Every 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 consisted of 5 days of riding. This is the fourth straight week where I’ve managed over 6.5 hours of riding. I put the increase down to being outdoors more frequently. I’ve really been enjoying the outdoor rides.
This week’s rides were as follows:
- Tuesday – Outdoor Sweet Spot Training (Outdoor)
- Wednesday – Indoor Sweet Spot Training (Indoor, Zwift)
- Thursday – 4wk FTP Booster Week 2 Day 1 – HIT 80% FTP #2 (Indoor)
- Saturday – Georgia Simmerling’s Pride Ride 2020 (D) (Indoor & Outdoor)
- Sunday – VLOG #8 – Mellor Climb (Outdoor)
This week was pretty much equal in terms of time spent on the bike indoor and outdoor.
My favourite two rides of the week were VLOG #8, and Georgia Simmerling’s Pride Ride 2020. Nice to have one of both indoor and outdoor on the week.
Stats-wise I don’t feel like I’m making any large leaps at the moment. Happy with the steady and gradual upwards trend. More time on the bike equates to more fitness, and that’s always a net win for me.
I’m slowly edging towards the 230w FTP figure. I’ve worked it out that I need to hold an average of 243w for 20 minutes to hit this target figure. That’s 3.4w/kg, which is definitely above my top end at the moment. But it’s not unachievable, I feel, with continued riding and practice.
Interestingly this week the second most intense ride was the outdoor SST session I put myself through.
I managed to find some really quiet country roads for this one. And I got lucky with the weather, too. It didn’t feel overly taxing at the time, but when I did the indoor SST session the following day – which felt hard enough – it’s blowing my mind that the Tuesday session was over twice as intense in terms of effort.
Not sure how that works, to be honest.
Getting out onto a proper hard climb was fun – in the unique “climbing” sense of the word. There was a moment about 2/3’s of the way up the hill that I honestly thought I was done for. Unlike climbing on Zwift, there is that real sense of “oh my God, I’m going too slow, I might fall off” which still freaks me out even after several hard outdoor climbs at this point.
Still, I really enjoyed that ride and am hoping to do the same route, but in reverse, either this weekend or some time soon. It’s all weather dependant.
Finding A Cycling Group
The last thing for me this week was that when I kept passing other groups of cyclists on Sunday’s ride, I really wanted to get involved. It just looked so much more fun than being solo.
I’m guessing the best place to find a group is on Facebook – which I do not have an account for.
I’ve tried joining a group on Strava which is fun to see how I compare over the week compared to other local riders, but it’s not “social”. I can’t see myself continuing to pay for Strava once my free trial is up.
I’m a bit lost on this one at the moment.
For the week ahead, aside from a bit of group hunting, I’m looking to do some more SST work, and maybe I’ll try a dinner time Crit race on Zwift. I’m still lacking interest in Zwift at the moment, though the Runpod and Treadmill are due to arrive this week, so maybe a little light running around the 400m track may reinvigorate my enthusiasm.
That said, I’ve never been much of a runner so it’s a bit of a gamble at this point.