This morning was all about beating personal records. Here’s a list in quick order, before I forget what they might be:
- Completed a single circuit on a Zwift map
- Broke 200w in a single run
- Broke 300w in a single run
- Pedalled for the whole 20 minutes
- Rode longer than the planned 20 minutes
- Completed a sprint
- Beat a previous sprint record 🙂
- Showed up 6 days in a row
Before I go on, I should say I was excited to ride the London map. And when I finally got to do so, I found that there was a 5.1km short flat circuit. That, I believe, is the shortest circuit I have seen on Zwift so far.
Knowing that the circuit is only short, I hoped to get through two laps in the twenty minutes I had available. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if I completed one, or two. I know for sure I completed one, but as I wasn’t sure where I started, I couldn’t be sure where I finished would take me over two full circuits. Oh well.
Riding London was brilliant as I recognised some of the landmarks, and as I was riding in a virtual world, didn’t get stabbed or have my bike stolen. Jackpot.
One of the cool things that happened just as I set off was that I hit a “sprint” line. All of a sudden, a green flashing box appeared and went a bit haywire. I didn’t really understand what was happening, but I let it do its thing, and managed a 20 second result. No idea how to view the leaderboards in retrospect, so ~20 seconds is approx.
After passing the sprint finish line, and being told I was ~10s slower than the person in first place, I set that knowledge aside in my brain and vowed to do much better on my next lap.
And I did. Even though I’d been cycling for about 20 minutes on my next pass, I managed to do my first proper sprint, pushing first through 200w, then up to a high of 348w. My second attempt was down to 14s, a massive improvement. Next time I’ll see if I can beat it. For me, that’s a massive part of the appeal of Zwift.
Really happy with this. Whilst I have managed over 400w, that was on the very first day I got the bike setup on the trainer, and pretty much blew out doing that. This was far more controlled, and whilst my legs feel a bit jelly-like at this point (~20 mins later), they don’t feel thrashed.
And that’s important to me. I’m doing this indoor cycling lark to get fit. Not to ride the Tour de France. I want a steady, incremental improvement. Couch to 5km, only on a bike 🙂
I was happy with myself for pedaling the whole ride today. No stopping, or taking short breathers. For me, this shows improvement already. Not that it was easy, and not that I didn’t want to stop. I certainly slowed down in parts.
Lastly, showing up 6 days in a row is huge for me. Getting out of bed half an hour early is hard enough, but with Storm Gareth blowing a full on gale outside, and my kids deciding 6am is the new normal waking time, I’m not getting a proper night’s rest. If I had to get out of bed, get dressed for the gym, drive to the gym, get changed, then do a workout, shower, dress, and drive home… well, there’s no way I’d have done that 6 days in a row.
For me, cycling indoors in my own home, on Zwift, is proving an absolute winner.
Catch you tomorrow!