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.
A fairly intensive week, if only with four rides.
Mid-week was fairly standard, with a race, a fast-ish blast on the Shorter version of Stage 3 of the Tour of Watopia.
And then Saturday… well, that was something else. Something to make up for skipping Sunday.
Here are this week’s rides:
- Tuesday – Zwift Race London: Stage 3 – London Classique Reverse (B)
- Wednesday – Tour of Watopia 2023 | Stage 3 | Short
- Thursday – One Of Your Five A Day
- Saturday – Tour of Watopia 2023 | Stage 3 | Longer
All Zwift then this week.
I started the week with probably my best ever race performance. This is down to the fact that everyone was saving themselves for the bunch sprint at the end, rather than me somehow pulling an unexpectedly strong performance out of the bag. Even so, I was pleased with how that one played out.
Wednesday’s ride was a high-ish tempo ride, throwing in a climb of the Volcano for fun.
I wouldn’t normally do climbing rides unless specifically dictated by an event, but I see the value in them and don’t mind them being thrown in to the mix. It does feel like I’ve been up that Volcano several times recently though, not sure why. Lots of climbing lately.
In between the faster and harder rides of Wednesday and Saturday I decided I could take a much easier ride on Thursday. Just 26 minutes at endurance. The warm up and cool down were more intensive than the main set. Good times.
I am aware I haven’t been doing anything like enough of the easier / endurance stuff lately. Not sure when that will change. My schedule is pretty packed for a couple more weeks yet.
Saturday was, for sure, the big one.
Taking on Quatch Quest route in Stage 3 Longer Ride, featuring Titan’s Grove Reverse KOM, then Epic KOM, and then Alpe du Zwift, all in one ride.
Savage.
I learned some lessons about pacing on this one. But more so I learned the hard way that I hadn’t given enough respect to the prep.
Hydration. That is almost certainly where I went wrong.
Pre-ride, I had my regular morning cup of filter coffee. And I was sipping my water during the ride.
But 3/4 of the way through the final climb I was struck by the worse cramp I’ve ever experienced. Agony. So bad it still feels sore right now.
In doing some post-ride research I learned I should have hydrated far more, and maybe put an electrolytes replacement sachet in my drink for the ride itself. You live and learn.
Anyway, glad to have that one ticked off, and surely the remaining stages can’t be anything like as hard. Can they?
Sunday was actually probably nice enough to go out on the bike. However, with Saturday’s climb still very much in the legs I decided I deserved a back-to-back rest day extravaganza.
Even if my feet were fully recovered, I still can’t think I would have gone for a walk. I was that tired, especially with the clock change. I feel like I was cheated out of a good half of my weekend.
Still, we do have the 4 day Bank Holiday coming soon. The first half of the year is always fully loaded with Bank Holidays, and the clocks change does mean the nights will now be lighter. Ideal for after work cycling. We just need the heat.
So for the week ahead it’s roughly the same as the last few.
Racing tomorrow.
Stage 4 Shorter ride on Wednesday.
Take it easy, maybe go out for a ride on Thursday.
And then Saturday will be Stage 4 Longer ride.
Other Stuff
There’s a couple of bike bits to share this week.
Firstly I came across this post:
Buying a bicycle using Playwright
Playwright is a software testing tool I absolutely love. It’s really good for scraping web pages – a kind of side effect of its intended purpose. I’ve never used it in this way, but it’s cool to see tech and bikes coming together.
This next one is old, but I only saw it yesterday – in this format, anyway:
So you almost certainly know about Cameron Jeffers “cheating” scandal in Zwift.
My take on this is that the whole thing is an absolute joke, and what he did was not cheating … at all. But it’s so funny to see the reactions from regular / non-cycling gamers around how niche Zwift is. We live in a bubble.
Anyway, that’s me for the week. Hopefully you had a good one, and are looking forwards to the week ahead.
Thanks for reading.