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.
Another decent week overall with a good mixture of riding types, distances, and durations.
It’s still a bit unusual to me that I’ve managed quite so many outdoor kilometres already this year. I keep hearing the weather is about to turn and the snow / ice are on their way, but if anything all we get is a teasing and then it’s back to 8c or above.
Beyond that, the indoor stuff has either been about recovering or doing Tour de Zwift 2022 rides.
All enjoyable, and great for the fitness.
Here are this week’s rides:
- Tuesday – The Calm After The Storm (Indoor / Zwift)
- Wednesday – Tour de Zwift 2022 Stage 3: Long Ride (Indoor / Zwift)
- Thursday – The Thinnest Of Thin Ice (Outdoors)
- Saturday – 3 Shy (Outdoors)
- Sunday – Tour de Zwift 2022 Stage 4: Long Ride (Indoor / Zwift)
With the Alpe du Zwift stage of the Tour de Zwift already having passed, the rest of this series isn’t giving me any kind of anxiety. What is has done though is give me the desire to get back on more hills, and sooner.
That was a large part of what got me back up Jeffrey Hill on Saturday, which I would say was my favourite ride of the week for many reasons. To be honest, just getting outdoors in the fresh air is ‘good enough’, but throw in some nice scenery, a challenging climb and no minimal time pressures and it really makes for a memorable ride.
Also it feels like my fitness is moving in the right direction over the past two weeks. I’ve had what felt like a bit of a down trend over 2021, but so far 2022 has felt like it has started strong.
With the indoor rides, on Wednesday I really pushed myself in what was my first proper pack ride of the Tour de Zwift 2022.
In Stage 1 I missed the start, so was effectively in TT mode throughout. Then on Stage 2… well, it’s a brutal climb, so from my point of view, pack dynamics are nowhere near as important.
Stage 3 was therefore the first time I’d managed a decent start and found a bunch of riders who kept me pushing for the full activity. I came off that one absolutely dripping, but having felt like I’d earned my Mars bar that’s for sure. In fact I’d say all of the TdZ rides so far have been high intensity efforts. Not that they need to be, it’s just how I’m ‘playing’ it.
What I definitely need to do now is have a bit of recovery. There’s always my Monday and Friday rest days – I try to keep to that as a schedule. But more importantly is tomorrow / Tuesday’s ride where I need a proper structured recovery session. Even though as I sit typing this the weather outside is more than ridable, I am having to force myself to stay indoors, stay in my regular human clothes (not my cycling gear), and stay off the bike. My legs wouldn’t thank me for an outdoor recovery effort, which never works.
So that’s what tomorrow will have to be.
Aside from that, nothing major on this week. Plans for the week ahead are roughly the same – no doubt two stages of the TdZ and ideally some kind of harder climb. If the weekend weather doesn’t suit, I will look to do Innsbruck on Zwift as my alternative.
Lastly for this week, I finally took the time to set up a profile on my wife’s fancy weighing scales.
I’m not exactly in a set routine on when I take my weight measurements – just trying to remember to do it once a day. See if you can spot the weigh ins after the AdZ ride, and then the one on Saturday… losing 2.5lb in a ride. Is that normal?!
Be interesting to see how that develops. I’ve been trying to get down to 66.4kg so I can round down on Zwift and bag that extra weight based performance boost for my next climb. Tragic, I know. I actually think my more natural weight range is 67-69kg. But all this riding…