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.
Something of an unusual week this one.
I did a couple of higher intensity rides, one low intensity rides, and then two longer walks. I don’t bother blogging the walks, so content-wise there wasn’t a huge amount of update on here.
This does also make the stat graphs look weird, as they don’t seem to want to track the walks – and where they do, they looks super low effort.
Here are this week’s rides:
- Tuesday – Zwift Race Scotland: Stage 2 – Glasgow Crit Circuit (B) (Indoors / Zwift)
- Wednesday – 33 Minutes Of Kevin’s Busy Hands (Indoors / Zwift)
- Saturday – Legs Status: Tired (Indoors / Zwift)
Starting the week off with a race – the second in Zwift’s February racing series: Race Scotland.
This was on a new circuit for me, Glasgow Crit Circuit. And it killed me. I messed up very early on, and never managed to recover. Over the 5 laps I got annihilated.
The hardest part of the Glasgow Crit Circuit for me was that second 1.5km. Having no route knowledge, I blew a ton of energy way too early in the first half of the lap, and then when it got to the climb part I was already flat. Sad times.
However the truth is I don’t think I would have done that much better being absolutely fresh as a daisy. Not sure what Race 3 has in store, but hopefully it’s a tad easier than that one. We will find out tomorrow.
After that race, I did a low intensity effort on Wednesday – just an hour at Zone 2. Boring, but essential.
Not much to report there.
However, off the bike I was in an odd spot last week. Having spent ~2 months looking for work, I got two offers but each had its pros and cons. So even though I had gone from one extreme to the other, I still was finding sleepless nights, not sure what route to take, having to chase one of the two for paperwork, and so on.
The fun never stops.
As a result of that, I just wanted to get out of the house. Run away. Or, as I guess is more accurate, walk away. So rather than ride, on Thursday I took myself off for a long walk, hoping to clear my head, or at least think things through.
That kinda worked, and I repeated that again on Sunday morning just to double check I was happy with the decisions I’d made.
Between those two, Saturday’s ride was intentionally higher intensity. I was a bit surprised to find I hadn’t done an SST session since 4th December. Time flies…
With sore legs from the walking – far more sore than I had anticipated actually – I was sceptical about how I would do on a harder work out. However I needn’t have worried. It’s different muscles than the riding ones, so all was ‘fine’. Or as fine as 40 minutes of hard riding can be.
Somewhat surprisingly, the weight gain is now on.
I say somewhat, because I’m almost certain it’s the booze that’s doing it. Unsurprisingly the constant stress of job / no job, combined with a bit of boredom, has led me to having a can of beer (or two) every night.
That is likely to stop very shortly, certainly once I’m working again. So I suspect whilst the weight gain is a lagging indicator, it will rise a bit more and then begin to fall back down. If I sustain another 3 days above 67kg though I will swap my Zwift weight accordingly.
That’s really it though. Nothing mega this week. Disappointed in my race performance, but hidden in there was a new 15 minute PB. I think I need to do another FTP Test though. So between tomorrow’s race and the weekend, I’m going to get one in.
Fun fun. Beyond that, maybe another walk as I’ve enjoyed the two.