There are days when I want to wake up early and get on the bike, and there are days when I really don’t.
Today was a don’t day, but I got up anyway. And was immediately met with internet problems.
Rebooting routers, home powerline ethernet adapters, my Zwifting PC, and generally feeling very frustrated, I managed to get on my bike about ten minutes later than planned.
What I wanted to do on this ride was keep a high cadence, but in an easy-ish gear.
It started well, but went down hill coincidentally as I kept hitting down hill segments. Spinning with next to no resistance ended up hurting both of my knees. Silly me.
I’d planned on doing at least 5 minutes easy riding this morning, but after that, I ended up deciding that I’d try to ride at or above 200w for twenty minutes, if at all possible.
And that didn’t go to plan either.
I set my trainer difficulty up to max. This means hills are simulated and require gear changes and what not, in order to best simulate the outside world.
This makes it more challenging to maintain a steady cadence as down hill segments are equally simulated and my watts drop off a cliff as I go downhill.
Opinion is divided on this feature, but I’m with Chris:
The Central Park Loop is perhaps not the best course to attempt a “time trial” approach. Fuego Flats seems designed for that, so maybe I will switch up my bike to the TT bike and give it a shot.
“Slacking off” for the first five minutes of the ride meant one thing: being behind on my 10km in 20 minutes or under ride target.
I’ve set this now as a marker for myself, and it winds me up when I don’t get 10km done faster than this. Now, it’s a bit of a nonsense in a way, as the Alpe Du Zwift is only about 12km and is going to take me significantly longer than 20 minutes to climb, but my back-of-a-napkin approach to life says this is a rough target to shoot for on most other maps / circuits.
Zwift has some interesting sprint placements. This one is a -4.3% downhill jaunt at just 150m in length. But it comes right after a short, sharp climb. Any legs left?
Well it turns out yes I did have some legs, but, I think I set these sprint times whilst doing a workout, so they aren’t quite fair comparisons.
With that same thought in mind, it’s really not a fair comparison to compare my lap time from this attempt at the Central Park Loop with my previous times.
I think the only other time I’ve done a Central Park Loop was quite some time ago. It’s not one of my favourite circuits to be honest.
Everything about this lap went a bit off plan. I pushed too hard on the final climb and sprint sections, and then once I hit the finish line (up a steep slope, gee, thanks), I just wanted off the bike.
My knees were hurting. That may be saddle position related.
As I’d lost a bunch of time mucking around with the internet, I didn’t get the ride I wanted. I ended up deciding I’d rather be a touch late to my desk and get to 15km for the day, rather than jump off early and regret it.
I did finish out the 15km, but only just.
For the work I did on this ride, I feel it went only OK.
I need to plan a little better, not just jump into any route at random. I can’t help internet troubles, so I shouldn’t let that frustrate me as much as it did.
God alone knows what’s happening with the Everesting challenge. I have seemingly hit the summit now and the bike has turned on its side. Uh huh.
Thanks to all for the ride ons. Always appreciated.
I’m not anticipating getting back on the bike later this evening. My knees are saying no, and I feel remarkably tired for a Tuesday.
I’ve found whenever I decide to ride early, my internal clock (or the kids) end up waking me up about an hour even earlier than my planned early start. Quite ridiculous.
I really want to get my 20 minute figure up above 200w average. Weirdly, a few weeks back, I wondered if I would plateau at 200w and / or find it difficult to break through that figure. And I bloody well have. Well, even below 200w. How frustrating.
I’m convinced it’s a mental block. I reckon I have it in me, even at my current fitness level, to break 200w average over 20 minutes. That will be some achievement for me. And hey, average heart rate of only 150 today. Amazing.