Zwift Gran Fondo A (61.39 miles, 3934 feet elevation)
Started near the back. Was eventually in a group where the lead was about 130th of 329. The start is so important in zwift racing. If a large group ahead of you gets a gap, it's almost impossible to bridge. However, in my group, every climb led to gaps. So kept moving up. Riders from either the B or C fondo (shorter course, not slower riders) swept us up and allowed us to move up further. Then they left us (different course). And it was just 3 of us trying to hold off a small group behind us. One of the three was constantly disconnecting, so he was of no help. Funny when we weren't in the break, he never disconnected (i.e. disappearing and reappearing). Held them off for quite a while, would accelerate when they got within 5 seconds. Came together. I thought we would have a flat sprint finish with about 11 miles left. To my chagrin, I realized it would be a mountain top finish (ugh). Runt (his name on Zwift) went hard, really had to dig deep to stay on his wheel. He was strong. I think he is a young, light rider (with the name Runt you might expect that). We dropped everyone in our group, and started picking off people ahead of us. One guy stayed with us for a while, but then disappeared. I was going to wave the white flag if we were going up the radio tower. But we weren’t. I pulled the DB move of coming around him, pulling with 1000 feet left and then putting in kick to finish ahead of him. Mmmm, I don’t know. Someone pulls you up a mountain for 5 miles and you come around for 42nd. Oh well, LOL. I could have gone harder at the end, so I suppose I was playing it both ways. Trying to beat him, but not trying too hard. 2hr 38min. 251w average power. 260w normalized power. That was a good workout.
Also, that feeling when you have been saving your aero powerup for over 30 miles, only to realize you have a mountain top finish. LOL. Always know the course!