An interesting one today, tackling Zwift’s Workout Of The Week, this week the Grin and Bear It 40 minute ride, coming in at a TSS of 47 points, this probably looked worse as a graph than it was as a ride.
That’s not to say this one was particularly easy, but because of the structure of it, it seemed to go really quickly.
Eagle eyed viewers may spot that things don’t quite line up, screenshot wise today.
Unfortunately I had another full computer freeze up during this one. Nothing catastrophic in terms of loss of the ride itself – it happened at the end of the first 5 minute warm up block.
Interestingly this lock up happened when I took a screenshot from the iPad. That’s exactly what caused the last lock up. Very odd, but clearly something about that process is causing the problem. Otherwise it’s a ridiculously unlikely coincidence.
Bugs? In Zwift? No one will believe me, I’m sure.
One thing that stuck with me throughout this ride today was wondering whether I’ve done it before?
The answer: no.
But it certainly feels very similar to The Wringer. Interestingly, and not something I was aware of until just now, the last time I did The Wringer was around Halloween two years ago. There must be something to the horror night vibe.
What’s hard about this workout is it starts out deceptively easy.
30 seconds at 105% FTP, 95rpm…
It’s over before you know where you are, and it’s hard not to go into the second repeat at a higher cadence and kinda over power it.
Patience is the key, because by the fifth repeat I was starting to struggle to find my rhythm quite so quickly.
What I found was I was best focusing solely on cadence – striving for that 95rpm, and the rest took care of itself. Indeed, that was the only thought I had by the start of the second block. No rest for the wicked, just 10 hard, 10 slightly harder, and then 5 minutes of fun at the end.
By the final five minutes I was blowing, but I wasn’t in Pop Eye mode. You might have been there yourself on Zwift – making those cartoonish noises, grunts, generally mumbling to yourself… anything to numb the pain.
By contrast, this was a good solid burn, but not overwhelming. I wouldn’t have liked to have done 10 minutes though 🙂
With the Zwift Academy 2021 done, it being wet and cold outside, and the nights now drawing in, it looks like it’s Turbo season.
I am looking for a new series of workouts to follow. This might be on Zwift or it might be on The Sufferfest (or whatever it’s now called). But I want some structure to my riding, otherwise I get in the weeds of trying to figure out what to do next, and then, usually, end up doing something too easy.
There look to be a bunch of Zwift series rides available over on Zwift Workouts, so I’m hoping to find one with ten plus workouts, ideally where each is under an hour. Finding more time than that is difficult.
Anyway, all good today. If by some miracle it’s nice and dry enough to ride outdoors tomorrow, I’d love a morning ride. Fingers crossed.
