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 fairly regular week. I can’t think of anything that stands out against the usual repertoire of rides. About the only ‘unusual’ thing this week was missing Thursday and instead riding Friday through Sunday. I felt a bit more tired than usual on Sunday… maybe it was that?
Who knows.
Here are this week’s rides:
- Tuesday – Zwift Crit Club Race: Stage 2 – Downtown Dolphin (B)
- Wednesday – Zwift Spring Training: Workout #4 Over, Under and Beyond
- Friday – Maybe It’s A Sign?
- Saturday – Lord of the Flies
- Sunday – What? No Bank Holiday Monday?
As usual I started the week off with the latest race in Zwift’s May racing series. For May we are taking on Crit races, and this time around we took on Downtown Dolphin, which is the reverse lap of Crit City.
As far as a workout goes, that one was a blast.
But from a race perspective it all went wrong. I blame power ups. Specifically getting crappy Ghost power ups, rather than useful draft vans, or even more useful feathers.
Of course I still wouldn’t have won if I had got a better power up on the last lap, but I reckon I wouldn’t have been quite so far behind with either of the better ones.
I said that I might try and repeat that race later in the week. And I might, had the weather not been so nice over the weekend. As it was, it was tough to resist the sun and quiet(er) weekend roads versus staying in the heat of the office, Zwifting.
Wednesday’s ride was also on the turbo. Pretty standard stuff. A structured workout in the form of Zwift’s Spring Training series.
That was a fairly challenging workout, definitely feeling like a good use of the available time.
I’m not sure what the next workout is in that series, but I’m glad I’m not doing it today 🙂
The aim of the Spring Training Series is to get you fitter / faster for the Summer outdoors. I have to say though, I don’t feel I am getting faster. Nor really that much fitter.
This is an interesting point for me as at the end of last year I decided to switch to Quarterly Reviews, rather than just an Yearly Review.
The idea here is to have 3 months of exercise / riding / hopefully improving, and then do an FTP test to validate the performance. I’m now six weeks on from the Quarter 1 2023 review and I don’t think I’ve improved. I actually think I’ve declined.
In order to hit my target I need to be able to average 251w for 20 minutes, to give me an FTP of 3.75 w/kg or better. Right now, I don’t think I’m going to hit that. Somehow or other I need to find a massive uptick in performance over the next six weeks, and I’m not sure where that is going to come from.
Simply put: I feel tired right now.
On the plus side, the weight is at a good level.
Mostly this is because I pretty much cut out all alcohol. One pint once a week, or less. It depends if I go out for a meal. Beyond that, I don’t drink. And I really think that is the difference for me between low to mid 66kg and mid to high 67kg.
Right then.
For the week ahead, there’s no major changes. Race tomorrow, training Wednesday, endurance or tempo ride Thursday.
Weekend will be entirely weather dependant. No big plans.
Back to work!