Each week Zwift sends me an email summarising my activity for the week. For previous weekly reviews click here.
Last week consisted of only four rides, of which one was a climbing ride, two were Sweet Spot Training, and one was a recovery ride.
I’d have really liked to have covered five rides last week, as is my norm, but unfortunately sometimes real world stuff gets in the way.
Whilst I feel the SST workouts are very beneficial to me at the moment, a couple of observations I’ve made are:
- I can probably push these up by 5-10% for even more benefit
- I need to find some variation on the theme to stave off boredom
Partly this is because, I believe, my FTP is now higher than the figure I’m using (195w). Only a smidge higher but I feel fairly confident that I have improved on this number since my last test.
And partly because repeating the same workout over and over, regardless of how beneficial, isn’t that fun.
Fortunately I think there are several variations on this workout available from WhatsOnZwift.
And regarding the Three Sisters climbing ride this week:
It didn’t feel like a true climb.
I’m generally pleased with the last three weeks worth of progress. Switching out the Sunday ride for a climb has definitely felt beneficial. The true testing of this strategy will come whenever I next enter a race. On this front, I’m not sure when that will be.
From the graph, I’m a little confused as to how the two Sweet Spot Training workouts have registered as being slightly lower than previous weeks in terms of average watts. Surely, all these should come out the same? Confusing.
I could tell during the climbing ride on Sunday that this week I wasn’t going to be setting any new heights on the average watts graph. This isn’t something I expect every week, and honestly, I feel Zwift is likely not the place this is going to happen anyway, unless I consistently hit the Alpe Du Zwift.
As above, whilst I enjoyed the Three Sisters route, I found the broken up climbing to be a little frustrating in terms of finding a nice rhythm. I kinda knew and expected this going into the ride, but still, a good lesson to learn.
On the subject of a solid climb, I’m almost certain this next Sunday – all being well – will switch back to Tacx Software. I’m not sure I am allowed to browse their route inventory without an active subscription, but the next ride will be the next route on the ‘difficult’ list.
I’d really like to get the screen recording software sorted out before the next Tacx Software ride. On this front I have a couple of Amazon returns to handle, and then I need to pick out another screen recording device to see if that makes any difference. I have to say I find the whole process super frustrating.
For the week ahead I plan to continue on as with my new normal:
At least one harder workout (probably more), and a solid climb (as above).
My aim is to get back to 5 rides this week. There are some family commitments on Sunday that I am already aware of – and likely this will be the case more and more as we head into Christmas. Hopefully I can work around them. A benefit of my kids waking me up at 6am is that I have a good few hours to play with.
I’ll definitely be having a look around for a variant on the SST rides. There is the 2x 15 min FTP intervals ride that the SST workout recommends, which I’m quite keen on having a go at. Sadism, I’m sure.
The last thing for this week is this awesome video from Cameron Jeffers:
Seriously, what an epic achievement. Nice work!
Oh, and I guess I’ll end on one of the cheesiest things I heard this week:
Winter miles equal Summer smiles.
I’m very excited for a bit of nice weather so I can go out and about on my bike for the very first time 😀
Have a good week.