Wow. That’s quite the workout title.
I picked this workout on Wednesday, but didn’t ride it until today.
Why?
Well, I tried – and largely failed – to ride Tacx Software’s video rides on Thursday, and last night after work I just couldn’t be bothered to do a workout.
So, here we are. Saturday, “ZF19 Spokes Personal Coaching Stage 4 – #36 TT Strength Reps Set 3” day.
One thing that I really liked about this session was the constant reminders to hydrate.
There were several – 10+ – including some during the 7 minute “on” blocks.
There were generally plenty of prompts during this ride. Again, something I really like. They keep my mind off the work, and give me stuff to screenshot for the blog 😉
Going into this ride I knew it was 7 minute blocks at 180w, but didn’t realise (until just before starting) that at the end of each 7 minute block I would be required to put down a 20 second seated sprint.
Also, each 7 minute effort was to be completed at 90rpm.
I like having the cadence target along with the typical wattage target.
That said, I found I was all over the shop in terms of cadence today.
For the first two blocks I was way over, constantly getting told to slow down.
Then in the last two blocks I was struggling to reach 90rpm, but more on that in a minute.
As is the usual case for me on workouts, I got a little cocky on this one.
With Thursday being effectively a rest day, and Friday being a definite rest day, I came into this ride feeling fresh.
This, I feel, was partly why I was so over-spinny to begin with.
The fun part came in with the 20 second sprint block at the end of each 7 minute effort.
This was to be done as a free ride, which means ERG goes off, and you can (in theory) max out your power output.
After the first block I was feeling decent and went as hard as I could on that sprint.
The aim for each sprint was to stay seated. I want to say I remained seated, but in reality I was kinda hovering over it.
After the first sprint I was definitely feeling it. It took me about 1.5 minutes to recover.
I was thinking at this point:
This is designed to be like a breakaway chase scenario, or a breakaway of your own. Thing is, if you do this in a real race – that is, put out a 20 second burst, then need a 1.5 minute rest – all the hard work is wasted.
I’ve found I’m better staying at a consistent pace. How about you?
One lap done, and I hit the Innsbruckring Route Complete achievement.
I have not actually checked out the latest list of achievements, and where I stand on completeing them all. I can’t even remember where I might find the list.
I picked out this ride because it looked similar to the Sweet Spot Training workouts, but different enough to vary things up a little.
It turned out not to be like the Sweet Spot Training rides really.
However, it did have a higher Training Stress Score than a typical SST ride. This one came in at 80TSS, whereas SST comes in around 66TSS.
This has to be because of the sprint efforts. Even so, I feel the SST workout offers me slightly more as it’s constantly “on” – the rest blocks are still at 175w or so.
Getting a 100w 5 minute breather feels like cheating by comparison.
After the second block I was feeling overly confident. Cocky, if you will.
After the second sprint (which I made a real mess of), I felt “ready to go” again after 3.5 mins of recovery.
Due to some real world time constraints on me, I considered presing Tab to skip the remaining 1.5 minutes and get right back into the 7 minutes “on” block.
As soon as I got into the third block, however, I was glad I’d stuck with the full recovery.
I really struggled to bring my cadence back up to 90rpm in the third block. My thighs felt tight. I was probably the most inconsistent (of a fairly inconsistent ride) of all the blocks.
At one point, an on-screen prompt said about consistent cadence being a really good way of being the most efficient way to ride. I wish I’d got a screenshot of this – but part of my cadence inconsistency is caused by me constantly having to sit up and screenshot, then get back on the bars.
The third block was the hardest of all. Although the work was no different, my legs were feeling tired.
I noticed that I had a fairly decent control of my breathing.
This was helping bring my heart rate back down to what, for me, are normal levels.
However, I also noticed that as the final minutes work set in, my heart rate began to creep back up. This, I feel, was in anticipation of the hard 20 second sprint. Nerves, I guess.
Of all the sprints, the third was my worst.
I dropped gears about 10 seconds before the next block, and then with about 5 seconds left I began to spin up wayyyy too hard.
By the time I’d hit the start arch for the 20 second sprint, I’d already been pushing for what felt like about 5 seconds (which was realistically probably closer to 3), and by 10 seconds in, mentally I’d burned myself big time.
Getting to the arch was a real struggle and I dropped off considerably before hand.
Oh well, you can’t win them all.
I really took it easy in the final 5 minute rest block.
When the fourth and final 7 minute effort kicked in I felt better than at the start of the third. I also feel the entire block was my most consistent in terms of cadence.
I often find it takes me a while to get fluid on the bike, but once I’m there I can maintain it for a good long while.
The last sprint was probably my best. I’m not sure if this was because I knew I’d be done after I’d pushed through, or simply because of the above – fluidity.
Whatever, it felt good to end on a solid effort.
I’d definitely be interested in doing more of these ZF19 Spokes Personal Coaching Stage workouts.
Now that I know how easy it is to bring in custom workouts, I’m likely to do many more of them, too.
I’m a little concerned I might have pushed myself too hard ahead of tomorrow’s climb. But whatever, I’m only here to do my best, whatever the ride.
Slightly disappointed at only doing 488 calories here.
Also, it’s interesting to note that whilst my final sprint was the most “stable” in terms of constant power output, it was also my least powerful of the four.
The other interesting measurement from today was my best 20 second effort from this ride was nearly 200w down on my best ever 20 second effort.
I’m not sure when I put tdown that best ever 20 second effort. Maybe as part of the Zwift Academy 2019?
But even so, after a 7 minute steady ride to put out over 500w is a good one for me. It wasn’t too long ago that putting out 500w from fresh was a major achievement.
In non-ride related news I bought a special video capture card, which thanks to miracle of Amazon same day shipping, should be here tonight.
What this means is that – hopefully – I can record the ride from the Tacx Software tomorrow, and therefore having something visual to show in the blog post.
Oh, and it’s also unlikely I’m going to make my weekly Zwift 100km riding goal, or 3 hour riding goals this week.
Not to worry, I have done my targets – just not on Zwift, this week. So, all good.
