For this evening’s ride I was looking for something about an hour long, and certainly a little on the relaxed side. Some light pedaling, but enough to get some kilometers on the board.
As such I opted for one of the FTP Builder rides, this time repeating Week 8 Day 3.
I had thought about doing this – or a very similar – ride yesterday evening. But as I was still feeling a little tense from the Passo dello Stelvio climb, I decided to take Monday night as a rest day.
No regrets on that front.
Even though this was a structured workout – so I couldn’t feel the small peaks and troughs of Zwift’s London circuit – things certainly felt dramatically easier than going up hill for an hour and a half.
The other thing that’s absolutely awesome about Zwift is the sheer number of riders around you at any one time.
Given that in my 1h 45m ride on Sunday I only saw 3 other people, it’s very refreshing to find small packs as I pedal round the circuit, even if I am only going at 130w. It’s nice to bunch up, knowing others are out there, somewhere, pedaling away alongside me.
I decided to weigh myself post ride this evening. Back to 11 stone 5. No idea what’s happening on this front. I’m all over the place. Yo-yo weight.
My theory goes that continued exercise, along with doing harder exercises and a proper climb each week will see to this unusual weight flux, and hopefully bump up my overall power output to boot.
My next task is to find the next harder workout to take part in this week.
My guidelines are that it must be approximately 1 hour in length. Looking at the Week 9 schedule for the FTP Builder rides, each one is ~1.25 hours in length. That’s a big ask for me on a week night. 1 hour is about the most I can fit in between getting home, doing some riding, showering, and then tea + kids stuff.
I’m not expecting to hit RGT Cycling this week.
There’s a slim chance I may look at that second climb available for Sunday, but am more likely to hit up Alpe Du Zwift this time, I think.
That means this week I should have no trouble hitting the 100km Zwift riding goal.
Unfortunately my heart rate monitor went a bit haywire right at the start, so I can’t be sure what my max heart rate was on this ride.
I didn’t see it go over 119bpm. That’s decent by my standards, even at this low effort. Average seemed to be around 112-114bpm.
Getting 400 calories of work done is a decent way to start off this week. Can’t ask for more than that really.
I think tomorrow will be a harder workout. No set in stone planes for the rest of the week at this point. Take it as it comes.
