt to attach myself to a reasonably strong C group out of the gate with as much power as I could muster, then cling on to them for dear life for as long as possible. In the end I managed 5 laps - the only reason I lost them was because just as we were about to start the rollers on the 6th lap, the A leaders lapped us and our group just got completely splintered in their wake. I was towards the rear at the time and most of those ahead of me were able to hold the A's draft longer than I could and so were now anywhere between 2 and 5 seconds ahead - too much for me to catch up alone.
It didn't matter too much as according to ZwiftPower, there was only one D ahead of me and he was actually a B really so I ignored his results from then on. Soloed next three laps at an easier pace, then realised that another group of D's were catching up with me and so had to put the power down again to maintain my "lead", which ended up with me riding the last lap with some C's for their draft.
Crossed the line feeling pretty happy with my efforts, only to then see the "Increase in FTP" screen appear - I'd gone up from 237w to 239w! At my current weight, those numbers would have still been within the leeway to keep me in that race's results, but would have pushed my best 3 race average over 2.5 w/kg, meaning I might have been racing C for the next 90 days! However, while I waited for ZP to give the full results, I looked at my stats on VeloViewer and it said 95% of my best 20 minutes for that race was only 235w, so I was hoping that maybe Zwift's calculation was a little off.
As it turned out, once everything was properly calculated, VV was more accurate and I was actually (just) below the limit and given that my previous best race has just dropped off the list as it is 91 days ago now, I am still firmly in D for the meantime, though getting very close to achieving the "nearly C" moniker!
Video? Sure, why not? Not the most riveting watch, but I might as well:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOccEl7TwcA
Thanks for sharing.
