For today’s ride I opted for an official Zwift workout, this one being the Make A Break For It session. I believe this comes from the Gran Fondo training series, but I am not absolutely sure. It’s hours ago now since I did this one. I’ve left my write up a bit too late.
I picked this workout for a few reasons.
Firstly it was listed as a 3/5 in terms of intensity. Not wanting to go too hard, nor too easy, that sounded spot on.
Secondly, I figured it might have some benefits for racing. That didn’t turn out to be the case, but I’ll get to why shortly.
And thirdly, it just looked visually interesting. Yes, not exactly scientific, but I’m no scientist.
The work here largely looks the same. But there are some subtle, and some not so subtle bits to this one that will likely pass you by on a cursory glance.
Each block is pretty much the same, albeit, I think, with some little bugs. There are definitely some bugs in the on-screen prompts for this one. They don’t line up with the changes. It’s almost like someone dragged and dropped by accident, and messed everything up slightly without realising it.
For example, midway through a block the prompt will instruct you that a change is coming, but it’s not – for another minute or so. And that repeats over and over throughout the workout. It doesn’t make any difference to the work itself, but it doesn’t exactly make a great user experience.
On that point actually I’m sure I’ve experienced this with Zwift before. But I can’t remember exactly which workout. I did a search through my previous rides and it doesn’t appear to be this one. So more than one suffer from this problem :/
Another little point that I’m not sure was a mistake or not – but the first block has an ever-so-slightly lower intensity on the final 1m 30s effort at the end, 245w compared to 250w in all the rest. It’s so minuscule a difference it doesn’t seem like it was put in deliberately.
I said about subtle things in this workout beyond the bugs and there were two main ones to cover.
First, there the descending rest intervals. Starting with 4 minutes at 125w / 50% FTP, then 3 minutes, then finally down to 2. I hadn’t noticed that before getting underway.
And secondly, and more painfully, the cooldown is a ramp down from FTP over 5 minutes. All the other blocks end with an immediate drop to 50% FTP, but the final one kicks you to work for another 3 minutes or so before the pace finally subsides.
So in short, does this workout simulate a breakaway?
Well… no.
I misjudged this thinking it was a workout about bridging groups. As above, I clearly don’t read.
I actually do think this has a slightly more “bridge” feel than a breakaway.
Put it this way, there’s no way 30 seconds at 125% FTP followed by 1.5 minutes at FTP is going to secure a breakaway in any race I have ever taken part in.
But would a 30 second dig, and then ‘cling on’ help to bridge?
Yes. I think that actually might.
However you need to cling on longer than 1.5 minutes. If you suddenly dropped to 50% FTP you’d be spat out the back so hard that all your effort would have been for absolutely nothing.
Maybe I’m expecting too much.
Maybe I should have done an SST.
This was far easier than an SST session. But then I guess that’s why this is a 3 out of 5.
