What Knee Pain?

Well tonight’s ride was a strange one. Actually, today overall has been a bit of a strange one. Some work related stuff ended up consuming most of my day – but not the software development kind. Anyway, I don’t want to dwell on that.

After last nights ride I wanted to get a good hour on the bike and see how things played out.

I adjusted my saddle (yet again!), raising it by 1cm. This was to counter the problem I had yesterday where I kept having to push myself back several times.

Anyway, aside from getting the angle slightly wrong (it was ever so slightly facing left, brushing my thigh on each pedal stroke), I stopped about 10km in, adjusted, and was really happy with the new position.

For this ride I opted for a climb. Perhaps a bad idea given that I’m still not 100% sure about my overall position on the bike. But today it felt a lot better.

Considering I’ve had such bad knee pain for the last five days, today it felt more or less back to normal. Really happy about that.

I always forget what course / route I’ve selected about 5 minutes after I’ve set off. Tonight was no different. I thought I’d be hitting the KOM in both forward and reverse. Alas, no. Only forwards.

Zwift’s NYC starts you on a hill. A good way to get yourself in the mood for the sweat to come.

Again, perhaps a bad idea given my recent injury. I find it hard to resist when I cross over a sprint line. I was slow coming into the sprint, having perhaps gone a little too hard on the climb before the sprint start line. Even so, with fresh legs, I put in a new personal record. A good start to the ride.

After this, and with my eldest sat watching and cheering me on, I started the KOM ascent.

Zwift’s New York KOM is short and sharp. It’s only 1.4km in length, but has a 6.1% average gradient. Some parts hit 16% as best I recall. I can’t say I managed to get many screenshots as I was dripping, and grunting. God alone knows what my daughter thinks.

I didn’t go hell for leather on this attempt, but I gave it a good shot.

I couldn’t remember doing the NYC KOM before. I know I have done it twice according to my stats, but that was during a structured workout, which I don’t count.

Having had a quick search through the blog, I found my previous PR was 7 minutes 32 seconds. That was back on April 9th, so about 2 months after I’d got my bike. I’m happy with my progress based on that.

After the KOM I decided to settle in for some distance. I wasn’t overall concerned with my wattage output. I didn’t attempt to go for a specific figure. I just kept the pedals turning, going hard whenever I found a hill, and then easing off on the straights or descents.

At 40 minutes in I was a little disappointed to have not managed 20km. That said, I had done 320m of climb, so perhaps I was being a little hard on myself.

At first I told myself I’d ride to 45 minutes. Then when I got there, I figured heck, maybe 50 minutes.

At around 50 minutes I hit the start / finish line again and decided I’d do a circuit of the Central Park Loop. However, I ballsed up the route somehow – Zwift is not the best UX – and managed to end up doing a lap of the Baseball Fields instead. Meh.

So after that mistake, I got back to the start / finish line again just after the hour mark, and decided to call it a day.

The stats somewhat surprised me. I can’t remember putting out 206w over a twenty minute period. I know this is an average, but I can’t think what I did during any 20 minute period that was going that hard.

This is a bit odd to me as when I did do a proper 20 minute effort that felt soooo much harder than this ride. More on that in a moment.

Getting an hour on the bike, having no knee soreness after my ride, bruning 600+ calories, and getting 30km / 444m of climb in is great on any day of the week. Really happy with those stats.

I’m hoping to get a 50km ride in over the weekend. Ideally hitting the Epic KOM and Volcano climb in one ride. I can’t remember the name of this one, but have done it before.

So yeah, the stats in Zwift are weird. Here is says I was effectively at my strongest on this ride. It didn’t feel that way.

When I did my Time Trial ride on London I got a 190w average on Strava. I also got an FTP boost on that ride, 189w to 193w.

So… why the hell is Zwift not remembering my FTP had bumped to 193w?

I have screenshot proof dammit!

And how can a ride that goes 3w better on my FTP come out as a lower weighted average? I am a bit lost.

Right, so aside from Zwift being a bit flaky, the workout itself was a good one.

No idea what map is on rotation tomorrow. The main thing is not to go stupid and blow out my knee when riding after work. Also, over the weekend I need to re-adjust my body clock to riding early. Not sure how feasible this will be, got a ridiculously busy weekend ahead with family stuff.

We shall see.

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