These last few days I have been absolutely knackered. On Monday my legs felt thrashed. On Tuesday, they were just starting to feel a bit better. And this morning, they felt alright, but I wasn’t ready to ride on them.
Later in the afternoon I decided to take a gander at Zwift’s workout options, and see if I could find something suitable for a relatively light ride.
I’m not 100% sure that the ride I chose earlier in the day was the ride I ended up riding just now. It doesn’t matter too much, but I think this one was a little more taxing than the one I’d chosen earlier.
My plan was to put a YouTube video on half the screen, and have Zwift on the other half of the screen.
The problem is, everything got super squashed up. I expected it to drop into letterbox mode, but instead, it just compressed everything horizontally. I realised any pictures / screenshots I took would look utter garbage (see above) so had to ditch that idea.
I figured I could watch the thing I wanted to watch (a tech talk, yes I am a nerd) on my phone. I tried to make this work for the first set of exercises. This involved alternating between 125w at 80rpm, and 150w at 95rpm.
Between this and the tiny text on the screen, I couldn’t make it work. So after this first batch of work, I paused the workout, turned on my amp, and figured to hell with it, I’d listen to a podcast instead. Had to keep the volume down mind, the kids were in bed.
This, I think, is the first workout I’ve done in quite a while. I certainly haven’t ever done a workout at my current FTP (189w).
I was curious going into this how hard it would be to ride in the green zone for any length of time. I figured a 15 or 20 minute stint at my FTP would be a bit of a harsh way to get back on the back after a few days rest, so opted for what I expected to be a slightly easier ride.
The first 15 minute effort wasn’t too bad. I spent the first 5 minutes alt+tabbing, adjusting settings, making sure the volume wasn’t too loud, and so on.
After that, I settled in and the next 5 minutes was OK, too. The final 5 minutes had me breathing harder, but I wasn’t out of my depth.
The first 1 minute segment involved keeping 285w at 100rpm.
For me, the cadence was harder than the wattage. Spinning fast is hard work. I was starting to wonder if I’d chosen the wrong workout after this one. And it was quickly followed by 3 more at higher wattage, but lower time limits.
I find the shorter efforts to be a little bit lagging on the Tacx Neo 2. It’s as though the trainer is a few seconds (a noticeable amount of time however short) behind what Zwift indicates. The resistance takes a fraction of a second too long to kick in. It’s a bit jarring. It’s also hard to be super accurate.
The first set of intervals wasn’t too bad overall. I imagine it would have been a bit harder, mentally at least, on legs that hadn’t had two days rest.
It certainly wasn’t easy though. I definitely felt tired, and welcomed the 5 minute recovery at 95w. Even so, I kept getting sternly reminded to keep to at least 85rpm.
It’s funny how fast the short break period goes when compared to the effort portions of the workout.
Before I knew it, the lovely green arch way lay ahead, signifying I got to do the whole lot one more time. Lucky me. If only I’d put on a lottery ticket.
Right away into the second 15 minute effort, I could tell this one would be harder. I had to work to keep up the RPM, and to get some kind of rhythm going again in my legs.
Little things start to bother me when I’m pushing. Things like my sock rubbing against my little toe in my right shoe. That narked me for pretty much the full 15 minutes. Also the guy yakking away on the podcast was starting to irritate me.
One thing that gives me some small amount of solice when pushing myself on Zwift is that it’s not just me, alone. Well, it is, but there are others in the very same position all around the world. Australians, Americans, Japanese, Canadians, there’s people from every corner of the globe on there. And we’re all sweating together. Lovely.
With the second 15 minute 155w at 90rpm block done, it was time for the sprints.
285w at 100rpm for 1 minute. I was absolutely paggered.
Long way to go.
I found the second set of sprints to be tough. Whereas on the first batch I had remained in the saddle throughout, for these I was stood up. And no where near 100rpm as Zwift expected. Come on now.
Overall I was glad to get this one in the bag. I do like the structured workouts that Zwift offer. There are plenty to choose from, and the customisation options allow for endless variety.
More than anything I was happy to get ~30km on the board for the week. It’s going to be an unusual week this week, what with the crazy Alpe Du Zwift climb on Sunday. I may not hit my 100km for the week goal. I really don’t know. I’m going fully scale conservative / preservation mode before that ride.
It felt good to be back on the bike anyway. Bit disappointed I couldn’t get my YouTube video thing sorted. I guess if I wasn’t blogging my rides that bit would have worked OK.
The ~500 calories burned is also a good thing.
Not sure what I will do tomorrow. Probably a late night ride rather than an early morning one.