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Weeksy that is fantastic going on the weight front, a nice treat meal i think was well earned, remember you cant get fat on one meal so no harm done. I find a one meal blowout actually motivates me to eat cleaner again and removes the urge/need for junk for quite a while longer. Your ftp score is very good and currently higher than mine, i am at 294w but thats just done via racing, actual test not due till April.
I really should have gone out for a ride today, its been ages since the weather has been nice here and today has actually been ok. I am a little disappointed with myself for this and need to try and steer myself away from the comforts of zwift whenever the opportunity arises, i have had a word with myself now.
I did a bike ride yesterday - actually two (dropping off car for a service and back to pick it up. 2 6 miles or so)
no major achievements except it's my first riding for about 4 weeks due to a slow-healing surgical wound
drizzling and fairly heavy traffic but was awesome to be riding, and I'd forgotten how nice my "cross" bike is 🙂
2 more weeks of mega-busy grafting at work, then a week on holiday, then I'm back on it to see if I can catch weeksy
I also did one of the WBR 4 lap flat races today (not the same one as Blader), much better than last Tuesday, dropped out of the lead group, but sat comfortably in the second group, screwed up the sprint and got 2nd in Bs by 0.08 seconds, bit annoying. No good at the flat races, I always find my way to the front on the climbs. Is your HR data right Blader - 118bpm!? That's nearly 70 bpm lower than mine was!
Great job on the weight loss Weeksy.
NJee20 - sorry mate that was me in the 13:05 race (RidwarePhil) _ Phil Rhead.
Good race but pretty low power for the sharp end of B. I was with the A's then got dropped when we were 60 seconds up on your bunch. Rode 2 laps with 3 other guys before we dropped back to your group as you were catching.
Spring was tough - and legs were jelly afterwards - see you next time 😉
Njee20 i would love to say i was hanging with the A group whilst doing z2 warm up but i think you might just suss me out. My hr monitor drops out about 30 times a race so my average is always well off, i only wear it so i dont get dq’d. I have been trying to workout if it is too many concurrent bluetooth connections to the ipad or a rubbish monitor, my bet is on rubbish monitor (even though it is german engineering).
Man that was a good run and a disaster at the same time.
I finally got around to servicing the bike (it has been on the trainer in constant use by either me or my wife daily for 6 months since I did anything to it!!! So I fitted all new road based drivetrain and a much larger front ring, as I was unable to generate any power on the descents with what was essentially a climbing mountain bike set up. Also greased the hubs and put a bit of extra air in the tyre.
Anyway, straight away my power is up, properly easier to pedal at outputs which I struggled with before. However, I seem to have found the limits of traction on the cheap slick tyre I am running and it just slips on any gradient over 5% now. Cue the smell of burning rubber on the first climb on the WBR 3 lap hilly tonight. The slippage set me back at least 20 seconds on the climb (based on previous efforts) and I was getting left behind by everyone. Rest of the lap was great with some of my best times yet. But the net effect of 3 times up the hill was that I lost a minute and was well down the leader board by the end.
Big plus was that Zwift has decided my FTP has risen from 239 to 271 !!! I think those ERG sessions are about to get much harder lol
Did a gentle Trek ride. Well, was supposed to be. Set about a dozen PRs on road to ruins. Oops. May as well have done a race, wouldn't have gone any gentler lol.
Up to 800km for Jan now. Lots of z2 work
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;">14st 10 today. So I've officially dropped 1stone since new year's Day.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;">Happy with that</span>
800km? Every time I open this thread I feel inadequate 🙂
I did test the ankle with a first ride this week. Just the hilly 30km. Knowing it was going to be 50 mins or so I decided to try quite hard. I'm now quite tired 😉
Working away this week so it'll just be one or two next weekend assuming no reaction from the frankenankle. Better than nothing tho.
Soooo looking forward to riding a MTB again tho. Another month to wait - hopefully if I keep riding the static bike, I'll have some fitness. Got to say Zwift is keeping me just about sane.
First go at `racing' this afternoon in the WBR 3 Laps Hilly. According to ZwiftPower I came 6th out of the B cat riders.
Great way of doing a turbo session; time absolutely flew by. I ran a 176bpm HR for over 45 mins ... no way would I have pushed that hard doing an ordinary turbo session.
Weeksy great stuff fella, keep it going.
mooman, excellent result for first go, i guess i best avoid you in races as well as the many others on here.
Wow Mooman, that's very impressive! Pointy end of B that early on!
Thanks. I turned off the erg mode ... what’s the benefit of that mode anyways? It just makes every gear an effort ... even the granny!
what are the good races to enter? I am very new to Zwift.
Not having time to ride at moment, it’s great for keeping the HR used to the effort. I will have to find longer distance ‘races’ though: are there any around 40 miles?
