A tad unexpected, and completely unplanned. Today I took part in the Standard ride for this years Stage 1 of the Tour de Zwift 2021. Yesterday I did the longer ride.
Within 2km of setting off, even with a decent-ish 10 minute warm up, I was hurting. I’m out of the habit of doing longer, harder rides. Especially with two on back to back days.
Here’s the official spiel for today’s ride:
GROUP B: Welcome to the Volcano Flat. Be sure to bring some water—this’ll be a hot one!
COURSE: Watopia
ROUTE: Volcano Flat (2 laps)
TOTAL DISTANCE: 14.9 mi // 24.6 km
There were considerably fewer on this ride. Yesterday’s affair was 2k+, but today we were down to 750 or so. I’m not sure what the difference is. Apparently, Zwift is always busiest on a Tuesday. Who knew?
Yesterday’s 6pm TdZ ride apparently had over 11,500 participants, and a new “peak Zwift” milestone was hit yesterday also, with over 43,000 riders online. Kinda crazy. I guess this is spurred on by January free trials from the people who received a turbo trainer this Christmas, and the European lockdowns and curfews and such.
Whatever the reason, I hope that Zwift re-invest some of this new uptick in income back into the core product. I’m not holding my breath.
Anyway, this was much the same as yesterday – only a tiny bit shorter. This was perfect as I wanted no more than 45 minutes riding, and managed to finish today in 35 minutes. Again, just like yesterday, I’m all too aware I’d never manage such a pace outdoors, but it’s not a bad workout for a Wednesday night.
One interesting thing today was that my average heart rate was down to 170bpm from 177bpm yesterday, though yesterday I averaged a faster speed. Today definitely felt harder, for longer. I’m guessing that’s both physical and mental fatigue.
Overall, a solid exercise in the time frame, burning off ~500 calories in 35 minutes. I’ll take it.
As I’ve been standing for most of the day, combined with the harder ride yesterday and this one today, I have to say I am feeling it in my legs. I may very well reward myself with something much easier tomorrow. Sadly not an hour on the couch, but maybe just a nice easy potter along at recovery pace.
I don’t know about you, but it feels like a long week so far. I guess it always does after a break from work. That ramp back up to the day to day normality of the 9-to-5 takes some adjusting too. Be nice to win the lottery and take back control of my life. If only.
