Today was London day again on Zwift. And we started off in the rain. Quite fitting really. I wonder if it’s sync’d up to the real world weather? I suspect not.
Being completely honest, I could not be bothered this morning. I woke up late, partly due to my eldest waking up at 6am and then doing a variety of things to keep me from sleeping. I don’t use an alarm clock for my rides. I wake when my body tells me too, and away I go.
As such, I was about fifteen minutes late onto my bike this morning. Fortunately, I put all my stuff out the night before. Shorts, socks, vest, headphones, iPad, heart rate monitor, shoes… it’s all there, next to my bike, ready for me to dress and go.
For whatever reason, when I did finally get out of bed this morning I found I was extremely thirsty. I necked a pint of water, and refilled the pint glass. I don’t use a bottle – I put my pint glass next to me on the window ledge. It’s a high tech system I have going on.
After getting some rice crispies ready for my youngest, I climbed on the bike and decided a slow and steady approach was the way to go.
However, me being me, as soon as I hit the first sprint line, I decided that I better be serious and have a proper go.
Unfortunately I don’t remember my exact time. I think it was around ~16.5, or ~16.8. Either way, I do remember I was somewhere around ~157th. Zwift was quick to tell me this was not my best attempt – which is something in the 15s range. I can’t seem to find the sprint section on Strava either. Sad times.
Having sufficiently thrashed my legs early on, I decided the best thing I could do for the rest of the ride was to try and keep my wattage above 130w. Anything above that and I’d be content. Anything below and effort would need to be increased.
This went better than expected. Though not quite perfect.
Again I found myself with ~1.5km to go with 2.5 minutes remaining, and again I only managed 9.9km in 20 minutes. Quite frustrating. One thing to note today was that my pace overall was slightly slower than yesterday. So even though yesterday I only barely missed out on the 10km in 20 minutes, today my pace was marginally slower so the gap I missed by was about 10 seconds, instead of about 5 seconds.
With this in mind, and because my legs are a bit knackered – I am going to have a rest day tomorrow. I’ll be completely honest, it feels like failure to do this. I know it’s essential, but breaking the streak is not something I enjoy doing. Not in cycling, not in programming, not in anything.
I’m hoping that after a rest day, my legs will have recovered, and I can beat 10km in 20 minutes. That’s my target. I know it’s possible.
Zwift Ghost Rider
One thing I would really like to see in Zwift is the ability to race against my Personal Best by way of a ghost rider.
A few weeks ago when I was looking into Zwift, I watched people cycling round and saw these blue phantom cyclists racing past. I assumed, wrongly as it happens, that these were ghost riders.
Instead, I have since learned that these blue riders are AI / Bot riders, used when the course is empty, to make it feel less lonely. And apparently as Zwift has grown in popularity, they are used less and less – as there are more and more real people riding, so they aren’t needed.
Being able to see my previous best ride, and race against it, would be a massive help in beating the 10km in 20 minutes target that I have for myself. Right now, it’s really hard for me to understand if I’m on, or off the pace. I guess I could default assume I’m off the pace. A healthy dose of pessimism to start the day, why not?
To me it seems crazy that a feature like this, so common in other computer games, cannot or has not yet been implemented. Not a deal breaker, but certainly a massive nice-to-have.
Beginners FTP
Lastly for today, whilst I have not yet formally attempted an FTP test, it would appear Zwift has been marking my progress all the same.
If you do a Google search for “andy coggan ftp chart” you will find plenty of rather incomprehensible charts relating to what your FTP means, in comparison with others.
Ready for it?
It’s quite hard to see, but the above image links you to the original article.
My weight, at the time of writing, is around 74kg.
I haven’t done an FTP test, but Zwift told me today that it puts my FTP score at 127w. Yes, I am aware this is poor. It’s nice to have a quantifiable position, from which I can work to improve.
I then plumbed in these values into the British Cycling Power Calculator.
This tells me I have a Power to Weight / Watts per Kg of 1.70.
And from the Andy Coggan FTP chart, this puts me at one notch above middle on “Novice 1”, and five solid notches down from “Average Untrained” cyclist.
It’s a start. I had hoped for a little better if I’m being completely honest, but I’ll take what I can get. It all goes to show that I was absolutely right in realising I am essentially very weak, and need to dramatically improve my overall fitness.
The bike is justified!