Each week Zwift sends me an email summarising my activity for the week. For previous weekly reviews click here.
This week consisted of 4 rides. I’d have preferred that to be 5 rides, but even so the distances and intensities covered were where I’d expect 5 rides to be on a “normal” week, give or take.
Describing the week as not “normal” is simply because with the Tour de Zwift 2020 now in full flow, I’ve decided to take part in the race and the group ride for each stage. Given that each stage is fairly short (5 days?) this has meant that I’ve been full on in two races this week which is new to me. And the group ride wasn’t exactly taking it easy either.
Starting the week with a race over two laps of the London Classique absolutely thrashed my legs. Coming off the Sunday group ride I will be the first to admit I wasn’t quite prepared, mentally or physically, to be taking my next ride as a race.
The way I’m looking at the Tour de Zwift is pretty much how I view all Zwift events: I don’t expect to win.
My aim is simply to turn up, get a *solid* workout, and any good placement / ranking is a solid bonus.
The biggest takeaway for me from the first race was that my pacing was not great. I’d tried, and failed, to stick with a group above my ability, and ultimately paid the price for the attempt. It’s going to be a long while till I can hold 3.1w/kg for any sustained length of time, I feel.
Given how thrashed I felt on Wednesday, and also having had an interview postponed twice (Mon / Tues), I finally did the interview at 16:30 on Wednesday night. That lasted till 17:15, by which time I’d usually have been on the bike for ~45 minutes. Anyway, I felt like a rest day would be no bad thing.
Thursday resumed riding duties with an FTP Builder session. I opted for a session with both some blue zone and some higher intensity blocks – several stints at 195w with 3 minute recoveries in between. This was intended to be a gentle introduction towards the forthcoming resumption of Sweet Spot Training sessions. I feel those are amongst the best uses of my time when on the bike, so am keen to get back in to doing them. Well, once the Tour is over.
Friday, again, was an interview day. Fun times. As I write this I’ve not heard back from either interview yet, which is nice. That meant I skipped Friday’s ride again.
Having missed Friday, and Wednesday, and taken Thursday as a recovery ride, I anticipated getting into a race on Saturday to both make up for lost time, and also to continue on with my goal of riding and racing each Tour de Zwift stage.
Saturday’s schedule, however, didn’t go quite as planned. I’m usually fairly pressed for time on Saturday afternoons, but these last two weeks in particular have been especially short.
Running out of time to do the Innsbruck race and group ride, I was left with no other choice than to do the race on Saturday if I was to ride the group ride on Sunday. Not ideal, especially after how I felt after Tuesday’s race.
Long story short, I decided to re-arrange some family visiting on Saturday afternoon in the hope I’d get back for the 17:12 race start, but that went out of the window and I totally missed the slot. It was then a choice of skipping the day’s riding entirely, or – no fun – ride late.
So, after the kids had finally gone to bed, I was on Zwift, racing on a Saturday night. I wasn’t the only Brit, but there were few of us about.
I decided to keep a slightly less intensive pacing strategy – thinking ahead to the group ride at 10am the following morning – and this turned out to pay dividends. Rather than blowing up trying to keep pace with a group above my ability, I was more competitive and better able to be tactical racing against riders who were seemingly somewhat more equal to me. Not only was this more enjoyable, but I found myself wanting to push harder rather than having to push harder just to keep up.
Happy with my racing result from Saturday night, I decided to give myself something of a “free pass” for Sunday. Simply getting up, out of bed, and on to the bike in time for the 10am start was a win in itself. I have to say, waking up, feeling my legs, I wasn’t overly eager to get back on the bike so soon. But I did.
With no warm up, I jumped into the second group ride of the Tour of Zwift 2020 with the aims of simply riding it through and finishing atop the hill of Innsbruck’s Forward KOM. I had in mind averaging between 160-180w or there abouts for the duration.
Once I’d warmed up my legs, I found that I naturally fell into a rhythm at a higher intensity. Considering the way my legs had felt like they felt(!) I was surprised that I was able to slot back into a harder pace quite so quickly. I do put some of this down to oiling my bike chain recently (for the first time… ever) and the resistance has significantly reduced, thus giving me an immediate power boost.
Settling in and finding a decent group meant the ride went by fairly smoothly, and the hill – at *just* 400m or so – is much easier to manage, both mentally and physically, having spent many a previous Sunday climbing harder, higher mountains.
As above, I have no delusions of grandeur. I’m happy with wherever I finish, by and large. I enjoy the final race for the line, and convincing myself of my tactical prowess in timing (or… mistiming) my sprint to the finish line. But ultimately it’s about the solid workout that these rides provide.
With over a third of the month remaining (11 days) I am, give or take, about 2000 calories away from beating the January 10,000 calorie challenge. That’s been a big motivator for me this month, so hitting that as a goal before the month’s end is going to be a great start to the year.
There’s still plenty of riding left in the Tour de Zwift at this point, and I can only imagine how thrashed I’m going to feel by the end of it. But I’m definitely enjoying it so far.
Here’s to another intense week!