This evening I rode the Zwift Academy 2019 Workout #5: 1min Power Duration. This was similar to previous Zwift Academy rides in that firstly it was 1 hour long, and secondly it looked easier “on paper” than it turned out to be in reality.
Having not really learned my lesson so far, I have to say that I expected this one to be a fairly laid back workout.
And in some ways it was.
But the two 1 minute max power efforts were full on.
As ever with the Zwift Academy series, one of the best parts for me were the on-screen tutorial / ride advice messages.
I’ve learned loads about cycling from these rides, and today’s ride in particular was full of useful stuff that I tried my best to capture and share.
Of all the Zwift Academy 2019 rides so far, I think this one started the easiest.
The warm up was gentle, and after the 6 minute light riding, we dropped down for another minute at very low intensity.
The first hard efforts came by the way of a minute at 215w.
Again, not really that hard – fresh(ish) legs, one minute effort slightly above FTP… the hardest part was the fast cadence.
I was sweating.
As usual, this led to my over confidence at my capabilities. I even had visions of me surfing some holiday websites whilst riding this one. Alas, that didn’t happen as I needed to take screenshots 🙂
The initial batch of efforts involved ramp ups. But with my FTP of ~195w, these ramp ups were a little underwhelming if I’m honest.
If anything, the fast spinning and relatively low wattages ended up putting a little too much pressure on my right knee in particular. I had to ease off.
At this point I learned a little about Zone 3 intervals on both indoor and outdoor rides.
Apparently an average Zone 3 ride on an indoor trainer could be around 40 minutes. And outdoors this could go up to around 90 minutes.
This is really useful to know. It’s something I can work into my riding in the future. Again, really pleased that I’ve gotten involved in the Zwift Academy to learn things like this along the way.
After this I was promised a block of hard work.
But here’s where things didn’t quite go to plan for me.
The issues I faced were around ERG mode, and whether or not I should be using it.
As it turned out, I’m fairly sure I should have been. And I did use ERG throughout.
The problem, for me at least, is that because the ramp ups went from fairly low intensity to not very high intensity, I didn’t feel like I was truly warming up to put in a minute’s best effort.
If anything I think I should have disabled ERG mode for each of the ramp up sections, and simply tried my best in each block.
That said, I didn’t really learn the lesson of what these ramp ups were aiming to teach me until much later in the ride.
The idea, as best I understand it now, is to start off slower and fairly gradually (over ~15 seconds) ramp up your effort until your going pretty much flat out for the remainder of the minute.
That’s not what I did, however.
Because of the ERG restrictions, I was basically spinning at ~120rpm almost immediately, and in ERG mode – for me, at least – that means very little resistance.
That also means I gained very little benefit / understanding of what these blocks were trying to teach me.
However, if I’d have turned off ERG mode, I think I would still not have understood. Silly me.
Again, however, I did learn more stuff here. The prompts told me about recovering at ~63% FTP – or for me, around 125w. The prompts explained about keeping some light pressure on the pedals, which is more beneficial than essentially free-wheeling, or going super low effort. Interesting stuff.
I’m wondering if the 63% thing marries up with the whole Golden Ratio so frequently found in so many different areas of life.
Anyway, that’s very much a side issue.
Again, a repeated block of this overly high cadence spinning. I remember thinking – “what’s the point?” – and then thinking – “actually I’m probably just not doing this correctly”.
I knew something wasn’t quite right, but I also didn’t have any way to figure out whether I should just turn off ERG mode. This went on for quite some time, and I felt quite frustrated.
In short, the 45 second efforts didn’t really do very much for me.
They certainly got my heart going, but I don’t feel like they truly warmed me up for the event to come.
What I did instead was to open up a previous post from my blog and check the ride report screenshots and then look for my previous best 1 minute effort wattage.
From my previous ride I could see my best 1 minute effort was at 374w.
Armed with this information I felt even more constrained by these overly restrictive ERG intervals.
After the 45 second intervals we switched over to the 90 second intervals.
Again, my frustrations were repeated.
On the second of these repeats I was most tempted to turn off ERG mode out of the whole ride.
The only reason I didn’t, I must admit, is because I wanted to save myself / my legs as much as possible for the true effort.
So … quite contradictory. Classic Chris thinking.
Again though, more of the same here. Fast spinning, only reaching about 220w or so… it wasn’t great.
No. 
That probably wouldn’t be wise.
At this point I wanted to get into the “real” meat of the workout.
And boy, was I about to get a wake up call.
After the restrained ERG intervals we went through another long recovery phase.
This allowed me to settle my heart rate, and prepare my legs very thoroughly. I felt this was a fair amount of time for what lay ahead.
My aim was to break 400w average over the minute.
That’s what I had in my head. Anything more than that and I’d be very pleased.
I gathered that I should not get out of the saddle during this effort.
Well…
As covered, I had not really paid attention / learned the lesson that the on-screen Zwift instructor had been trying to teach me.
Dropping to the very hardest gear, I slowed the cadence down to about 60rpm for the final minute before starting to ramp up before the arch.
Then I went out of the arch like a mad man.
I did stay in the saddle for the first 30 seconds.
However, around 30-45 seconds I was definitely out of the saddle.
And for the last 15 seconds or so I was in the saddle again, wheezing like an asthmatic seal.
Good golly I felt that. I tell you.
During the hard efforts, Zwift showed the running average on screen. I saw I’d put in over 400w average, but was too exhausted to capture it on screenshot.
I found out later that I hit 194bpm on the old Wahoo Tickr heart rate monitor during this interval.
I do not say this to boast. I say it because it scares the ever loving Jesus out of me.
After this effort I was really pooped. Like, absolutely bushed.
I was now firmly aware of how sorely I had misjudged the intensity of this workout.
Even with the long recovery intervals on this one, I was struggling to slow my heart rate down to what it had been before the first interval.
I know I didn’t get it right back down, and this screwed me up mentally for the next attempt.
Before I knew it, and before I felt recovered, the second attempt was upon me.
And it was a bit of a fail.
I’m not going to beat myself up over this one.
I left nothing on the table in the first attempt, so going as hard or harder on the second attempt was a tall order. And not one I could fulfill.
In the end I really dropped off during the second attempt. I just didn’t have the legs.
That said, I did try. And that is good enough for me.
All in this was a great ride, but perhaps not the most efficient workout.
Checking the previous ride shows my 1 minute best wattage was 374w.
Today this reads 432w, which is a great improvement. I have no idea why Zwift has confused this ride and my best ride… That’s a bug imo.
After my recent holiday, and yet another garbage dinner time eating junk at the office, trying to smash down the calories is a big deal for me at the moment.
Putting in an hour today I managed fewer calories burned in more time than yesterday.
In other words, this was not an efficient workout. However, I guess that was not the aim.
Regardless of this, I did enjoy the ride in its own unique Zwift way.
I’m now 5/8 on the Zwift Academy 2019 workouts, and over 50% of the way through the course.
My plan is to ride again tomorrow, though likely a light ride – maybe one of those long blue zone rides in the FTP Builder routine. I’ve had three days of fairly full on rides now, so a little recovery wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
If this plan goes accordingly, my aim is to rest on Thursday and then – hopefully – hit a Zwift Academy race on Friday evening. That will be enough to fulfill the 4/4 group rides or races part of the Academy requirements I believe. Though I do need to double check this.
Ok, enough from me. Ride on!
