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.
This week’s rides were as follows:
- Tuesday – Tour Of Watopia 2021 – Stage 2: Longer Ride (Indoors / Zwift)
- Wednesday – Asleep At The Wheel (Indoors / Zwift)
- Thursday – Tour Of Watopia 2021 – Stage 3: Longer Ride (Indoors / Zwift)
- Sunday – Ride Of The Calibrator (Outdoors)
Mostly indoors again this week, largely because the weather has taken a down turn (so long summer kit, it was nice knowing you), and also because the Tour of Watopia 2021 is currently in full swing, dictating what rides I do, and when.
I’m enjoying the Tour of Watopia rides, so far. I know we have “the big one” still to come (a weekday Alpe climb, deep joy), though the ones I have done so far have been largely solo affairs due to the ‘on the hour’ time slots.
I’ve never been a fan of being dictated too. You must start at 4pm. Or 5pm. If only life was that simple.
In both cases this week I’ve ended up logging in to Zwift and joining the 4pm start, only to *actually* start ten or twenty minutes later. Of course this means the rides are pretty much a time trail, and perhaps harder than they otherwise ought to be.
But the flip side to this is that they are a solid workout. In both ToW rides I have notched up over 1000 calories burned, so for me, that’s a win any day of the week.
Doing the ToW rides, combined with difficulty sleeping and a bit of a bad habit of not properly eating immediately after each ride has led to me feeling really worn out.
I used to drink a protein shake after each ride, but fell out of the habit of doing so. This is in part because the big whey powder jar is now shoved at the back of a cupboard (I found it over the weekend, all dusty), and I think that jar is now expired, also. Whoops. Expensive stuff that.
I’m not entirely sure how I convinced myself to do Stage 3 just two days after Stage 2. I think mentally I wanted to get the thing over with, and therefore give me longer in terms of recovery until Stage 4. In fairness, that seemed to work out quite well.
One thing that I did enjoy this week was my Sunday ride. This was outdoors – cold, but sunny.
Heading out I had a route planned but I decided to ditch it and go “off grid”.
My aim for the ride was largely to take it easy, get some fresh air, and covertly trick myself into getting some exercise. And that seems to have worked, too. At two hours I managed to burn off yet another 1000 calories, which whilst highly inefficient compared to the ToW rides, was a welcome addition to the weekly total all the same.
Plus it was a fairly enjoyable ride to boot, with the exception of some pillock getting far too close to me at one point.
For the week ahead it’s all ToW stuff, still.
I’m hoping to get in a proper recovery ride tomorrow, nice and chill, before hitting Stage 4 – not sure what that entails yet.
I’ve got some more new kit arriving today (fingers crossed), and I have some new bib shorts I wanted to write a review on for this blog. So those are things to cover in addition to the usual weekly content.
I have consistently failed in doing anything other than Zwifting… for shame. One of these days I will get back on to another platform.
Also, for better or worse, I really feel I need to do a proper FTP test sometime soon. Can’t wait for that.