Each week Zwift sends me an email summarising my activity for the week. For previous weekly reviews click here.
Last week was frustrating for a couple of reasons. There was also a lesson to take away, so every cloud.
The biggest frustration for me was in having to work late on Tuesday. This completely messed up my weekly cycling routine. I could rant on this for quite some time, but will instead simply say that it was all avoidable.
With working late on Tuesday, I missed my ride and therefore had two rest days in a row (Monday is an expected rest day for me).
I resolved to riding the remaining five days (Wed – Sun) without a break. In hindsight, that was a bad idea.
Typically my first ride of the week would be an easy ride – Active Recovery – as I now know it to be called. However, as I’d missed my Tuesday ride I decided to skip that and jump right into the “harder stuff”.
As I’d worked late on the Tuesday, I started late on the Wednesday. This gave me a couple of hours before work that I wouldn’t usually have. I decided to jump into a Zwift Group Workout – Cruise Intervals #1.
This was the first time, I think, that I’ve done a formal Zwift group workout, outside of a large event.
I found frustration in this ride in so much as we only covered ~20km or so. Given that I work towards a 100km weekly riding goal, it felt as though this ride was heavily artificially constrained in the amount of distance covered. Aside from this, however, it was a solid workout that I feel was beneficial to my fitness.
When I got back on the bike on Thursday, already many days into the week and with only 1/5 of the 100km riding goal covered, I wanted to smash out as many kilometers as I could. This meant a trip to Fuego Flats, which all things being equal, would give me the best chance of covering the most distance in my hours workout.
Again I opted for one of Zwift’s structured workouts here. This time: Sweet Spot Training.
Perhaps doing this session after the Cruise Intervals #1 was a little intense, but I managed to get through it. Another 30km off the riding goal. At this point I was feeling good about hitting the goal, and about getting the week back on track.
On Friday I opted for more of the same. However, this time I decided to go down the unstructured route. Rather than hitting a specific workout, I opted to ride Fuego Flats as a standard free ride.
I put in a couple of solid efforts in this ride. The most intense part was trying to beat my previous PB on the Fuego Flats reverse – which I managed, but not by as much as I expected.
After this ride I was about 15km short of the weekly riding goal, and whilst feeling confident I would hit the target, I was a little concerned about how my legs were feeling.
On Saturday I decided to switch things up a bit. Rather than tackle a typical Saturday ride (30km / 1 hour or so), I decided to give myself a breather with an Active Recovery session.
For this I use Zwift’s FTP Builder series, repeating the Week 8 Day 1 session I’ve done previously.
Whilst this workout went well enough, I was definitely having to *force* myself to stay on the bike for the full hour. I put this partly down to boredom – 5 repeats of 7 minutes at 130w isn’t the most mentally engaging of sessions.
After I came off the bike I was immediately thinking about the next day: Sunday Climb Day.
Frankly, I wasn’t feeling good about it.
There were a couple of reasons why:
Firstly, I felt tired. My thighs were feeling like they’d done enough to have earned a rest. I’d had a long week, and I’d met my goals.
Secondly, I felt like I was forcing myself to do something my body was telling me would be a bad idea.
It made me contemplate on why I’m doing this. I’m on the bike to do *something* each week.
I’ve done my *something*. Why push myself to go above and beyond, when I don’t absolutely have too? I’m not in prison / the army. I can have a break.
Yes, the climb sessions are the single best workouts of the week. No question. These are where I grow the most. I accept this.
However, as a one off, I’m not going to beat myself up about not following through. It would be a different issue entirely if I missed two or more in a row.
Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to express here is that I’m disappointed in missing the session, but not disappointed in myself for the reasoning behind why I decided to skip it.
As Zwift’s loading screen often says: “Rest days are important.”
So I’m expecting my normal routine to resume this week. Monday rest day. Friday rest day. Every other day as per normal.
Here’s to a new week.