For tonight’s workout I took on Dig Deep Coaching’s Stage 12 ride, which I found via WhatsOnZwift.
What I wanted was a workout similar in intensity to the Sweet Spot Training workout, just to vary things up a touch.
What I got was 30+ mins at FTP. So that was nice.
This workout started off fairly gently.
A nice 5 minute warm up, at 85rpm… more on that shortly.
And then a few 30 second efforts at 240w at 125rpm.
By the third of these little bursts I had a small sweat on, but nothing that intense.
The cool down between each of these was only 1.5 minutes, and by the time the third one was over with, the short cool down seemed to be over ridiculously quickly… and into the hard work we went.
Right off the bat, we were in at 205w for 10 minutes.
This wasn’t overly taxing. I mean, it was solid work, but not killer.
The hard part was sticking to 78rpm.
OK, so I got plus or minus 5rpms, so was more like around 82rpm. But OMG the amount of times it flashed up SPIN SLOWER!
I just want to spin fast, and that’s a big part about why I chose this workout.
What I was wondering was if I would use different muscles, or use my muscles in a different way if I was forced to grind at 78rpm.
And I really did feel different.
Honestly, I don’t much enjoy going at this pace out of choice. Sometimes on a climb, it’s inevitable. But on flats? I much prefer to aim for a higher cadence. So this workout forced me to try new (or not that new, I guess) things.
There wasn’t one particular part of this workout I found challenging. It was all pretty much a slog.
It was nice to have a bit of variety – trying a new workout – keeping things interesting.
And I do remember the final 5 minutes seeming to drag on as if for a life time.
One thing to come out of this workout was that the first 30 minutes, when averaged out, were – I’m guessing – as though I rode 30 minutes at my FTP.
Now, I’m not 100% convinced 195w is my FTP anymore. But still, I don’t think it’s that much higher.
I’ve been wondering if I could hack the “2x 15 minute at FTP” workout for a while now, and I think I can say with some confidence that I should be able to see myself through that one. Maybe that’s one to try tomorrow night.
It definitely felt good to get over 30km on the board before the workout was done, even with 100m+ of climb in the laps.
It also felt great to burn off 537 calories, as I’m heading off out shortly for some Thai food. Weight goes off, weight goes on.
Feeling decent about the start to this week.
Planning on another fairly intensive session tomorrow, and then Friday night off the bike.
The week, thankfully, seems to be going fairly quickly.
I’m debating with myself as to whether I’d do this workout again.
It’s hard to say. I found it useful, but I think there are a ton of other workouts to try via WhatsOnZwift, now that I have figured out how to use the filters.
I do like a bit of variety.
Ride on!
