I wanted a ride this morning, but the prospect of a 2hr ride wasn’t that appealing. I set in mind a target of riding for an hour, and seeing how I got on.
For this ride I opted for Watopia’s Figure 8 circuit, a mixture of Watopia’s hills and sprints over ~30km. Ideal.
As ever, pretty much within moments of starting the ride, I’d forgotten which route I’d picked, how long it lasted, and how much climbing I’d be doing. I knew I’d be in for both of Watopia’s small hills, but beyond that, I had little clue what lay ahead.
The ride started off quite typically for me. A short warm up, followed by ramping it up, giving the legs a good working for a couple of minutes or so. Then the little hilly bit from below the under water tunnel on Watopia Flat, which is the spike above on the graph.
Unfortunately it’s become much harder to get screenshots of everything since I broke my other phone.
I knew I’d meet my weekly distance goal early in the ride. When I set off I knew I had ~95km already clocked up for the week.
The first climb came round a sensible 7km in. I don’t like Watopia’s Hilly Route for the reason it drops a KOM climb on you within ~1km of starting. This route definitely handles this better.
I was fairly happy with this time. I felt I attacked well, but there are various ways I could improve. Gearing is the big thing I’m still working on.
Any heart rate north of 180bpm means I’ve been working. And sweating.
It’s not a truly fair comparison on the personal record times as last time I did this climb, it wasn’t the first climb I’d taken on that ride.
A quick whip down the descent and I needed a bunch of km’s to recover. I think I went easy at this point for the next 4km, which took me about 8 minutes. I was knackered.
After the recovery, it felt only right to hit a sprint. And for this one I think I put in a new PR. I wish to all holy heaven that Zwift would stop this 30 day PR nonsense. Show me: ALL MY TIMES!>!>!>.
The 80/20 rule in full effect here. 3rd on the board, yet still miles off 1st by comparison. B. Potgieter must have been flying.
It was only when looking back at my screenshots for this post that I realised I just about made the 10km in twenty minutes or under goal I have for myself. That included the earlier KOM attempt, so I’m never that critical when a climb has been involved in that target.
It’s always nice to break 20km under 40 minutes as well, though in theory that should be easier as there’s no warm up.
I totally trolled myself at this point, thinking I was done. I was mentally ready to be done. But no. Zwift had the forward hilly KOM for me to enjoy.
Again, hard to get screenshots when pushing now. I mucked up the start to this as I was alt+tabbed to find a new tune on YouTube. I wanted something faster for the climb. Prodigy it was.
Happy to be under 3 minutes here. Think this is a new PB for me. Fairly sure it is. Not by much though.
After this I was pretty much wiped out. I figured I would make the hour mark, regardless of how lack luster my performance was from this point forwards.
And of course, Zwift threw another sprint at me.
I really tried on this, but was way off my best. Ahh well, I doubt I’d done near 30km when I put down that 29.08.
Even so, not a terrible performance by my standards.
After this I figured I’d hit the hour and jump off. Then when I hit the hour, I had 259m of climb on the board, and it annoyed me. I wanted to finish on a different number for some reason. That says a lot about me and my mentality.
So I persevered until I hit the next hill, which took another 5 minutes or so. And then I came off.
I really think a proper FTP test would be a good ride to do soon. I want to get a truly accurate 20 minute best effort, and with varying courses etc, it’s not easy to put down a reliable time over that distance, TT bike or not.
34km, ~600 calories, time for breakfast.
I don’t remember my heart rate being so high for such a high proportion of this ride. I think I’m misreading the graph.
Anyway, it is what it is. I have another weird work day ahead tomorrow. I am 95% sure Monday will be a rest day. Until the next ride!
