Zwift Tour de Boudicca — Stage 3: QOM

Sometimes you eat the volcano — sometimes it eats you.

I succumbed to the challenge of the volcano, which I assumed would be as challenging as it was.

Is it stupid to be embarrassed by your Zwift performance? I’m usually embarrassed by anything that feels like I didn’t do perfectly. While it may be my best, it could still not be perfect, and that’s what’s embarrassing for me, I think.

I’m an okay climber. I’m decent. I’ve never won an outdoor hill climb so I didn’t expect to magically win this stage.

Going into this stage, I knew my only chance of staying in 3rd in the GC was to be in a break before the volcano climb.

No one attacked.

I didn’t either because honestly, I didn’t think I could pull it off. Only once in my racing history have I pulled off an “attack” and it stuck. It was actually unbelievable. And while that previous attack stuck and I came in 3rd because of it, I didn’t have the confidence in my abilities to do it again.

When I rewatched the race, Dave Towle, in his infinite wisdom said, “In order to win, you gotta risk losing” and damn if that isn’t the truth. I played it too safe. I didn’t want to risk losing even though I knew I had an ice cube’s chance in hell of winning a stage with a climb at the end.