Weekly Review September 26th – October 2nd 2022

by

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 saw the end of my outdoor riding for the foreseeable future.

Partly that was inevitable as the clocks go back shortly, and the weather out is ever colder, and the roads filthy with muck and water.

I’ve been thinking about getting serious about the turbo again for a while now.

But an equally big part, and the final nail in the coffin (perhaps a bad turn of phrase) was the road rage directed at me on Thursday, whereby some angry trucker put my life in danger. That was enough to convince me the sensible thing to do is get back on Zwift.

Pronto.

Here are this week’s rides:

I’ve built up a good habit lately of doing hard efforts twice weekly.

That didn’t quite pan out this week with both being cut short for various reasons.

I want to bring that indoors though. So the plan is to keep those high intensity weekday sessions up, probably doing actual FTP tests rather than just winging it, as per outdoors.

Let’s see how that plays out.

But for the immediate future / week ahead I am aiming to complete the Zwift Academy 2022. I have two possibilities here:

  1. I officially complete the course, managing to get through 5 remaining workouts and 2 mandatory group rides by next Sunday, or…
  2. I complete the course on my own time, which means I won’t earn the virtual badge or whatever.

As I never use the badges or whatever the unlock thing will be, killing myself to get all the stuff done within the time limit seems a bit nutty.

I will still have to complete the start / finish line rides this week, but it means I can do the workouts over the next planned riding days, rather than riding every day just to tick off a virtual box.

It seems obvious which way I’m leaning…

I’m not going to dwell on the outdoor side of things this week. It is what it is, and with some of the incidents over the last few months it feels like it was always getting worse.

However I know it’s early days at this point but I’m really enjoying being back on the turbo so far.

I’ve decided to order myself a desk for the bike:

This is a bit of an expensive purchase, considering it’s just a fancy table. But then welcome to cycling, eh? Is there anything about this sport that is cheap?

Actually though, this isn’t a bad deal. I didn’t pay shipping, and it’s basically a knock off of the Wahoo table but with a few better features and 1/3 the price.

What I want this for is to put my laptop or iPad on the table near me, whilst I have Zwift going on the PC in the background. I can then use the laptop for stuff. I guess what that stuff is depends on the intensity of the workout. At FTP Builder paces, I could feasibly keep working / typing, whereas at higher intensities I could use it for watching videos and stuff.

I’ve also figured out why my Google Pixel buds weren’t working properly with the PC. When I first got them I figured it was some fault of theirs. However, having used them plenty now, I knew it must be something PC related. Turns out I had my Bluetooth dongle right next to my WiFi adaptor, so I was picking up the constant Morse code noises that WiFi emits.

Anyway, two problems solved.

Now I just need to tidy up this room to fit that table in, whenever it arrives. The estimate is Friday 14th, but I’ve already had a dispatch notification.

I’m wondering if I can get my harder activities in using Zwift races?

The challenge with the scheduled stuff is it doesn’t always pan out with me being available or ready at the specified times. I think that’s why I quite like the idea of being able to do the freestyle workouts for this years Zwift Academy.

Still, that’s an idea. I really do want to get back into racing.

For the week ahead then it’s all about completing that Zwift Academy series. I think I’m OK with not meeting the unlock requirements, just so long as I actually do it myself, that’s good enough. I’ve missed having the structure.

With a more relaxed schedule around that – barring the two group rides – I can, hopefully, fit in a race somewhere. Should be an interesting week. I’m looking forward to it.

Leave a comment