For the first time this week, I did my cycling indoors.
This was a bit of a rush job as I’d been working all morning, out in the early afternoon, and then home at 15:45, with the event due to start at 16:00. I forgot about the big updated needed, and also had a bunch of stuff running on my main computer, so had to switch to my other, older Zwift box to not have to shut the main PC down.
As a result, I ended up doing this ride without any sound at all. That was a bit lame, as I wanted to get into the swing of things with a nice upbeat soundtrack to ride along too. That’s one thing I miss when outdoors.
I’d had in mind that I’d do this one as a recovery ride. Take it easy. That kind of thing.
However, being late on – by about 5 minutes when the dust settled – I ended up really working harder than I’d have liked to get back to the pack.
This being my first time back on Zwift since the on-road FTP test at Innsbruck, I was shocked to find that even when riding what felt like a knackering pace – about 230w – I still wasn’t in the yellow on the coloured graph at the bottom of the screen. I’d need to notch up the pace a tad more to hit yellow. I look forward to the SST sessions.
Yowser.
I’d planned to do an hour, but being in late I didn’t cover the full 60 minutes during the event.
One other thing I found today was that if you late join an event, Zwift will put you in the with the pack and give you a five second assisted boost to get up to speed.
That was quite cool, but I wasn’t even on the bike or ready when that happened. So as such I immediately got dropped like a stone. Hence my 5 minute of hard work to catch them back up. Fortunately they were going at a relaxed pace or I would never have caught them.
I’m still not feeling it with Zwift at the moment.
I am looking forward to the new maps, however.
As I’m going to do another indoor session tomorrow – unless the weather has an overnight miracle – I’m going to get on RGT Cycling, or potentially try out something different. Maybe not The Suffer Fest, as I believe that requires an FTP test as your first ride, and right now my legs are feeling strained.
The other option is Rouvy, or GTA 5, if I can figure out how that works.
All in, I’d say I struggled way more than I expected with this ride today. The graph kinda gives it away. Even with a rest day yesterday, I got on the bike feeling tired and like my legs were not in the mood.
I put some of this down to a bad diet dinner or sausages, burgers, white bread, and doritos. Yeah, just like the pros eat.
Unfortunately at dinner I also did something really stupid. I jumped on a bottle rocket thing, and knackered up my knee and left foot again. They were both only just recovering from my Zwift Running fail.
Hopefully tomorrow goes a little bit better.
