Climbing On Rest Day

Sounds like a bad idea. Probably was. With 30 minutes to spare between peeling some spuds and having to get the tea out of the oven, I decided heck, why not get in a short swift Zwift session?

I know that Stage 7 of the Tour of Watopia 2019 is the full Alpe Du Zwift. And I watched a video on it the other night:

A week or so ago I climbed Box Hill. I had kinda forgotten what it’s like to climb. I just knew that the Alpe du Zwift is about 15x more than Box Hill.

Spotting the New York High Line, with its 178.7m of climb, I figured that would be a swell re-introduction to climbing on Zwift. And with a short warm up, I got into it.

I actually kinda regret this. Not for the obvious reasons. But rather ‘cus my legs needed a rest. It was silly to ride this. I should have rested. And if I had to ride, I should have taken a flat route.

On the positive side, I got in some pre-tea exercise, and got a decent-ish workout in a short period of time. I’m also definitely using my left leg more now. I know this, because whilst it felt used yesterday, today it feels positively tender. Or negatively tender. It’s not a good thing.

I put in a truly mediocre performance on the climb by my own standards. It didn’t feel powerful, though there were bursts of power. I reckon I can do a lot better than 7 minutes 32 seconds. Still, that’s the benchmark to work from.

I’m fairly sure I didn’t complete the full circuit. I am happy with the weighted power average more than anything. I probably pushed too hard though.

I still expect to ride tomorrow morning. Flats though. I am truly not ready for the Alpe.

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