Weekly Review October 26th – November 1st 2020

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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. 

This week was made up of five riding days, all of which were indoors as the weather has gone to ruin and the nights are on us before I clock off for the day. Sad times. Even Sunday had to be indoors as the roads outside had turned into tarmac bottomed rivers. And I must say, being stuck inside now – with this new lock-down and what not? It’s driving me absolutely stir crazy already, and it’s only just started.

This week’s rides were as follows:

The big result of this week was in smashing my previous one minute peak power target.

This was in large part thanks to the Zwift Academy series, with the ride specifically focused on targeting this power figure. It’s highly doubtful I would ever choose to set new figures like this, were it not for workouts explicitly targeting these figures.

That said, I’m finding I’m not getting that much out of the Zwift Academy series. In particular, I’ve found the elective content to be rather lacking. This has been a combination of bad times for the events, or underwhelming activities. I feel frustrated that I am spending an hour or so on the bike, barely breaking past a recovery pacing, when the ride is billed at as a C category ride.

I have mentioned it a few times this week already, but my idea is to get to all of the ZA2020 stuff done and dusted by the 12th November, as that would be my Zwift monthly renewal date. And then from there, cancel Zwift and switch to the The Sufferfest, and see how I get on with that for a change.

The ride I most enjoyed this week was the 3R PedalPlay EVOLVE Interval Ride [~2.9-3.2 w/kg avg] (C) ride.

This felt the most like a true workout all week – burning a ridiculous 800 calories in the hour – and gave me the most challenge.

I’d definitely do this workout again. It’s very much like a Zwift structured workout – covering laps of the Volcano Circuit, but with decreasing rest periods between each lap. Very cool. Well, very hot and sweaty, but an excellent workout.

I think, in part, some of this challenge was due to me pairing the Tacx Neo with my laptop, rather than my Assioma Duo pedals – resulting in me having to work over threshold, not just during this workout, but through all the others of the week, too. Whoops.

On the plus side, having to work this much harder has definitely pushed me to improve.

On the down side, I’ve had several full gas intervals where I’ve wanted to puke – or worse – after the effort, and not actually had the full reward, or have had to work even harder than I might have otherwise had too. Like I say, good to push myself, but phew, I’m glad I’ve now spotted and addressed this issue.

I wonder if this will have any impact on the Garmin stats, as below.

The Garmin training status widget has moved me back to Detraining.

Boo.

Hopefully with the revised sensor setup, this might take an uptick over the forthcoming week. I’m still below my training load, and I suspect that’s still as a result of some intense weeks whilst I wasn’t in full time employment completely skewing my stats. But I don’t know that for sure, nor am I really that bothered about it.

I’m genuinely curious how switching to a more “professional” cycling training setup like The Sufferfest will benefit me. Whilst I have enjoyed Zwift over the past year and half, I have also enjoyed taking breaks from it – both through RGT Cycling, and the brilliant, but terribly named Tacx Software.

I am also somewhat jaded with Zwift. It frustrates me that they really don’t seem to listen to their customers. Their UI is garbage – we all know that. But the pace partners stuff? That was a mess the first time I tried it. They acknowledge it’s a beta program – via their Zwift Futureworks setup – but why then, would they use it as the primary production system for the Halloween experience?

That left me disappointed.

Frankly, the only way I seem to be able to make my point is to stop handing them my money. And that is a large part in why I’m switching. I don’t doubt it will make not a jot of difference.

Anyway, as above, my only target for this week is to get through as many Zwift Academy sessions as possible in order to meet the completion requirements. I’m really only doing that to complete the full series on this blog. I’m not going to do most of them as group rides, for better or worse. And then that leaves me to finish off the electives. I’d like to get a race in, but I’m not racing up the Mont Ventoux route. I can’t spin that as a fun idea whichever way I look at it.

Feels like a bit of a Debbie Downer week, really, from this review.

But I actually feel decent. Shame my legs don’t agree.

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