Loads of all distance yes, CVR world cup are long usually. WBR are shorter, 4 lappers are 42km.
The best ones to enter, well that's a debate and depends on your attributes as a rider. Try and pick bigger fields as you're more likely to get a good race.
Fasted racing suckkkksssssss.
Threshold was ok, tempo was just about OK, hills and sprints, not so much. It was only a WBR 4 flat 4 lapper but nobody else was prepared to do any work on the front at all and no interest in a break.
I'm normally pretty sorted if there's a gentle last lap gearing up for a flat sprint but not today, I was about 400W down on what i'd normally expect in the last 400m and my legs gave out before the line!
I'd picked up a bronze in A before breakfast though so can't complain that much 😀
Scaled thats very impressive considering you are not used to fasted rides. I pretty much do 90% of my rides fasted as i race in the mornings after taking the kids to school. You kinda get used to it and to be honest i never notice much difference on zwift whether its fasted or not in terms of my ability.
i have the lurgi again, i only got rid of it in the new year (7 weeks i had that lurgi), its now back again thanks to the kids and wife. I still managed to do the MET5 race this morning but i was struggling from the off, i managed to hang on until half a lap from the end when only a very small increase in tempo just destroyed me. I had nothing left in me and when my hr worked i always seemed to be in the 170’s so i was clearly struggling physically. I managed to TT to the end and take BRONZE but it wasnt a big field..
I think fasted can depend.
When i'm on a 5-2 day i will have not eaten since 7pm the previous night and racing at say 5pm.... So 22 hours between any food. Which is different from "I had crumpets for supper and then raced at 7am".
I don't really class the latter example as 'fasted' more just 'hungry as it's morning'.
When i am on them days and racing with 22-24 hours without food, i massively struggled at times and 3-4 times i bailed about 1/2 way through a race.. (Much to my dismay) but there really was nothing in the tank after going hard.
On the 2 days now, it's Z2 all the way and just hang in for 60-80mins....
Congrats on the Bronze... how many trophies this year now !
2 golds in the CVR league races and the silver today, i got bumped up cos the winner had no HR monitor on, feels a bit hollow but i'll take it 😛
Hard to tell how many trophies as it seems in your profile history it shows the results of races before they have been finalised. I won a mgcc race a couple of weeks ago but initially i was dq coz of hr which was then sorted by the race organiser as its not a requirement but in the history i am still dq.
I dont really count todays as a trophy as the field was pretty small and mostly made up of C’s, in fact only 6 A’s and 2 of those were upgrades.
Nice going scaled, you must be near the top of cvr?
Hmm, fasted and Zwifting- I need to try that out for comparison purposes. Mrs CdB is a dietician though, which means I get a lot of flak for going oddball. Anyway.
Not much to report from me- I keep missing the start of races. OTOH, Zwift has reported that my new avg FTP is 265W, so something's definitely working.
Nice going scaled, you must be near the top of cvr?
Frustratingly I only have 1000 points due to some cocks up, some by me, some by them.
I've won two races in B but my name was wrong in one of them and unfortunately they're not going to credit me any points so my 'season' in CVR is pretty much over after 2 wins as you can only drop 2 results per half season. I cocked up the other race myself by entering in the A cat which means that I don't get points for CVR 2. It's all very confusing.
I'm not really sure if i can be arsed to stay up to 10pm tomorrow night to turn myself inside out for a 'pointless' race.
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;">Still going with the Z2 stuff, although i'm quite pleased that Z2 seems to be easier/quicker than it once was.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;">Yesterday ride for example was just over an hour, 205w weighted average and an average HR of 124bpm, I was trying to keep it below 130 and if it went over that, then it was dropped straight back down again as i eased off... I was happy maintaining about 220w-230w to keep it up and around the 130 bpm mark.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;">In a minor change of plans i got on the website for this weekends Crit race at Abingdon too late.. Well, i actually got on it early enough, but was indecsisive and wasn't sure if i should go for it or not as i am still not convinced i have what it takes to do any better than last time. Although that said, it would be tough to do any worse. LOL. So i've ended up on the reserve list for Sat event, although i have no idea if that realistically means i'll get a space or not. Whether i turn up on the day, or.... well, i don't really know.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;">I have got a tactic in mind based upon last years attempt, which is basically everything opposite to what i did this time last year. I sat near the back and the accordion effect wiped me out and when the bunch surged and i missed it, even by a small amount, i was gone, out the back and floundering... So if i race this weekend i'm going to line up closer to the front and do my best to keep myself somewhere near the top 50% for as long as i can... Not too far near the front, but close enough that i don't get the random surges.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ebebeb;">It will mean that Weds is my last proper days riding for this week as i'll take Thurs as a complete rest now and Fri as a very gentle one....</span>
Still going with the Z2 stuff, although i'm quite pleased that Z2 seems to be easier/quicker than it once was.
