No rest for the wicked. After yesterday’s Zwift Academy Road: Workout 1 | VO2 Over/Unders I decided to jump right into the next workout, given that it was available on the hour, every hour. And frankly, it’s too hot to ride outside at the moment.
Too hot?
Yes. 28c is too hot for me out there, if I’m being realistic.
I mean, it sucks, because today is the last of the heat and tomorrow we are due to resume very much the normal service (rain, in case you misunderstood), so I’m likely going to be forced indoors regardless. But still, it is what it is.
Anyway…
The big question on my mind was:
Would it be a smart idea to do another hard workout having not had a rest day in between?
Worst case I thought I’d get through it, but I might regret doing it all the same.
Here’s the pre-ride blurb:
If you’ve ever seen a rider attack hard in the last leg of a race or explode over short steep climbs, they’re using the efforts learned in this workout. Let’s get after it.
This session is focused on stressing your peak VO2 early in each interval, then maintaining that level of oxygen consumption before continuing at a level that really works your aerobic system. Performing six reps will stress your aerobic capacity along with your lactate clearance abilities, something that’s crucial for recovering between segments.
Coach’s Tip: Zwift Academy Road was developed with structure in mind. For best results, complete the workouts in order.
This training program was designed by Stephen Gallagher and Dan Fleeman from Dig Deep Coaching. Their complete coaching approach ensures every Zwift Academy athlete learns the building blocks for successful training.
Zwift Academy Road: Workout 2 | Peak VO2 Intervals
So, much like in Workout #1 we had a 10 minute slow ramp up as a warm up, with a faster minute ramp, and then into a 3 minute recovery before the first of the interval blocks.
There were two blocks today with a 6 minute recovery between them.
Both blocks were identical.
Each block consisted of three intervals:
- 30 seconds at 150% FTP (350w for me)
- 1 minute at 120% FTP (280w for me)
- 1 minute / 1m 15s / 1m 30s at 95% FTP (220w for me)
The final block increased in duration by 15 seconds on each of the three intervals.
Hitting the first 150% block of the first interval, aiming for 100rpm, I was feeling fresh enough. No concerns. Brimming with over confidence.
And then when that second 120% block kicked in, it felt comparatively so much easier.
And the final 1 minute at 95%? Well, that was (comparatively, at least), as though I were coasting down hill.
I won’t say I nailed that first block, but I didn’t end it feeling worried about the rest.
However.
🙂
Well, let’s just say that hitting 100rpm for the 150% blocks only got harder.
I’d expected to go at 100rpm for the “over” FTP blocks, and then cool it down a bit and ride at ~95rpm for the “under” portion. That didn’t really happen. I seemed to stick at 100rpm for each full interval.
That likely didn’t help me with my heart rate, which by and large stayed around the 180bpm range for all 6 intervals. In fact, you can see from the graph below that each interval only saw my heart rate ever higher.
One thing I wondered during the ride was weather I’d done enough in the middle 6 minute recovery block to effectively reset the ride and if the second set of three would see a near identical heart rate as the first. Check it for yourself below…
The other interesting thing today was that yesterday I got a little cocky. Nothing unusual there.
Between each of yesterdays blocks we got a healthy 6 minute break, and I was bigging myself and my ego right up thinking I was fine after 3 minutes.
Well, today we got less than three minutes.
And I’d say by the end of this one I was at my limit.
Wondering if it was just me, I asked in game / in ride whether others found this one easier or harder than Workout #1.
The consensus seemed to be in favour of Workout #2 being harder.
And when I looked at the TSS scores in Garmin I could see yesterday we had a TSS of 70, and today was 99. Now, I know that’s no scientific evidence, but I’d say this one felt harder by the end.
But was it all just down to tired legs?
I have no idea.
What I do know is I’m grateful that I’m due a recovery day at this point.
Both rides combined come in at just a bit over what I might do outdoors, calorie wise, in one ride. So really I don’t think this was massively exertive, more just down to a compressed time scale.
Oh, one other thing I did like about today’s ride was that in using the Cobbled Climbs route on Richmond, the efforts really seemed to tie up to the points of interest on the circuit. I thought that was really well done. By which I mean when we had to work, we were on the climb… mostly.
Better than usual, anyway.
Looking at Zwift’s upcoming events, it doesn’t look like their ZA2021 recovery rides are available just yet. Maybe that’s something to look forward to at the weekend? I have no idea. But if the weather is at all permissive, I shall aim to head outdoors tomorrow. Otherwise it will be an hour of endurance on the turbo.
