For my last ride of the week, I took on Mompox City on the MyWhoosh Colombia map. This route was incredibly flat, making it ideal for a steady free ride. I used this opportunity to just enjoy the ride without any specific goals or structured workouts, allowing me to focus more on maintaining a smooth cadence and exploring the virtual scenery.
Whilst this wasn’t a structured workout, the ride ended up having a lot of similarities to one. I spent most of the time in zone 2, maintaining a steady pace. However, with each lap, I incorporated a spike interval during the sprint section. For these, I went all out, doing a full out-of-the-saddle sprint, which added an intense burst of effort to an otherwise steady ride.
I really pushed myself, especially towards the end of the ride once I got a better understanding of what the sprint involved. With each lap, I tried to beat my previous time, which added a competitive edge to the ride. Sprinting isn’t something I’m particularly good at, nor do I really enjoy it, but I feel it’s probably worthwhile for my overall fitness. It’s also important for my recovery journey, helping me work towards getting back to where I was before.
That said, there appears to be a bug in the Sprint leaderboard… I can’t find myself anywhere on it. I’ve noticed that on previous rides, too. It’s not just the Sprint boards either, it doesn’t work for climbs. I notice it less with the climbs as I don’t tend to do the same one multiple times.
Before starting this ride, I originally planned to do one of the MyWhoosh always-on group rides. MyWhoosh has the equivalent of pacer bots, similar to what Zwift offers, and I was keen to try them out since I’d never used them before. However, there was a unique twist to today’s ride— I was also in a meeting while riding. It wasn’t a meeting where I needed to speak, just a “watch, learn, and listen” type of session, so I felt comfortable riding through it. But not comfortable enough to hold a steady pace whilst still being able to concentrate on what was being said.
Towards the end of the ride, though, I decided I wanted to ask a question in the meeting. If you look at the graph below, you’ll notice that I had to come to a complete stop for about three or four minutes just before I planned to finish the workout and do my final sprint. I had to stop, dry off, and clean up a bit because I needed to appear on video to ask my question.
However, this ended up being a bust because there wasn’t time for me to ask my question before the meeting ended. I had gotten dressed to appear more presentable on video, only to then change back into my cycling kit and continue the ride. That’s probably why my final sprint had more power than usual—I was determined to finish strong.
Despite the interruption, I’m pleased with myself for completing that last lap. I could have easily given up, but I had set a goal to ride for about 50 minutes today, and I stuck to it. So yeah, overall, I’m pretty happy with that.
I’m really glad that I’ve got a rest day now. It’s felt a bit strange this week doing my rides earlier than usual, before lunchtime, and then actually getting a proper break at lunchtime that isn’t cycling. Even so, I still feel tired. The week’s workouts haven’t been that intense, but doing three rides in a row, especially when I’m still recovering from injury, has taken more out of me than I expected.
That said, I’ve enjoyed it. I think I always appreciate the rides more after they’re done, rather than when I’m thinking about them beforehand. But yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to my rest day and whatever comes on Saturday—no idea what that’s going to be yet.
Honestly, I’d love to do a Zwift race right now, but there’s no way I’m going to re-subscribe to Zwift just for a race, especially on a weekend. Sadly, I don’t think MyWhoosh really has that competitive side sorted out yet.