Yesterday ride for example was just over an hour, 205w weighted average and an average HR of 124bpm, I was trying to keep it below 130 and if it went over that, then it was dropped straight back down again as i eased off... I was happy maintaining about 220w-230w to keep it up and around the 130 bpm mark.
In a minor change of plans i got on the website for this weekends Crit race at Abingdon too late.. Well, i actually got on it early enough, but was indecsisive and wasn't sure if i should go for it or not as i am still not convinced i have what it takes to do any better than last time. Although that said, it would be tough to do any worse. LOL. So i've ended up on the reserve list for Sat event, although i have no idea if that realistically means i'll get a space or not. Whether i turn up on the day, or.... well, i don't really know.
I have got a tactic in mind based upon last years attempt, which is basically everything opposite to what i did this time last year. I sat near the back and the accordion effect wiped me out and when the bunch surged and i missed it, even by a small amount, i was gone, out the back and floundering... So if i race this weekend i'm going to line up closer to the front and do my best to keep myself somewhere near the top 50% for as long as i can... Not too far near the front, but close enough that i don't get the random surges.
It will mean that Weds is my last proper days riding for this week as i'll take Thurs as a complete rest now and Fri as a very gentle one....
There's a good reason i don't do CVR Cup races LOL. They're too long, too fast, too hard.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=39931
42km taking in both Box Hill and Leith Hill, which of course at my weight is one of the daftest ideas known to man ! It started off with 15km of flat road and Classique... Easy.. I was in Cs as i knew i'd be down at 2.5w/kg for this race, so with a C flat pace i was cracking along nicely in the lead group... But once we hit Leith, the race shattered. Even though i put in my best time for it, i still lost tonnes and tonnes of ground. It then goes into Box hill straight after... Which again, wham i lost a few more places and even more ground. I had some great battles on the hills, trying and trying to keep guys around me still to be guys around me... It was very enjoyable in a soul destroying way.
On the flat section to the end i held my own, but i was 30s down on the guy in front of me, 50s ahead of the guy behind me, so it was just a cruise to the end really.
There wasn't really anything to learn today from the race apart from "fat boys don't go up hills well"...
I could probably just copy and paste that ^^!
I cracked like a trust fund kiddie in a Filipino interrogation going up Leith hill. I was with the big boys up to that point, then it was like the elastic in my legs snapped, as soon as I went into the red I was cramping up and still 20k to go...
By the time i got over the top of Leith hill (and bearing in mind i was with them till the 9% bit!) the leaders were over 80 seconds ahead of me. I had been the only B in the group but I got hauled in by a small bunch of 3. We stuck together until box hill where I just couldn't put out the 5+ W/KG that I needed to carry a wheel.
I ended up isolated for the lat 5k, the chasers were lads that I knew were quick from the last couple of weeks, I had 35 seconds on them with about 4k to go but knew that I would be struggling getting out of the tube, down to 15 seconds by the time i got to the top and I was really suffering, I had just about enough left at threshold to hold them off. 3rd in B
I have lost 2KG since I last updated my weight on Zwift so i might have to get on that 😀
Odd question for you all on Zwift. Mrs CdB is training for the London Marathon just now, and the training plan calls for cross training.
She's had a go on Zwift away back and enjoyed it and would like to use it, but it would only be once a week or so.
So to save money, she's suggested that she uses my account....I'm not keen on this as I think she'll wreck my numbers- but will she? Does deleting a ride at the end of it, rather than saving it, remove everything from that ride from Zwift?
i think you can just discard a ride at the end if she isnt bothered about saving it for strava etc.
Just what jam bo said, my other half has started using my account to train for her TRI event whilst her knee heals. She just writes down the stats at the end and discards the events. Not sure the altitude she is climbing is included towards my Tron bike though 🙁
Thanks guys 🙂
I'd realised the other day that I needed a lot more acceleration, so decided today to start off on some interval training. Lacking much time, I thought I'd try an inbuilt workout, and "John's Short Mix" looked perfect.
I had no idea that it would get so intense so quickly. After the warmup, it was straight into a double set of 1min/400W reps, separated by a 30 second rest.
I didn't make it all the way through, needless to say.....but the good thing is that its made me realise how much I need to do this. A totally different dynamic to what I normally do.
Scaled that race sounded like a war of attrition for you. Still a great result and it must have been quite satisfying holding them off when you are so depleted. Was that the Surrey Hills course? Not seen any races on the new London expansion.
@codybrennan Has Mrs CdB got access to an ANT+ cycle computer and does your turbo transmit over ANT+? If so, she could record her Zwift training via the computer to her Strava account, while discarding the stats recorded inside Zwift itself that will mess with your profile.
