Each week Zwift sends me an email summarising my activity for the week. For previous weekly reviews click here.
Last week consisted of four rides. I started the week on Tuesday with an Active Recovery session, then moved into Wednesday for the first of two Sweet Spot Training sessions. Thursday night was the most interesting ride of the week – Florence City Trip. On Saturday I repeated the Sweet Spot Training session. And for reasons I’ll go into shortly, I decided not to ride on Sunday.
Florence was the stand out ride for me last week. I’m really enjoying the Tacx Software video rides, and am almost certainly going to pay for a premium subscription once my demo account expires. I’m only getting a ride or two a week out of the software due to my own busy schedule, but the times I do get to use it, I really like it.
As part of the Florence ride I did do a small climb this week. It was akin, as best I am aware, to London’s Leith Hill. That’s interesting to me as previously when I have tackled Leith Hill I have struggled with it. I find sometimes I do not respect the climb enough before getting into it. I see a number like 300m or so, and I think I’ll easily smash it. 300m up hill is vastly different to a 300m sprint… when will I learn?
The two Sweet Spot Training sessions were both worthwhile, though I can’t help but thinking doing the Saturday session was, in part, responsible for me not riding on Sunday.
On Saturday I fully intended to do a climb on Sunday morning. But when waking up, I couldn’t shake the feeling of lethargy. There’s a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, I have been feeling fatigued for a good few days at this point. There’s tension in my thighs that just won’t shift, no matter how much foam rolling I put them through.
And secondly I appear to have gained a fresh painful feeling in my chest. It’s as though I have pulled all my stomach muscles. I’m convinced, at this point, that it’s to do with trying, and failing, to ride in a TT position. Total fail. Pressing into my chest, it feels as though each muscle of what would comprise my impressively non-existent six-pack are extremely tender to the touch.
With these things in mind I decided not to ride on Sunday morning. This started fine, as the thought of having an easy morning lounging around on the sofa instead of pushing for a kilometer or so uphill was an easy one to get on board with.
However, as the morning wore on, the more and more I thought … maybe I should just do 30km on the flats? Maybe just do 20 minutes? Maybe just do a short ride to hit the weekly 100km Zwift riding goal?
It proved surprisingly difficult to resist this urge. Especially knowing that I was heading out for a family Xmas meal later that afternoon. This is a nice result of building the habit of continually getting on the bike, even when I don’t want to (mostly), and putting in the work.
But I had a valid reason to skip the ride.
I’ve been planning on taking on my second FTP test, and had been mentally preparing to do this over the Christmas break.
In order to give my best shot at an FTP test I need three days rest. At least, that’s what I believe I need.
So my plan is to take Sunday and Monday as true rest days. No bike activity at all. Then on Tuesday night I’ll do an hour of active recovery / light riding. That should set me up for Wednesday night, which will be the FTP test proper.
What I’m aiming for is anything over 200w as an FTP figure. In order to achieve this, my goal will be to ride at 220w for the full 20 minutes. This should put me at 205w, but anything higher will be more than good enough for me.
I’m not planning on failing, but should it all go pear shaped I will then have enough of a recovery period to hit the test again during Christmas break week.
That’s the plan for the week ahead. I’m still a little bit disappointed at not having done a climb over the weekend. In truth, I wasn’t feeling it at all on Sunday morning, and the thought of hitting a hard climb wasn’t very appealing.
I kinda used that as my excuse to go into the FTP test prep early, but ultimately I think that worked out quite well. I’ve needed a couple of days back to back to rest my legs.
I’m disappointed I’m still having issues with recording the Tacx rides, but I am genuinely enjoying the ride experience from Tacx. Having so many climbs to pick from is really cool, and I have no signs of running out any time soon.
The pain in my ribs / chest muscles isn’t something overly concerning me at this stage. I think it’s a general lack of fitness causing the sore muscles. Essentially not used to being in that position at all, and as such, using muscles I didn’t know I had / don’t actually have. I’m considering buying some TT bars over Christmas, but that might be a bad idea. I’m open to any thoughts on this, so if you have any, please leave a comment below.
At this point it’s a case of preparing mentally for the FTP Test. It’s going to hurt. I’m going to give it everything I have. It can’t possibly be as bad as last time, can it?