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.
The highlights this week are having found a new workout routine in The Norseman series, and that I managed to get in two outdoor rides, which for November here in the UK is a mega bonus. Perhaps I should have put on a lottery ticket.
This week’s rides were as follows:
- Tuesday – Norseman Workout #1: Dyranut (Indoor / Zwift)
- Wednesday – Slow Boat (Indoor / Zwift)
- Friday – Eeee Fish n Chips (Indoor / Zwift)
- Saturday – Just A Bike Ride (Outdoor)
- Sunday – A Prime Day For Cycling (Outdoor)
Overall this was a comparatively great week on the bike. Hours, distance, calories, all on the up and up. Nice.
The Garmin take on my week is that it has been unproductive. This, as far as I can tell, is due to a lack of high aerobic / sprint based workouts. I’m going to look at what the outcome of the next Norseman workout will be from Garmin’s perspective, and then adjust accordingly. Perhaps a Zwift race would be a good solution to this problem? I keep saying I’ll do a race and I never do… what a wimp.
However the Garmin saw it, I’m happy with how this one went. Three structured workouts, and then two decent hour plus rides outdoors. Sunday’s ride in particular was an enjoyable one. I just wish I’d had my camera with me to take some photos.
The Norseman workouts look to be suitable for my needs. Each one is between an hour, and an hour fifteen, quite intensive, and there are only seven of them so it should take me up to around Christmas time, where no doubt Zwift will have something up their sleeve to keep users on the bike in the new year… Tour of Watopia 2022, perhaps?
One downer this week was my SST session saw a comparatively higher average and max heart rate than I’ve seen in any of my recent workouts. Not sure what that means, but it’s not a good thing.
The other sucky thing this week was in wearing my old shoes for outdoor riding and noticing just how badly setup they were. So much pain on my right knee from them. But I still haven’t quite nailed down my right side cleat on my new shoes either.
This makes me wonder if I’m missing a tool somewhere which makes transferring to new cycling shoes a piece of cake? And if that tool doesn’t exist, well… maybe that’s how I’ll make my millions.
Anyway not going to take too much away from this week. All good, aside from the Garmin moaning at me – as it has been for a good long while now.
With the structured workouts to do, the potential of a race in there (basically an FTP test, let’s not kid ourselves), and hopefully at least one more outdoor ride in the week ahead, if I can get another one like the one that’s just gone, I’ll be more than happy.
How has your week been?