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 consisted of 5 days riding, with all five rides being outdoors thanks to a stint of end of Summer sunshine.
Of the five rides, two were more structured workouts (Tuesday, and Wednesday), with the remaining three being more of a freeride.
This week’s rides were as follows:
- Tuesday – One Mintervals (Outdoors)
- Wednesday – Wednesday is Just Tuesday in Reverse (Outdoors)
- Thursday – Makes Watts Whilst The Sun Shines (Outdoors)
- Saturday – One To Forget (Outdoors)
- Sunday – Scores On The Doors (Outdoors)
The big thing this week was in getting five outdoor riding days. The ten day forecast predicted sun, sun, sun, and mother nature didn’t disappoint. It wasn’t the hottest of weather, but it also wasn’t raining. And that’s not to be scoffed at, given its September, in the UK.
The most productive rides of the week seemed to be the two more structured rides on Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m semi tempted to repeat them again this week, if the weather holds. Its not supposed too, so I’m not holding my breath.
And with that in mind I’m thinking if I can’t get out then the best thing I can do this week is some kind of structured FTP test in prep for the Zwift Academy. This might be a true FTP test, or a ramp, or just a hard 20 minute climb. The idea of any of these hardly fills me with a deep sense of joy, but given that the ramp isn’t something I’ve done before, I am most inclined to do that just for the novelty factor.
One good thing that I am pleased with over the last few weeks has been my anaerobic performance increases. This feels like quick wins as I have previously not done a huge amount of this kind of work. Nice to see the new highs on the longer term graphs.
I’d definitely like to get back in to some kind of structured routine with regards to the indoor trainer. The Zwift Academy should help with this. But in some ways I do miss the regular SST sessions I used to do. I’ve tried emulating them outdoors but with limited success. One good thing from this week was in finding the circuit from Tuesday and Wednesday night. That is largely uninterrupted and mostly a decent surface for the whole ride. There is one incredibly sketchy section that’s on both the forward and reverse routes. Flipping moon tier surface. None of that carry on when using Zwift, at least.
Also this week, some new bug fixes and features came out for GTA 5 Bike, so I’m kinda intrigued to get back on there and do some workouts using the Garmin whilst riding around San Andreas. At least I think that’s the map name. I’m no longer down with the kids.
One things for sure, I felt more tired today than I did last Sunday. Last Sunday I tried to climb Jeffrey Hill via the steep route. I failed. I couldn’t have even tried today. I thought maybe this was due to having ridden 5 days in a row. Well, this week I took a rest day on Friday, and I still wasn’t in a place to do a solid climb by the end of the week. I think if I want to attempt that again (which I do) then I need to go in a bit fresher.
Right now I’m happy with my riding workload. Five rides a week feels solid. It doesn’t give much room for resting though, and I think I need to be more mindful of what type of rides I’m doing. Typically when I was doing only indoor rides, I would definitely have at least one very easy ride each week. I don’t do that when outdoors. It’s much harder to take it easy outdoors, in my opinion.
Again another week has passed by and I haven’t felt like I’ve done anything really worth writing home about. Regular riding is definitely good. Even if I only broke 30km on one ride this week, I don’t feel like I went overly easy on myself. At least, not within the confines of my time and availability. Comparatively I did more work (in terms of calories burned) this week than in any of the previous four.
Looking ahead I’d be happy with another similar week. Anything around 5x 30km a week is ideal for me. With the weather not looking great, I may find it easier to do more kilometres due to it simply being easier to ride further on Zwift. As it is, I’m kinda exhausted so the thought of setting goals right now isn’t appealing to me. Probably not the right time of the week to be doing a review in that case!