Weekly Review January 23rd – 29th 2023

by

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. 

Generally an OK week. Only 4 rides, but I managed to get both of the longer rides done for the Tour de Zwift which I am pleased about. Particularly the Stage 6 ride felt closer to full power since hurting my knee.

Besides that, I got a workout done on MyWhoosh. It’s always nice to try out new cycling software and MyWhoosh is probably the most polished Zwift alternative I’ve experience yet.

Here are this week’s rides:

Recovery has progressed slightly quicker than expected. I’m a little concerned I’ve put extra pressure on my right knee whilst trying to give my left leg an easier ride, but overall I’m fairly confident things are going to be “back to normal” by this time next week.

The recovery plan was really pretty straightforward: ramp back up.

I’ve taken the standard progression found in many Zwift workouts, building from endurance back up to low tempo, then high tempo, then into low threshold.

Each workout or ride has been at a specific intensity, and only if that workout / ride felt comfortable have I progressed on to adding more power in the following ride. On Saturday’s Stage 6 ride I was finally back up to something that felt like a typical effort for a ride of that duration / climbing requirement.

The one thing that’s not quite there yet is the niggling feeling in the left knee on seated hard efforts at low cadence. Think: the Radio Tower climb.

During the climb of the Radio Tower I got out of the saddle for a far longer time than I typically would. Heck, I don’t do much out of the saddle stuff anyway. But this time around I dropped a few gears and ground it out. And it worked. The knee feels fine when standing, not sure why.

The problem came after.

Perhaps because my body just isn’t used to standing efforts, I got such a horrible cramp on the descent that I had to stop, get off, and stretch it out. Fortunately it went as quickly as it came.

Aside from that, though, things have been generally good. So much so that I’m very much hoping to be back doing Zwift Races come the tail end of the week ahead. Thursday, or Saturday. See how it goes.

The other thing I did this week that was different was to do a structured workout on MyWhoosh.

It’s a really cool platform with a ton of workouts to try, and it is visually more attractive than Zwift. I’ve still not yet got enough experience with the platform to do a full fledged review, but so far I’ve been impressed, if not wowed.

It’s free to play, so I’d recommend you checking it out if you’re after a little variety for the typical loops you might be doing routinely in Watopia.

For the week ahead, I think we get access to the Scotland map on Zwift in Stage 8. But before that, Stage 7 looks to be Chasing The Sun over on Makuri Islands. That’s a significantly easier ride than many we have done during this years Tour de Zwift, so I will aim to get that done probably tomorrow.

That leaves Wednesday and Thursday to try out other things. I’ll aim to do something on MyWhoosh one of those days, and as above, maybe do a race on Thursday. Have to see how I feel.

2 thoughts on “Weekly Review January 23rd – 29th 2023”

  1. Hi Chris,

    It’s great news that your knee is on the mend!

    I’ve really enjoyed reading your blog. I started zwifting last January and kind of lost my way over the last few months. Since finding your site, I’ve been up the Alpe for the first time, have tried an SST workout and made a foray into racing with the Flat is Fast series. My FTP has gone up (oh yeah!) and I’ve got new ideas to try over the next few months.

    Thanks for the inspiration!!

    Cheers,
    Kate

    Reply

    • Thanks Kate 🙂

      Nice work on your progress. The Alpe is nuts – such an achievement when you get to the top, especially the first time. I felt like Zwift should have mailed me a medal in the post.

      I reckon the SST session is the best workout in Zwift. It’s hard enough to really make you work, but it’s the one thing that has given me my best overall results.

      Racing though – that’s where Zwift shines for me. I really enjoyed the Flat is Fast races, they seemed to be the ones that gave me the best chance of giving a good performance. The hilly races in December were way harder. I saw yesterday actually, apparently the best strategy is to go 50 / 100% trainer difficulty on your workouts / most rides, but set your difficulty down to 0% for races. It makes sense to me now when I see people able to be so much smoother, regardless of the road going up or down. So I’m going to try that in my next race.

      I think the thing with Zwift (or any exericse really) is that it can sometimes be a real chore to get dressed and on the bike. But once you’re on, it’s almost always the case that you come off feeling really glad you did it.

      Thanks for your comment and glad to hear you found something of value in my ramblings 🙂

      Reply

Leave a comment