For this afternoon’s ride I carried on with the FTP Builder series, this time riding Week 8 Day 4.
I genuinely question whether or not this is actually helping me build up my FTP at this point. The weekly review graphs clearly show these rides are far from taxing.
However, they do serve as jolly fine recovery rides.
The ride schedule was as follows:
I have to admit, I didn’t pay much attention to the intervals ahead of the ride. I’d actually done some recon on this late on Tuesday afternoon via WhatsOnZwift, but then forgotten pretty much all about it.
Yesterday I didn’t ride as, frankly, I just wasn’t feeling up to it.
I felt sick at work, but soldiered on (‘cus I’m a bloody bloke) but generally just felt crappy. And by the time I got home the last thing I wanted to do was jump on the bike.
Having worked from home today, the first thing I did at clocking off time was force myself on to the bike. And with a scheduled, structured workout to follow, I didn’t need to think too much about it. Just get on, start pedalling, and do what I was told.
Even so, when I saw 12 minutes on, with only 1 minute of rest between… I was a bit alarmed.
Anyway, I really needn’t have been.
160w for 12 minutes isn’t really pushing me too much these days, it would seem.
The challenge I gave to myself was to spin at or above 95rpm throughout, and to the very best of my knowledge I managed this during both intervals.
I opted to ride the Tick Tock route, which includes all of the desert, then down under the water and back up towards downtown Watopia, then right and around we go again.
Only, I decided that I would pull a U-turn after the first lap, and then do the remainder in reverse.
As it happened I pulled the U-turn in the 1 minute breather between the two 12 minute blocks.
And as has happened to me before, Zwift glitched and totally messed up my route. After this I was pretty much just on a free for all.
First it tried to take me up Titan’s Grove, then the Hilly Route (forward KOM) and then the reverse KOM.
Who knows what it was thinking.
Anyway, what I was trying to do was put down some kilometers. So any time it had me going up hill, I pulled another U-turn and tried my best (often without success) to override the route via the Zwift Companion App.
I wanted to clock up some KM’s as this was only my second ride of the week. My other ride wasn’t on Zwift.
And on this subject, I have to say, I think that riding on Zwift is easier than riding on RGT Cycling.
It simply seems like I put out more effort per kilometer on RGT Cycling than I have to do on Zwift.
I’m not sure if this is because I am on a structured workout, or whether it’s in my head, or whether RGT Cycling somehow makes more resistance on my trainer… I honestly don’t know. But comparatively, RGT Cycling seems harder.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I’m after a workout. But given the choice, I definitely prefer riding on Zwift.
For a weeknight, I managed to ride 38km, which is a really decent performance for me. A great use of 1h 15 minutes of my day, that I would have otherwise wasted sat in traffic.
Really pleased with this.
Incidentally, this is about the distance I have to drive one way to work.
I’m not hugely concerned by this, but I would like to reach the 100km weekly Zwift riding goal if at all possible this week.
If I ride every subsequent ride on Zwift, this should be easily achievable.
But as I mentioned in the weekly review, one ride each week going forwards should be a climb. And I do quite like the look of one of the climbs on RGT Cycling.
Anyway, I will be riding tomorrow, so if I can smash out another 30km+ then putting down a 40km ride on Saturday should see me reach my goals.
Pre ride, I weighed myself and saw 11 stone 7 on the scales. Looks like that’s a thing now.
Post ride, I weighed myself again and saw I was at 11 stone 4.
What does this mean?
Well, I have no clue. I do think it’s over indulgence on my dinner breaks that caused it, and I have taken corrective measures on that front.
With that in mind, I was happy to see a ~600 calorie burn for this ride.
I am considering trying the Sweet Spot Training ride shortly, as I think this will be particularly difficult, but also a great workout and actually push me towards a higher FTP.
Maybe I have to stop taking so many easy rides if I want to improve.
Ok, so positives here are:
- A long ride
- 30km+
- 600 calories burned
- High cadence kept throughout
I will pick a ride during the day tomorrow. I’m feeling up for a race, in a strange way. My thighs say otherwise, but you only live once…
