Well, well. Tonight was supposed to be RGT Cycling. But late in the afternoon I took a look at WhatsOnZwift for the FTP Builder workouts (a fantastic site btw), and I had a gander at Week 8.
Week 8 Day 2 looked really suitable for me. Not too intense, but also not a long grind in the blue zone. So, that’s what I decided to ride.
There were ~4200 other Zwifters online whilst I was riding, but as ever, the Jungle Circuit was fairly sparsely populated. It’s unusual in that it’s such a seemingly unpopular circuit. I know it’s not immediately available (unlocked at level 10?) but it’s never busy whenever I head on down there.
I had no immediate doubts about this workout.
In truth the two 5 minute ramp ups were probably more taxing than the 6x 30 second 190w efforts. Crazy.
With that in mind, I ended up bumping up the difficulty on the intervals all the way up to max. Which, I think, is +15% of FTP? That was enough to bump me up to 6x 30 seconds at 205w.
I did this from interval #3 of the first set.
Because of the shortness of each interval, the entire block seemed to pass by really quickly. I guess 6 minutes isn’t such a long time, all things considered.
At 205w I still didn’t think it was too difficult, but I definitely felt like I was getting better exercise than the “officially sanctioned” wattage.
At just one hours riding, and with ~90m of climb per lap, I only managed 20km or so during this ride.
I’d ideally like to get through 30km per ride on a week night, but I’ll take what I can get. I really wish Zwift had a weekly climbing goal as well. The distance goals definitely push me towards the flatter routes on average.
Finishing up today I was happy to see 450 calories burned. Not a super intensive workout, but with a bit of tenderness in the top of my left thigh currently, I’m not looking to do anything too strenuous.
The plan is still to ride tomorrow evening. Whatever happens, I’m likely to hit a 45 minute (or maybe the 60 minute) free ride workout. This is purely to work on cadence.
If my thigh pain subsides, on Wednesday night I’d like to get back on RGT Cycling and hit one of the other courses. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Zwift, but I am also getting a little bored of hitting the same routes over and over.
Perhaps most exciting (wrong word?) for me on this ride was that my heart rate didn’t got above 149bpm.
Amazing.
Also, I managed to keep above 85rpm pretty much throughout. Good times.
Nothing stellar in this one, but a good way to start the week. Got to work off those packed lunches somehow!
