Continuing on with the Norseman Workout series, today I took on the second of the six, with this one being the second longest also at an hour and ten minutes in length.
Unlike yesterday where I was forced to do my ride late in the evening, today I started work late and did this one first thing. Whereas last night I rode in the dark, today I had the glare of the morning sun blinding me. However, that soon cleared off – back to the grey skies and cold weather. Inside though, I was hotting up.
I’d had a look at the work ahead via WhatsOnZwift:
So I was fully prepped and ready for this one to be a beast. However, when I got underway I was feeling confident seeing that the 90% FTP figure (or the 3m 45s interval) was only 210w:
I’d expected this to be a little bit higher – but that kinda proves how much attention I’d paid. AKA, not much.
As is so often the case then with these Zwift workouts, I was feeling quietly confident that I’d have no troubles getting through those easy blocks… easier than expected, how hard could it be?
The warm up was decent enough. A ten minute ramp, suggesting I go at a cadence I found comfortable. I opted for 95rpm. And then around the 8 minute mark it suggested bumping up the cadence for a couple of minutes, maybe 5-10rpm higher, so I did as I was told.
For the two minutes at 210w, I dropped back to 95rpm and settled in. All good. That would be the pacing for the ride ahead and it didn’t feel so bad. Just like the “off” block in an SST, right?
The early warning shot across the bow came in the form of the 45 second bash at 270w, followed by what felt like a lot less than 30 seconds before repeating. At that point I was thinking how little fun it might be to have to do 3:45 at 210w after that. Well, I didn’t have to wait too long to find out just how little fun it would be.
When there’s four repeats, I often find the third block to be the hardest. This is often the case in an SST session, and it was the case again today.
There’s that first block – fresh as you like, so it’s not so bad. Novel, even.
Then the second one comes around and I’m still feeling strong, if not quite as strong as the first. However, during this interval, my mind starts to think… ooh, this one sucks and I still have two more to go.
By the time I kick into the third, I’m tired, still have one block left, and it can feel so mentally and physically taxing.
But then the fourth one, whilst often the most physically demanding, is less so mentally as you know it’s over when you get through that last arch. Another day’s workout done, thank the Lord.
The things that saw me through this one were focusing on cadence, and bringing down the heart rate. So cadence, just keeping to 95rpm, especially in the jump from 115w up to 270w. And then once I’d got through the 45 seconds, it was about trying to bring the heart rate down below 170bpm before the next 45 second effort.
By the time I’d made it to the third 45 second block, I have to admit I had started a mental countdown of just how many of those intervals were left … 5, now 4… soon 3, then 2… boy that last one was good to get over and done with. Had the 210w blocks been higher I think I’d have been really struggling to keep a lower heart rate, which almost certainly would have meant this one would have been a significantly more taxing workout.
Anyway, whilst this one was hard, I felt so good having got it done and dusted with the rest of the day to spare. Carrying around that feeling for the rest of the day – up until now – makes me wish I could do more early workouts. There’s many reasons why that’s not feasible, from noise, to getting the kids ready for school, to general laziness… and so on. But it was definitely better in many ways than doing even a lunch time workout.
Tomorrow will almost certainly be recovery – even if I, somehow, manage to get that done outdoors. It probably was dry enough to go out today, but I was determined to get that workout done and dusted.
Effectively this is back to back SST sessions now, but with variation. I don’t want to say I enjoyed it, but I have to say I’m liking the intensity of this Norseman series so far. Not that I’d like to actually do the real event – from the on screen prompts it sounds absolutely horrific!
