Tonight I continued with my harder workouts idea, going for another Sweet Spot Training (Short) session, which is:
- 4x 5 minutes at 190w
- 4x 5 minutes at 175w
Alternating between the two, it’s a solid workout that I feel is really helping me improve my fitness.
This is the third time I have completed Sweet Spot Training at my current FTP of 195w.
The last time I did this workout I ended up bodging the intervals by pressing tab at the wrong time and as such I had to skip / go manual on the last 10 minute block.
This is important as a metric I have decided to loosely track is my heart rate when completing this workout.
What I can say is that in the first run through Sweet Spot Training I had a max heart rate 178bpm, and an average of 158bpm.
Two weeks later (i.e. today) I had a max heart rate 167bpm, and an average of 146bpm.
This feels like a major improvement.
I still don’t feel fully recovered from climbing Alpe Du Zwift again on Sunday.
There is still a definite feeling of tightness in my thighs, and this workout wasn’t an easy one to put myself through for that reason.
That said, I definitely don’t feel like this is pushing me to my limit. But I do get sweaty and it’s not easy, by any means.
I’m getting to the point now where I think my FTP is above 195w at this point.
I definitely need to take the FTP test again. However, as covered in my last race report I rode consistently at 195w for an hour… which felt like I was at my limit (OK, maybe I had 2 or 3 watts left in me, somewhere, somehow)… so maybe 195w is entirely accurate?
All that said, I’m not that fussed about whatever magic number I have assigned to me. What I do care about is that I feel a damn site better than I did 6 months ago.
On a different note I tried again tonight to get the Tacx Software up and running.
I failed. Again.
I would expect the branded software for my trainer to work seamlessly. Not so. It keeps failing to detect both the heart rate monitor and the Tacx Neo 2. Disappointing.
I’d really like to get the Tacx Software up and running for tomorrow night’s ride, if at all possible.
I’m thinking this week will be similar to last. Monday and Friday as rest days. Every other day ride something, somehow.
There’s still two tracks I haven’t ridden on RGT Cycling as of yet. However, one of those is a climb, albeit a long and gradual one. I’m thinking I might do that one this weekend if I can’t get this Tacx Software to play ball.
In other news on this ride I got through 50% of the Movember riding goal. That means, as best I am aware, about 5 hours of riding so far?
I believe the goal is 9.9 hours.
Seems like I might hit that by mid next week.
OK, so 490 calories burned. That goes some way to burning away the damaged caused by 2x 3 course meals in 3 days.
Happy to get another 27km on the board for the week, and at least one hard workout done and dusted.
Cadence was an issue on this ride. I struggled in places, but generally kept above 90rpm where possible.
Strava (below) has me at 94rpm average. It seemed lower on the day.
But yep, for sure the biggest win on this ride was the decreased heart rate.
That’s a solid win for me. I definitely concentrated on my breathing during this ride.
I’m not looking forwards to another FTP test, but it’s getting to the point where I think I need to do it sooner rather than later.
