With my Zwift FTP Builder schedule currently on short term hold, I opted for another of the Zwift Academy 2019 workouts today. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make the early morning group ride (due to hang over) so opted to ride solo.
In order to ride solo, by the way, you can simply select the workouts from the Zwift Training option menu. I didn’t know this until yesterday.
This workout is best described by Whats On Zwift. Feel free to click below to be taken to their site which allows you to pop in your own FTP figure and get a custom chart just for you. Here’s mine:
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this workout.
I kinda expected it to be harder than the first (weirdly the third) Zwift Academy workout I have done already.
Partly this was due to having done the Zwift Academy Workout 3 ride on Friday, then an hour Zwift Academy group ride yesterday, and then this one today. I thought my legs would be thrashed, but they turned out to be decent enough to see this through.
Without the rest of the gang around to keep me entertained, I spent a good portion of the ride reading – and learning – from all the various on screen prompts that come with this (and the other) Zwift Academy workouts.
If you are a total cycling newb, like me, then you will likely pick up some interesting bits of knowledge / science from these “tutorial” steps.
That said, I did notice 3 different typos / mistakes in the text, one of which was pretty shocking. I’ll point that out shortly.
Unfortunately I just about missed my weekly 100km riding goal screenshot. It came during the last of the first block, which whilst not the hardest, certainly had me sweating after 9 minutes of riding.
One thing that I suffered on during this ride, yet again, was cadence mis-management. I consistently find myself spinning too hard, which causes problems both for the ERG mode wattage thingy, and my fatigue.
I really need to work on this, and I am doing, but it can be a frustrating experience.
Interestingly, this workout threw in some fast / slower cadence intervals. And this was fun. But here in was the first glitch.
Why, oh why did it prompt me to drop to 0 RPM?!?!
This completely threw me. I’m guessing something has gone wrong in the creation of this workout, but what a daft bug.
For the first three repeats of this interval block I really struggled with swapping between the 110 rpm and 90 rpm as suggested. It was apparently supposed to be a smooth transition, using the gears as necessary.
I didn’t use the gears at all. I got a little smoother on the fourth and fifth repeat, but this was anything but a graceful transition. Oh well.
On the plus side, I wasn’t “bouncing in the saddle” as the on screen prompts cautioned about. At least, I don’t think I was.
As suggested by the on screen prompts, the fast cadence was hard-ish, but not killer. I was definitely sweating, but not dying. My heart rate wasn’t too crazy either.
The small recovery blocks between the three larger intervals today was tougher than usual. Only 3 minutes each time at 105w (for me), which felt fairly measly. I guess that was all part of the plan, however.
Almost immediately the next block was upon me, involving 9 minutes of work at a variety of intensities, but never below the green zone (zone 3?).
This was not quite as hard as I was expecting. If anything I think I should have bumped my workout percentage up to 110% at this point. And that brings me on to another issue.
Lots of the prompts in this workout suggested I should be feeling absolutely thrashed.
And I wasn’t.
The thing is, I am not so cocky as to think my FTP is wrong.
I worked my backside off to get an FTP of 195w, and the prospect of doing that test again doesn’t exactly thrill me.
Truth be told I’m not sure I would get a better score. Not yet.
It’s weird to be sat on the bike thinking: yeah this could probably be harder and I would still likely be comfortable (not the right word, but hopefully makes sense).
Yet I believe in my FTP of 195w. That test was no joke, and I put everything I had into it. So this leaves me confused.
Definitely the most interesting part of this interval block was the “recovery” section.
Having to work above my FTP, and then recover just below my FTP was something of a new thing for me. It was similar to racing in many respects. I actually enjoyed this (again, not the right word). Appreciated is maybe more accurate.
Again, on the last block in this larger workout interval was more about cadence mis-management than feeling overly thrashed in the legs.
I have found both on this workout, and in the past, that when I am given a higher wattage target, I end up spinning at some ridiculous cadence in ERG mode, as it simply feels easier.
Again, a short 3 minute recovery block was not quite sufficient, making the next block harder than it might seem.
And again, during the on screen prompts there was another mistake in this section.
I am maybe something of a grammar nazi (which is perhaps ironic given my shoddy use of English), but when it comes to a paid product I do expect a little better quality control.
That said, I’m here for the fitness / cycling, not a game of Countdown.
Does, or doesn’t ? 
Again here I found the on screen snippets to be informative. Good work here.
It might be nice if I could find a site out there in internet land that explains some of this stuff. There must be tons about cycling / fitness that I have literally no idea about.
Case in point, it hadn’t occurred to me that spinning faster would lead to a higher heart rate. Yeah, durrr, obvious in hindsight.
The last 10 minute block was a bit of a concern to me for the first minute or so.
My legs had started to feel a bit sore, and I wasn’t looking forward to the long effort.
However, after the first minute I settled into a rhythm of ~85rpm which didn’t feel that bad at all. Most of this I was sat upright, not using the bars.
Before I knew it, the workout was coming to an end, and I wasn’t as dead as I expected. Again, this comes back to that FTP talk from earlier. It’s really confusing to me at the moment.
All in all, it’s not been a bad weekend, all things considered.
With very little time available I’ve gone from doing nothing in the Zwift Academy, to having completed two workouts and a group ride.
My plan is to keep this schedule up – with some known breaks ahead – which should see me completing the Zwift Academy inside the time limit.
Tomorrow, Monday, is 100% a rest day.
Ideally on Tuesday I’ll get a Zwift Academy race in during the early evening. That’s if I can find one. So far all I can are workouts.
If anything I’d have liked to have burned a few more calories on this one. That’s largely due to curry and alcohol consumption last night.
Still, a man’s got to live.
There’s no denying it, I’d prefer to do the group workouts. Given the choice, I’d definitely opt 100% for attending group workouts throughout the Academy. However, I suspect most will be solo endeavours at this stage, simply for convenience.
That said, it’s nice to know that I can do these – and all the previous years – again at any time, even after the Zwift Academy 2019 finishes.
I’m really looking forwards to my next race. I’m not sure when this will be, but I do know it will be within Category C according to Zwift Academy.
This is cool as it means I have sufficiently progressed now out of Category D. This feels like a massive achievement to me, even if last time I raced against a category C rider I got absolutely smashed.
Happy to have this one in the bag. Not a bad end to a hard week.
