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.
Unintentionally a shorter week this time around with only four rides.
I messed up on Thursday and missed out on the ride I wanted to do due to Zwift’s recent 1.31 patch update with additional ridable routes and roads. I’ll get to them in due time when the Tour of Makuri Islands rolls around that way (Stages 5 & 6).
Beyond that, by the end of the ride on Saturday I was really wiped out. So that’s why I skipped Sunday.
Here are this week’s rides:
- Tuesday – GCN Approved Zone 2 (Indoors / Zwift)
- Wednesday – Tour of Makuri Islands: Stage 2 – Chain Chomper Race (B) (Indoors / Zwift)
- Thursday – Suki’s Fail Ground (Indoors / Zwift)
- Saturday – Tour of Makuri Islands: Stage 3 – Temples and Towers (Indoors / Zwift)
Overall, pretty pleased with the rides this week.
Stage 2 of the ToMI (it’s too much to keep writing) was one of two highlights for me this week.
Getting back into racing has been a lot of fun. One nice thing about races is that there’s a lot that happens over the course of the 20+ minutes on the bike. It’s all high intensity, but includes an element of tactics and awareness that genuinely does feel like I’m playing an online competitive multiplayer game.
And an upshot of that is that the time goes much faster. Oh, and I end up with (in my opinion, at least) far more interesting blog posts as a result.
So yeah, very much enjoying the racing.
What I will say is that I’m enjoying them more than I am doing in them positions wise.
As these races fall under Zwift’s new Category Enforcement rules, I am forced to ride in B category. Personally I think this is a bit of a nonsense as I cannot – and do not – challenge for the front of any B cat race.
What that means is that I am in the second (or lower) tiers of the B cat races. I guess someone has to drag up the rear.
This means my races are never going to be about the top 10. Well, unless there’s less than 10 riders total.
As such the races become about the fight for 25th or whatever. It’s still very much a race, but I do wonder how much more (collectively) we might push ourselves if 1st through 3rd place was on the line.
Anyway, it’s eye opening really as to how far I’ve come (see the two graphs above) versus how much further there is still to go. I’m doubtful I’m ever going to massively improve from this point on. But I suspect the marginal gains will continue to show if I maintain my current work rate and consistency.
On Saturday, the other ToMI adventure, I kinda got a wake up call.
With three KOMs to hit I did try to stick with the guys I assumed would be B category front runners. But with two races in the legs along with several other fairly high intensity rides I ended up blowing up.
My times were way down on my PBs, and mentally I was shot.
After the ride on Saturday even physically I felt spent. I decided to take Sunday for recovery for that reason. Same as for today. Two back to back recovery days may, hopefully, set me up for a stronger race in Stage 3 midweek.
Lastly this week I’m going to drop my Zwift weight back down to 67kg from 68kg. The stats above have been in the 67kg range now (0.5 above or below) for long enough for me to consider that a fair move.
Will that have any bearings on my race performance?
Heh. I doubt it.
But we shall see.