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:
- Sunday – Donald Glover (Outdoor)
- Saturday – Hail Stops Play (Outdoor)
- Thursday – Tour De Zwift 2021 – Stage 4: Shorter Ride(Indoor / Zwift)
- Wednesday – Watts Your Own Wednesday(Indoor / Zwift)
- Tuesday – Tour De Zwift 2021 – Stage 4: Longer Ride (Indoor / Zwift)
The week went according to plan for once. I try to ride Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Happy for those to be indoors.
Then if at all possible, Saturday (at a push) and Sunday should be outdoor rides. And somehow I managed to get outside twice this week. Not bad for a cold January here in the UK.
The Tour de Zwift rides continue to provide excellent workouts, forcing my to ride harder and more consistently than I would do if left to my own devices. I credit these with a slight uptick in form over the past couple of weeks.
Also, having done the Alpe du Zwift last week, I feel like the hardest of the TdZ has to now be behind us, so I’m not overly concerned about any of the rides ahead,
The problem, such that it is, this week is my continued woes with my heart rate monitor. I’m now on the latest Wahoo Tickr 2 after upgrading from the original Tickr late last year. Things went fine for a few weeks, but now, with fairly little use, it’s started playing up.
It’s possible this is battery related. As best I recall, the original Tickr came with a battery that lasted a decent amount of time. Maybe this battery has been sat in the unit for months in some vast Amazon distribution centre, and it’s simply in need of replacement already. It’s something worth trying.
I’ve washed my Tickr strap a few times. Last time I used to chuck the strap in the washing machine. That clearly knackered it right up. This time I’ve just been using soap and water, and hand washing only. So if that’s broken the connectors then that’s a really poor do.
Why this is such a problem is it really skews up my training programs. They take the heart rate measurements into a big part of their calculations, so it would seem, and suddenly dropping from ~185bpm in effort to ~120bpm is throwing things totally out of whack. Mostly, this causes the rides to be seen as recovery when they are anything but.
It’s not the end of the world though, I mean, I know what I’m doing even if the computer gets it wrong. Story of my life. But I’m not training for anything in particular and this data is just for my own personal interest, so so long as that’s understood, there’s nothing major to worry about.
Or maybe, my heart rate has suddenly improved by ~65bpm. This makes me question whether I even want to live to be 150 years old. Given the current outlook here in the UK, I’m going to say… no.
Getting outside this week has raised a bunch of concerns with my winter kit.
Firstly, it’s freaking cold out there. Saturday was 2c, and Sunday was 1c.
Saturday was particularly bad on my hands. I wore a pair of neoprene gloves after having seen them advertised on GCN. My fingers were red raw when I got home.
On Sunday, on the advice of a friend and fellow cyclist, I decided to try wearing the neoprene gloves under my old snowboarding gloves.
This kinda solved the problem. My finger tips were still cold, but they weren’t sore to the point of numbness midride.
What I did find however, was it was significantly harder to control the bike – braking for the most part – whilst gloved up. You win some, you lose some.
Also, I guess I could really do with proper winter tyres and more than ever, some lights. Not to mention some overshoes for my poor cold feet, and maybe some leg warmers. All of a sudden, a sweaty Zwift session doesn’t sound so bad!
For the week ahead I’m looking at getting at least two of the TdZ stage 5 rides done. The only one I am aware of is the Volcano After Party ride.
Looking at the stats this is in many ways similar to the Box Hill effort. Not sure I’m going to go all in on this one. We shall see. It’s nice to be doing these harder rides and seeing a 6, 7, or 800 calorie burn after the session. Makes pigging out much more of a guilt free experience.
Ideally I’ll get out again at least one day next weekend. The snow has fallen yet again here. There’d be no way of having another outdoor ride this evening. But then, the sun sets before I’ve finished work so there’s no chance of that anyway.