Today, I completed the Tempo with Accelerations #1 workout on MyWhoosh. This workout has a Training Stress Score (TSS) of 70, but I suspect my actual TSS was higher. The reason is that, although this workout includes some sprint efforts, it’s designed to be done with ERG mode enabled.
However, for each of the sprint intervals today, I switched ERG mode off, for a more intense, self-paced effort during each sprint. I assume this increased the overall intensity and training load compared to the prescribed workout.
I thought I might be able to check the actual TSS for the ride afterwards, given the adjustments I made, but, surprisingly, it doesn’t appear to be one of the available stats. This was a bit unexpected, as I hadn’t noticed the lack of TSS data before.
Since this is a 52-minute workout, it starts with a fairly solid warm-up, gradually building over four minutes from 60% FTP to 109% FTP. After that, there’s a four-minute block at 90% FTP. I was a bit apprehensive about this yellow-hued section, but once I got through it, I felt a bit overconfident—something that would definitely come back to haunt me later.
Once we got into the main set, the first four minutes passed fairly quickly, just counting down to that initial 15-second hard effort. I wasn’t entirely sure how long each sprint duration would be, as MyWhoosh doesn’t provide a particularly clear workout overview mid-ride. All I knew was that each sprint effort would be slightly longer than the previous one but at a progressively lower target pace.
However, as soon as I hit that first four-minute mark, I knew I wanted to do the sprint effort with ERG mode turned off. I decided to mix things up: the first sprint out of the saddle, the second seated, and, depending on how I felt, I might do the third one with ERG mode back on.
Out of the entire ride, that first sprint effort felt like my best—perhaps not surprising, as sprinting isn’t my strongest suit. I wasn’t expecting too much from myself, but I really wish I had worn my heart rate monitor. Recovering from an all-out effort, even for just 15 seconds, and then having to drop immediately back into a tempo pace was incredibly challenging. My seated effort, four minutes later, was quite a bit off the mark compared to that initial out-of-the-saddle sprint.
In the final four minutes of the first set, I was debating whether to keep ERG mode on or off. In the end, I decided to turn it off since I’d get a rest period afterward. I couldn’t quite remember if that rest period was four, five, or maybe even longer, but it turned out to be five minutes.
Even so, five minutes didn’t feel like enough recovery after a 30-second “sprint.” I really went all out, and I definitely wasn’t fully recovered when it was time to repeat the set again. However the stats say I did better in the second 15 second effort, which is very surprising.
The hardest part of this workout was, without a doubt, the second set. Midway through, I genuinely thought I might not finish—or at the very least, I’d need to take a pause. For me, having to stop always feels like a bit of a failure.
I’d definitely say I gave my best on every single effort, especially during the sprints. I really pushed myself in this workout—it’s by far the hardest one I’ve done since the crash and probably the toughest I’ve tackled on MyWhoosh. That’s largely because I did the sprints with ERG mode off. If I’d followed the scheduled workout with ERG mode on, it might not have been quite as challenging.
Even so, I enjoyed it, and I’m glad I took it on.
For what it’s worth, I completed this workout using the Tacx Neo as both the power source and the controllable. I’m not sure if that makes any difference, but I thought it was worth mentioning. My only feedback would be that, at 518 calories burned over 52 minutes, I feel a bit short-changed—I honestly felt like I gave it everything to get through this one!
Not quite sure what I’ll do tomorrow, but I’ll probably go for something a bit easier.
