CHARLIE QUARTER MAN

TREK-S EGA FRED O

The race simulation is a thing to fear. I’ve seen this title on a few rides on Strava recently (two of which have been my own) and it’s interesting to see its different permutations. I guess it gives a demonstration as to what ‘racing’ is to people.

For me, it’s been almost two months since my last race and at the time of writing, I’m resting in the days before my first one back, the Tour de Romandie. I’ve been very motivated in the run-up to this race, which is fortunate because I’ve had a lot to do to prepare for it. I’ve basically needed to find full race fitness without racing. I haven’t been doing the crazy, long weeks of 35 hours, but almost every ride has had tough intervals and then the stress on the body that attacking every climb in the mountains gives you

Anyway, this wouldn’t be enough, so I asked my coach if I could do some race simulation. Basically, I go out there wellfed and raring to go like I would in a race and try to create the same intervals by aiming for Strava KoMs or chasing cars when being overtaken, things like that. And then I go harder and harder until I can’t breathe after four or five hours on the bike. I also try to plan it so I have a downhill to get home, otherwise I would risk calling my girlfriend to finish work early and come pick me up 10km from the house.

But when you look at what people do in these sessions, you can see how racing looks through their eyes. There are plenty who see it as going fast, and therefore need to follow a motorbike most of the way to get the kilometres of a race, which could kind of make sense. You also have the techy types who see it as a series of numbers. Maybe the first 30 minutes are hard with a sprint every 86 seconds, then settle into a rhythm of 250W without ever going above or below, and then some five-minute intervals to increase the TSS at the end. This sounds like less fun but I suppose it looks good on the TrainingPeaks graph for the post-training analysis, which is, of course, most important. It’s strange to put everyone into just three groups for this, but that’s what happens when you’re writing 500 words and not a book.

However, the last group is where I sit and it covers a lot, I think. For me, I ride like I did when I was a teenager. Using a bit of imagery, I have the fight for the breakaway with all sorts of efforts at the start, and then the race goes on for the rest after a quick toilet break. Some climbs are steady with a team controlling, sometimes I see a town sign in 300m so I go full gas for that, and, of course, in the last hour when I’m running on empty, attacks fly left, right and centre until I let myself off because it’s only training. I think this is the best. Random. Just how I like it.