ANT+ allows devices to connect to multiple sensors, while Bluetooth can only connect a device to one sensor.
Only thing she will miss out on is the virtual climbing and Zwift map of where she rode, but she will get hrm; cadence; power; speed; distance; time etc.
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I'm just about recovered from ~40mins of Zwift pain a little earlier, up to the radio tower via Mountain 8 route for a change... Very surprised to have an estimated FTP boost to 254W after almost a week where I've felt too tired to ride much at all besides basic commuting miles.
NOTG- excellent idea. Yes, I've got all those things. I'll experiment at the weekend, thanks very much for that!
So main thing I learned this evening was that doing the WBR hilly race wasn't a great idea after 75km of commuting. Managed to stay with the front group til the second kicker on the first hill then lost it and went backwards. Couldn't hang on to the second group on the next hill so ended up in no mans land riding tempo to the end. All good training I guess 🙂
I did much the same in the ZHR Hare and Hounds event tonight dazh. Finished 62nd of 63 filtered with another 73 DQ'd. Some people need to have a serious think about what group they need to be in with their power to weight.
Just coming back from the lurgy two weeks ago so not holding anywhere near my FTP at the moment which is irritating. I may be over compensating by training too hard, too often at the moment as well.
Debating the 10:30am ZHR flat race today... It's one of them races that is kinda fun as it's on the Volcano flat... So you spent the first 5.5 laps thinking "Trust the group" and if someone goes off the front they have to be putting out 4+ otherwise the speed of the group will just suck them back in... Then with 1.5km to go the pace goes nuts, everyone goes nuts and i get wasted on the last kick up 🙂
Well, that's how it usually goes anyway... So i sit and devise plans to negate that, plans that will mean i do something and stick it on the podium... Well, i try to.
The debate today is that after 900km Zwifting last month and even though yesterday was a fairly gentle 32km, the legs are feeling the efforts a LOT... Stiff, achey and almost ouchy.... So really i shouldn't... But that doesn't mean i won't 🙂
Jumped on for an hour last night, with no particular plan, or event in mind.
Ended up free riding the Mountain course, and treated it as a proper endurance + pain + FTP session.
Upshot is that I increased my FTP from 298W to 320W and almost threw up at the top of the epic KOM. I went very easy up to the radio tower.
Downhill I hit 1100W??? I thought the Tacx Vortex only worked up to 950W.
Legs are very tired this morning.
wow, 320 from 298 is quite impressive !
I suspect that I didn't try hard enough on the previous test, as I could walk afterwards. I do find the Epic KOM a good motivator to put out a decent effort for a prolonged amount of time.
The downhill also works quite well as mini intervals.
I also want the Tron bike, so any climbing helps. Only 43000 m to go.....
I did the wbr flat race this morning and i think it was the quickest race i have ever seen. Just to stay in the lead group you had to be doing 330w constantly and suffice to say i didnt manage that. I cant remember how long i lasted but i dont think it was much further than the first lap, even comments from the group said that it was fast. The winner finished in 53 mins which is the quickest i have seen. I managed to hang with a few riders for a lap or so and then got dropped by them but then managed to pull them back from a 30s lead by just putting my head down and ignoring the screen. I ended up with Silver in B but i was 6 MINS behind the B winner!! Either he had the race of his life or he isnt a B.
Wow... 6 mins over that distance isn't the same Cat ! That's bonkers.
330w is a LOT ! You did brilliantly by the sound of it.
I looked at all the other races today and our race was quicker by over 2 mins. My actual time was pretty slow today as about 60% of it was on my own but i was turning myelf inside out to stay away from the group behind me and to try and catch the group of 3 in front that dropped me. It really is such a massive difference in a group as my stats today were nearly equal to my last ride on that course which was over 4 mins quicker. Seriously though the guys today were so fast i thought my trainer was over reading the wattage at one point, i was doing 358w on a zero/1% gradient and i was going backwards in the group and ended up a few metres behind them, i tagged back on but only because they slowed slightly. I think about 5 mins later they were out of sight.
40Km toay around London, was suffering from a bit of over-indulgence last night for the first time in a VERY long time, but it wasn't too bad in honesty, legs felt OK, so it all went fine.
I did notice though how far off the pace my climbing speed is, can't imagine how but i must have gone up Box Hill once upon a time at the best part of 300w ! Not exactly sure how though lol.
HR was a bit high arguably for my general goals, but only for that small part, the rest of the ride was right at the fat burning zone 🙂
3 days into my return to riding, still under 2 hrs and barely ever got to 300w
Nice to be back on it but not sure if / how soon I can get back to what was pretty much my fittest point in my life a couple of months ago
(dare I ask, weeksy, how's the weight going ?)