Weekly Review April 3rd – 9th 2023

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Each week I try to review and reflect on my previous week on the bike. This allows me to see how my fitness and ability is progressing on a wider timescale than day to day. For previous weekly reviews please click here. 

Last week’s review was a little different, it was my first Quarterly Review.

Normal service resumes for today.

A busy week, thanks to the Bank Holiday. By which I mean I got in more riding than usual, although nothing particularly special with regards to the rides I did do.

Here are this week’s rides:

This week saw the start of a new Zwift Racing series. For April we have the Cobble Crushers series, tying in with the Zwift sponsorship of the Paris Nice real life bike ride. Zwift are sponsoring the ladies race, hence the cross over.

For what it was worth, that first race barely contained any cobbles, and unless you’re on a turbo that simulates the road feel, it makes no difference whatsoever. The Tacx Neo 2 that I use does simulate the cobbles, and I personally find them quite jarring. So much so I turned them down to 50% long ago, and that’s just enough to remind me they are there. God help the real riders racing on them over the weekend just gone. Miserable.

As per, I got left for dust on that first race. It’s probably going to be a challenging series. Race #2 takes place tomorrow. Can’t wait.

This week also saw the end of the Tour of Watopia 2023.

I’ve enjoyed the two back to back Tours (first the Tour de Zwift, then the Tour of Watopia), and am a little sad not to have some weekly big rides to plan around.

That said, a rest is probably no bad thing. Even the Garmin is suggesting I’m overdoing it. See above.

I also feel like I need to ease back a bit now, give myself a couple of weeks of lower intensity work before starting to ramp back up with an eye on the Quarterly Goal set last week. The big one being the new FTP target.

The challenge is getting the hour+ rides in on weekdays. I’ll see how I get on.

My weight is still a bit all over the place.

I’m thinking the days of getting back down to the 66’s are long gone. Not sure what changed but I’m sitting pretty around the 67’s again and have been for a while now. No issues really here, but I’d love to know what changed specifically to gain the weight, as I can’t work it out.

Probably best not to dwell on that too much.

No Cheetah

Last then this week, I seem to have broken Golden Cheetah once more. No screenshots to be had out of the software as I can’t make it boot anymore. Probably need to reboot my PC, but that’s a hassle in itself so for this week, no graphs.

Boo.

There wasn’t a huge amount to show, I’m sure.

The high intensity stuff was the Zwift riding, with the outdoor rides being recovery or base builders.

So for the week ahead then, it’s pretty simple:

  • Race tomorrow
  • Endurance where possible
  • Maybe do an SST on Saturday

And see how happy Garmin is this time next week.

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