It’s only Tuesday and it’s already been a heck of a week. Tasked with quite a big job at work, I have been working hard over the last two weeks to meet a tight deadline. Honestly, I forgot we had Easter in between and that “cost” me two days.
And so today, after demo’ing my work to the client, and finishing off the end of the “sprint” (a technical term for a 2 week work period), I needed a break from programming.
Swapping one computer for another, I unfortunately immediately hit on a bunch of weird technical issues with Zwift. As you can see, I tried to join the 4pm GCN workout, but for whatever reason it died. Hard.
15 minutes later, I must have placed too much onus on the whole thoughts of “15 minutes lost”, because at 16:15 I finally got my Zwift session underway, opting for 2x 15 minute FTP intervals.
This was done to give myself a solid understanding of my current fitness level.
This workout was done at an FTP of 214w.
I wanted to see how I coped in relation to dropping my FTP back from 218w. Would 4w really make that much of a difference? I don’t know. But I wanted to see how hard I’d find holding 215w for 15 minutes, back to back.
After the first block I wasn’t feeling too bad.
The thought of 10 minutes recovery was very appealing, I must admit. But it was only in the last few minutes of the first block that I had begun feeling ready for it all to be over. The first 10-12 minutes hadn’t been that bad.
Probably worse was the thought of having “lost” those 15 minutes on top of the hour I’d already set aside for a mid-afternoon Zwift session. I’d need to make up the time when back at my desk.
Going into the second block I felt fine for about the first 5 minutes. Obviously tireder than the first time around, but not dead on my feet from the off.
The final 10 minutes was a slog though. In particular the final 5 minutes was hard. Keeping a high cadence was a challenge. Heck, keeping a steady cadence was difficult. I slipped several times.
Ultimately though it’s as much a mental game as it is physical. Chunk down the time, work on getting through the seconds, try to distract myself with literally anything else… And just dig in and grit it out.
I’d picked the Hilly Route for a change. The typical approach for me on a ride like this is to pick a flat route so as to kill as many kilometers are possible off my weekly 100km riding goal.
I’ve now figured out that give or take, I’m going to hit 30km in a session if riding for an hour, so there’s really not that much in it when picking routes. Each lap only has 5 minutes or so of climbing, so it’s really not that different to the flat route in the grand scheme of things. Maybe a difference of 5km overall.
Anyway, I wanted to see what times I’d set up the Hilly KOM when restricted to ~3.1w/kg.
Overall this one felt like a good, solid workout. It was what I needed. A good de-stressing session, aside from the initial technical difficulties. And probably this was a better use of my time than doing that GCN session, from a pure exercise perspective anyway. I’m sure the other ride was more fun.
One thing I do not understand is why the Garmin and Zwift differ so significantly in the recorded output.
Anyone got any ideas?
I’m thinking tomorrow may be an easier ride after this one. My legs are feeling well worked as I sit and type this 3 hours later.
When was my last recovery ride? I really have no idea. I do want to ride tomorrow. But maybe a dinner time ride. The early morning rides aren’t appealing to me at the moment.
My takeaway thought from this one was it wasn’t sooo bad.
Could I have done 2x 15m at 218w?
Yeah, probably.
I adjusted my right cleat – yet again – before this one, and it felt better still, yet still not perfect. I think it needs to come forward a touch. I have it mirroring my left cleat which is bang on – at least in terms of feel.
That’s one down, and off to a good start on the week.
I hope your week has started well too.
