For this evening’s ride I indulged in a session of Sweet Spot Training.
However, I messed up during my incessant screenshotting, and accidentally hit tab during the end of the first interval, and so ended up doing a little ad lib’ed training at the end.
There were plenty of new things to see in Watopia this evening.
Firstly, Watopia Waistband is seemingly now a selectable route. This is the route I opted for. Previously, as best I am aware, Watopia Waistband has only been available for select events and group rides.
This route is ~30km and ~100m of climb. It seemed perfect for this session.
Secondly, prior to Zwifting, a new update needed to be downloaded and installed. I figured this was the forthcoming Mustache / Movember update, but it turned out to be a Halloween themed update.
Pumpkins ahoy.
Whilst I was riding this as a workout, I didn’t see a bunch of these things.
However, as has been noted before, even though I was on a workout, I was still collecting the various Trick or Treat surprises along the way. I just couldn’t see them.
I was frustrated by having skipped the second interval block. This was entirely my fault, but Zwift really should make skipping an interval a double opt-in affair. It’s far too easy to skip blocks, and once skipped, you cannot undo.
Ultimately, however, this worked out in my favour – by complete accident – as we shall soon see.
Pumpkins were a-plenty 
I resolved to complete what remained of the workout, and then do the skipped 10 minute block at a higher intensity free ride. Partially this was punishment for my mistake, but also partially I figured it wouldn’t do me any harm to push myself for 10 minutes.
Coming up on the third / last 175w “off” block, I prepped to skip the workout analysis screen and put in 5 minutes at or above 200w.
However, I was caught completely by surprise when my workout did finish.
As soon as I completed the workout, I reverted back to normal Watopia which saw me suddenly change into a Dinosaur costume:
Amazing stuff. As I pedalled along my tail waggled away.
As noted by the 4 pumpkin icons in the top right, I’d somehow managed to unlock the Torso, Legs, and Arms.
But not the head. No idea how to unlock that.
As you can see below, Runners got their own red costume variant. A nice touch.
I can’t say the final 2 blocks were consistent. Far from it.
There was a significant drop in cadence, and due to a gearing mistake (and tired legs) I didn’t manage to keep in the red zone for the full five minutes.
However, I did give it my all, which after 30 minutes of higher intensity work, I was happy with.
Somehow my ride metrics bugged out on this ride.
If you look closely, on the Zwifters Nearby panel, my ride metrics read as 28.2km, but up top I show as 28.7km.
As I rode out to 30km, I ended up coming short of actually hitting 30km for the day. No big deal, but annoying all the same.
I’m going to try and figure out how to get the Head / final pumpkin before tomorrow’s ride.
At a guess I figure it’s at the top of the Watopia Hilly Route. Or some other climb.
As far as I know, this kit is only available until tomorrow anyway.
Overall this was a decent session. As it’s only ~50 minutes, I feel this is a great way to get in a solid workout in under an hour.
It’s probably more preferable to me at the moment than Emily’s Short Mix, which is great… but too short.
I feel like doing Sweet Spot Training is giving me way more bang for my buck than the FTP Builder rides, and I certainly feel it’s a better use of my time.
It’s also not quite as hard as I expected it to be. At least, not the second time round. That final interval block was killer though.
I’m going to have a look at WhatsOnZwift and see if I can find a similar workout to Sweet Spot Training and maybe have a few I can switch up and vary between. Doing the same thing over and over can get boring.
That said, I would rather repeat the same thing over and over if it’s getting my fitness up consistently. And this does feel that way.
I’m looking forwards to reviewing my fitness graph over the next few weeks.
With a regular hard climb, and a more intense training schedule, I sure hope to see some real world metrics improvement.
60km done in 2 rides this week. A great start.
More of the same tomorrow.
