Today’s ride was the 8th and final stage of the Tour de Zwift 2021. Essential this was five laps of the London Classique circuit, but the official Zwift description says it better than I can:
Leave the trees behind and pedal towards the concrete jungles of Stage 8: Urban Routes. London, New York, and France serve as the optimal backdrops for us to dig deep and close out Tour de Zwift. All aboard for our final stop!
TDZ Stage 8: Group Ride official description from Zwift.com
GROUP A: Take a tour of England’s capital and see the sights. Trafalgar Square. Constitution Hill. Buckingham palace. The final stage of Tour de Zwift is flat, fast, and fun. What more could you want?
COURSE: London
ROUTE: London Classique (5 laps)
TOTAL DISTANCE (WITH LEAD-IN): 23.3 mi // 37.5 km
The truth of it is that today was in many ways like my old gym days.
Around 2012, I decided to try and get healthy, and got myself a gym membership to the local Virgin Active (now defunct, but that’s a different story). That gym was about 5 miles from my house, but about 1 mile from my office.
I started off with good intentions of going three times a week.
I think I lasted a month. Maybe two.
The main thing is I quit. And I quit – mentally at least – when it was “gym day” but my body was still hurting from the previous session. Ahh, I’ll skip today and go tomorrow. And when tomorrow came, I figured I’d skip that day and just resume normal service the following day.
But I didn’t.
Partly because I had to get in the car and drive to the gym, then get undressed, change into my gym kit, then do ~1 hour worth of hard work, and then undress, shower, dress, and go back to work.
I felt like that again today.
Tired legs. Sore knees. Done a few hours of the day job. Bad nights sleep.
Generally could not be arsed.
The one good thing about Zwift, or rather more generally indoor cycling, is that the bike is in my house. In fact, it’s sat in my office. Right behind me.
My kit is in my bedroom, right next to my office.
The shower is clean, hot, and not in use.
Effectively I’ve taken away all the external pain points. I have very few excuses.
Also, this blog is a massive part of forcing me to ride. I can’t break the habit.
But that doesn’t mean that some days, I really can’t be bothered.
Today was one of those days.
Anyway, I forced myself on the bike. I already knew stage 8 was billed as flat and fast. ~30km, 100m of climb (well, I thought it was 300m, but that wasn’t right). A great way to end the Tour de Zwift 2021, and get a solid workout in my lunch break.
As ever, once I got underway it wasn’t that bad. Got to get them legs spinning. I always feel better for it after the session.
What I will say is I struggled with a few things today.
Firstly the above mentioned mental and physical fatigue. I think the TdZ has contributed to this. It’s pushed me, and I have pushed myself. That’s great, but it takes its toll.
Secondly, I have had continual heart monitoring problems lately. This has led to many of my stats reporting lower intensity workouts / rides than they have actually been. This issue continued today. Not sure what the solution to this is. The Wahoo Tickr 2 is brand new. I made sure my chest and chest strap were fully wet before putting it on. Still had tons of issues. Sad times.
Thirdly, I had several drop outs today. These caused me to fall back in places, but not as bad as during the Innsbruckring leg. Every cloud. What happened today was screen freezing, and I have no idea what might be causing that. That only seems to happen on my laptop, not my desktop. Today was laptop day. Go figure.
There was no game plan today.
This was simply to see the Tour through to completion. I’m happy to have finished it, and a little sad that it’s coming to an end. As above, the TdZ and other events like it, do push me harder than I might otherwise have ridden. For that I am grateful.
Also the scheduled events means I have some semblance of purpose each week. I’ll be sad to lose that.
There’s still 11 days left in this years TdZ. This includes a few more days for Stage 8 – which I am hoping to cover at least one of the two other available rides, and then there are a variety of “make up” days. I haven’t missed a stage, so whether or not I’ll take part, I don’t know.
Anyway, all things considered, I am happy with my performance and time today.
I’m definitely more tired after it than I was before, and I was pretty tired to begin with.
I have to say that I have really enjoyed the Tour again this year. Though now that it’s over I’m looking forward to trying out some other programs for a change. I have said this before, but for various reasons I haven’t gone through with it. Now’s the perfect time, it seems.
I’ll be back on tomorrow. Whether it will be another TdZ ride tomorrow and then easy ride Thursday, or a reversal of that, I cannot say. Right now I’m ready for bed and it’s only early evening.
Sleep on!
