If I had to sum up this ride, it would be “classic Chris.” Having been off the bike for a couple of weeks due to illness and then a bout of laziness, what I probably should have done is either a low or medium-intensity ride. Perhaps, as I originally thought a few days ago, I should have done one of the MyBunch 24×7 rides—just sitting with the group for an hour or so.
But instead, like an absolute clown, I decided to go for the highest training stress score ride in the sub-30-minute category.
In some ways, I think it’s probably quite easy to fall into the trap of underestimating shorter rides. You look at them and think, “Yeah, it’s probably not going to be too hard to complete,” because, clearly, it’s a shorter timeframe. The mind plays a bit of a trick on you, convincing you that it won’t be as tough simply because it’s shorter.
But if you’ve ever done a workout like Emily’s Short Mix on Zwift, you’ll know that short workouts can be incredibly challenging. That’s partly because I tend to overestimate my ability. But equally, these workouts are designed to cram in a lot of effort into a compressed timeframe. This can be made even tougher—like in the case of Emily’s Short Mix—by a compressed warm-up period.
However, in the case of this Race Attacks #1 workout, I actually think the warm-up was pretty well-structured.
The idea here was that, after the warm-up period, you’d do a 30-second spike at something like 200% FTP, or whatever it was, and then go straight into a threshold effort for 3 minutes, followed by 2 minutes. Once that was done, you’d hit 20 seconds at around 250% FTP.
I went into this thinking, “Yeah, I’ve been off the bike for a couple of weeks, feeling alright—maybe a bit lazy if anything.” The game had set my FTP at 215 watts, but I was aware that, when I’m hard pedalling on MyWhoosh (in my case), the wattage reported is usually higher than what I seem to be putting out. So, somewhat arrogantly, I thought, “Yeah, this is probably going to be a bit easy,” and decided to bump my in-game FTP up to 230 watts.
Let’s just say I got a reality check pretty much straight away.
It’s a pity I didn’t have my heart rate monitor on for this one, because after the first interval, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to finish this workout—at least not with any great ease. And that’s with a 5-minute recovery period, albeit active recovery, between blocks. After that first set, I was pretty much dead. I had to get out of the saddle just to finish the final 20-second effort. At that point, I thought, “Oh my god, this is a DNF at this rate.”
So, I decided to drop the FTP for the next set based on how I was feeling. But I only dropped it by 5 watts, and I went into the second set definitely not feeling recovered. After the first 30-second effort, dropping into the threshold section, I realised there was no way I could finish the block—let alone get out of the saddle to finish the sprint. I ended up having to take a pause, which to me is basically an admission of failure. It’s not a great mental state to be in when you’re trying to push through a hard workout, but I did it anyway.
The pause created another problem, though: I didn’t have that much time. I’d chosen this shorter workout because I was time-pressured—we had a family activity planned for later in the afternoon. So I had to get back on it regardless. At that point, it was a choice: do I finish the ride by soft pedalling, or do I try to complete the workout?
I did actually complete it, but I ended up dropping the FTP for the third block back down to 215 watts—where I should have been in the first place. Even at 215, it was an absolute killer.
So, a definite reality check. I would say the only interesting part of this whole ordeal—if you want to call it that—was this: I wonder if, had I not taken basically two weeks off the bike, would I have been able to complete the workout? And if I hadn’t meddled with the FTP, would that have made a difference?
Even without the FTP adjustments, the workout was incredibly difficult. But because I got cocky and overestimated my ability—while underappreciating just how hard it would be—I set myself up for failure. It’s made me curious, though. It might actually be worth trying it again to see where I’m really at with it.
Despite the struggle, I feel like it was a solid workout—if you’re looking for something incredibly harsh and punchy, that is.
Right, anyway, I’m signing off here. This was a bit of a mega-update because, well, I wrote it by speaking it. That’s a method I’ve been using for some of my blogging this year—just speaking into ChatGPT and letting it convert my words into text. Admittedly, it results in much longer posts, but it’s easier on the fingers, and I can even do it while I’m out on a walk. That said, I’m currently getting absolutely soaked while writing this because I forgot to bring my umbrella. So, good times. Good times.
I’m not entirely sure how things will play out over Christmas. Normally, I’d do my mid-week rides, but I’m not particularly keen on riding on Christmas Day, which I think falls on a Wednesday this year. That said, I’ll still try to get my rides in, whatever they may be. Anything is better than nothing, and I definitely don’t want to end up back in the situation where I’m trying to play catch-up at the weekend. I know that doesn’t work from an exercise perspective—it’s all about little and often, rather than one stupid big effort at the end of the week.
I’ll admit that aside from the illness, which really knocked me for six, a bout of laziness crept in afterward. It was that “I’m cold, and I can’t be bothered” mentality. But hopefully, I’ve broken that cycle now, and we can crack on.
Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a great Christmas and a happy New Year. See you in 2025, if not sooner!
