After a fairly shocking day at work, one of those days where you try your absolute best but it’s not good enough, I got a bit of luck in that the weather forecast yesterday had said rain, rain, rain, but when it came down to it, it was pretty sunny.
Later than I’d have liked, I did manage to get out of the house and after a bit of stop start action with the last remnants of Friday rush hour, I was off out into the countryside, heading on a route I’ve done several times at this point. I like this route in particular as it’s a half and half route. The first 17km are the uphill bit. Then the second half of the ride, about 13km or so, are largely flat or downhill.
After yesterday’s ride I originally planned to do a bit of work around 240w for 5 minute blocks, then recover around 200w. This isn’t exactly how Zwift does the SST sessions, but it has worked for me previously outdoors. However, today I just couldn’t get into it. I don’t know if it was as a result of yesterday’s disappointing ride, or something else, but I abandoned the idea fairly early on.
At about 14km out, I had another idea: how about some sprinting?
Short bursts at very high intensity are something I very rarely do. But it felt like such a contrast to yesterday’s ride that I figured why the heck not?
As such I ended up smashing myself a bunch of times, with my best effort as I saw it somewhere around 12w/kg. Checking the stats I managed a massive (for me, anyway) 14.45w/kg at my best effort. That’s incredible when I think where I started out a year and a half ago.
Today’s route actually lends itself pretty well to sprinting, with wide open and fairly smooth country roads, sometimes with gradual inclines to offer a decent level of resistance.
And I must have been doing something right as for once, the Garmin gave me a “productive” rating for my ride. I can’t remember the last time that happened outdoors.
Anyway, it definitely felt like a better ride than yesterday. I’m thinking my next indoor activity is going to be a ramp test. Never done one before. There’s a first time for everything. However, I am kinda hoping the weather holds out as honestly, I’d much rather be outdoors than in as much as possible before winter sets in.
Fingers crossed I’ll get in a longer ride on Sunday.
