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 bit of a back to front week this one, but mostly ticking all the boxes. It’s been a while since I’ve done an endurance focused ride, and this weeks was only due to a bit of recovery.
Aside from that, I managed to tick off another Zwift Academy 2023 workout, and close out the Neokyo Nights racing series. I’ve left quite a lot to do in December, so we’re kicking off something of a busy month.
Here are this week’s rides:
- Tuesday – Fore!
- Thursday – Zwift Academy 2023 – Workout #4: Long | Fast Twitch HIIT
- Saturday – Neokyo Nights: Stage 4 – Sprinter’s Playground (B)
I’m not entirely sure what’s happened to the Garmin dashboard.
It occurs to me now that the Garmin headunit stopped syncing with Strava after I smashed / replaced my phone. From then on, I’ve had to remember to manually import my rides in the Garmin Connect, as they no longer automatically upload at the end of each ride.
That has led to this odd situation where my rides are loaded in to Garmin Connect, but their Training Status dashboard / graph doesn’t show them for … reasons.
It would be interesting to see where Garmin puts me right now. I know my cycling has dipped in terms of kilometres ridden per week. But that’s only because I’ve replaced Wednesday’s easy ride with an outdoor walk. I need the fresh air and whatever passes for sunshine right now. Fitness wise, the two sessions are about the same, at least in terms of calories burned.
I’m not doing anything different with regards to my weight, and it appears to be holding steady around 67kg.
No plans to change this, but I might experience some ‘upward momentum’ during this month 🙂
No concerns here.
It’s been a big point of discussion for me for the last six months, but I do think I have been doing better in terms of power output in this last month or so, thanks mainly to the Zwift Academy, and the Tour of Watopia.
The plan is to get the Zwift Academy boxed off, and then do an FTP Test before Christmas. It’s going to be interesting to see if all these longer and harder rides have made any difference since my previous test.
Right now both Zwift and the Garmin headunit have me pinned at 237w.
I’d be really happy to see a figure of 240w or greater. That means my target for the test is currently a 20 minute average of 252w or higher. That’s going to suck, but at least it’s not 260w or higher… yet.
As I say then, a busy few weeks ahead.
This week the plan is to race both whatever Zwift’s December racing series entails, and then do the Zwift Academy 2023 race #1.
That’s Tuesday and Thursday sorted.
However I am away with work on Wednesday. It’s a long day doing that, typically around 12 hours including travel. How much that will impact Thursday’s race is to be seen. The decision is whether to do ZA race tomorrow, or leave that til Thursday. Either way I will get pummelled, I’m sure.
That leaves Workout #5 for Saturday. Not sure how long that one is.
Or I could flip it and do the Workout tomorrow. I really don’t know. I just remembered I’m off tomorrow, you see.
Anyway, whatever I do, I have to basically repeat this next week in order to get finished for the 17th December. So it’s a busy one, because the following week needs to be FTP week. Lovely.