Bit miffed at myself for skipping yesterday. Feeling good on Monday and Tuesday, I just couldn’t find it within myself to do much of anything yesterday.
Today was about making up for that. I always knew I was going to the Workout #3 of the Zwift Academy 2021 as my next ride, and was hoping to tick off another ~30km or so.
Well, I managed to get through the workout, but 30km? Not so much.
I’m not sure where I would place today’s workout in terms of difficulty when compared to Workout’s #1 and #2. Maybe not quite as taxing as Workout #2… but so far I don’t think any of these have been that bad.
At least, not compared to previous years.
Mentioning this in ride, I might have come across like I was bragging or something. Hardly. It was suggested that perhaps my FTP is incorrect… nope.
The hard part today was in meeting those 30 second targets.
As ever, Zwift suggested keeping a higher cadence for the tougher intervals. My goal is always 95rpm, so I went with 100rpm as a slight up tick. Not sure I managed to carry 100rpm through all 12 of the 30 second efforts.
One nice thing, if you can call it that, is that with 30 seconds on, the one minute breathers don’t feel too long, and then you’re back on it… so somehow the time passes fairly quickly.
By that 4th repeat though, oof. Especially the very final one… I really was hurting on that one.
My next ride in the Zwift Academy 2021 series is the recovery ride.
Not sure if I will do that tomorrow lunch time, or wait until Saturday. I’d really quite like a jolly outdoors now, so may go for a 40-50 minute ride if weather permits… and it’s looking like it should.
The big question for me at this point – half way through the workouts – is:
Do I think I will have improved in any capacity when I repeat the base line ride at the end of the Academy?
I gotta say… no. Probably not.
I don’t feel like this series is hugely benefiting me.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the workouts are about right. I just don’t feel like they are structured enough, if only repeated once, to meaningfully improve my fitness in any substantial fashion.
What I really feel like doing is taking part in a Zwift race. There’s a problem with this in that they are at set times, so midweek that’s not always feasible. Crit City is always ‘fun’. But I’m open to others.
Hopefully I can fit in a race within the next few days.
