For today’s workout I plumped for The Bernal, one of the workouts in Zwift’s INEOS Grenadiers Virtual Training Camp series.
Just like the last over / under workout I did, I neglected to read the blurb ahead of setting off, and got treated to the unexpected cadence switcheroo once more. Something I could happily have done without.
This workout starts with a fairly chunky introduction to Egan Bernal.
Here’s a short gist for those who don’t like screenshots:
Egan Arley Bernal Gómez is a Colombian professional road racing cyclist who rides for UCI WorldTeam Ineos Grenadiers. He is the first Colombian to win the Tour de France, having done so in 2019 at the age of 22. Prior to his Tour de France victory, Bernal had achieved notable results in other stage races, including winning the 2019 Paris–Nice and the 2018 Tour de l’Avenir.
OK, so let’s be real.
This workout won’t turn you into Egan Bernal.
It will, however, give your thighs a jolly good throbbing for 6 minutes whilst it forces you to grind at 75rpm hitting 105% FTP.
As ever, WhatsOnZwift does a sterling job of describing the workout:
The workout starts with a nice, long 8 minute warm up.
Considering the workout itself is only 40 minutes, there is 8 minutes of warm up, 5 minutes of cool down, and 5 minutes between the two intervals where you get to take a breather.
My quick maths tells me that’s 18 solid minutes of hard skiving.
No way Egan gets away with that. I’ve seen how mean the pro team coaches are on the GCN Zwift Academy series.
That leaves pretty much 7 minutes of intensity work today, and 12 minutes at a steady low threshold.
Honestly, the hardest two parts of this workout are:
- Getting the cadence down from 90 RPM to 75 RPM on the switches, and;
- Getting the cadence back up from 75 RPM to 90 RPM.
I really struggled to control my low cadences for the first 2 repeats in each block.
And once, I think it was the second or third block in the first set, I found myself dipping hard on the cadence when jumping back up.
No doubt about it, this one will make you sweat.
But overall, it’s a nice variation on the usual over / under stuff.
The one downside, I would say, is I felt like I could have managed a third interval.
Sure, more of the same, but the workout itself as a whole was over too quickly. If only they offered a shorter and longer variant.
That said, I was pressed for time today. That’s why I opted for the 40 minute workout.
But then midway through the ride it became evident I wouldn’t make my other real life activity, so could have stayed longer on the bike.
Anyway, I shall aim to do something a little longer tomorrow morning to make up for this.
Overall on the week I’m actually pretty low on hours on the bike – only just coming up to 3 hours combined. That feels pretty bad, honestly.
So I’ll try to go a little longer tomorrow.
