My new Zwift game is using the climb portal for sweetspot(ish) workouts. If it’s a long climb a single interval will do, or - as in this one - I’ll cruise back down to the bottom, hang a U-turn and go again, using the HoloReplay of the previous trip as a benchmark to (hopefully) beat by a second or two.
The name of the game is to try to maintain ~90% of FTP throughout as a floor, but pushing up to and past FTP on the steeper parts. The result is kinda sorta like much-less-structured SS over/unders.
Attempted Picket Guard +2, 5x12 O/Us at 105% / 90% with 8 min recoveries. Used Zwift Epic KOM as the climb route and hit a consistent 107% / 87-90% with 6 min recoveries. Pretty happy with the result, but definitely needed a burger and a nap after!
But I wasn’t paying enough attention … I did the 5 min rest after warm up and wrongly assumed that’s rest after every interval. I finished almost 30 minutes early only to realize rest was supposed to be 9 minutes. Oh well … managed to get through it anyway!
Did Mono yesterday for 1h30m but had some strange results.
My FTP hasn’t really moved in months, in fact it went back down 3 points after yesterday. I am likely not doing enough time on the trainer and losing base. Used to do Tues-Thurs-Sat before return to the office was mandated and even with Tuesdays as flex days at home the Zoom never ending meetings kill that day off, so literally one day a week now.
I can hold 90-115W pretty easy and looking at yesterday’s O&U of 135/145 in Mono my heart rate stayed in the 140’s. Could be nutrition/fluid mistakes before the session where I need some electrolytes versus just plain water.
Yes the first interval below broke as the Saris and TR couldn’t agree on Bluetooth ERG so the power stayed low; unpaired and just used Ant+ for the rest of the session which worked fine.
Entered the speciality phase today and by coincidence I purchased a new gear cable for the TT bike. I’ll have to think about getting the TT bike out soon for workouts but the shorter wheel base Ti road bike is a lot easier to get out of the cupboard and set up in my front hall with the front door ajar for cooling
TR had me do Coy on Monday (VO2 1.3) which was way way way too easy. SB+1 was prescribed today (curiously labelled as “Stretch”, I might have guessed Stretch/Breakthrough only ever come up if you manually switch them in). SB+1 was PL3.0 but I opted to switch it out for SB+2 at PL3.7
Completed it without issue, gave it a “moderate” on the basis that I could have certainly done another set or two (but not repeat the whole workout). My max HR is 190 and I peaked at 175/177/178/179/180 after each set, which I think feels about right for VO2 work?
Was I “right” to switch this out? Or will I regret it going forwards? Still very new to AT.
(Yesterday was Baxter and a failed/bonked real-life ride - entirely down to lack of fueling through the day. Since then I’ve eaten everything so felt able to do the VO2 today, even though my whoop said I was ruined this morning…)
[Additionally, can someone explain why my TSS is 10% above what it should have been, yet the intensity factor is within 1%? Using a Neo 2 trainer, in ERG mode - every vo2 interval was coming in about 10W under what TR had prescribed, which is to be expected, I think]
There’s no real right or wrong answer; the system should eventually adapted to give you harder workouts but somethimes giving it a push to speed it up is needed; similarly if you’ve overreached it’ll eventually adapt down but sometimes a call to make it do that faster is needed.
I don’t have a Whoop but IME of wearables they provide a guess at best. With HRV and training readiness, I had it telling me I was ‘ready’ when I felt worn out, and ‘not ready’ when I was setting PBs or got back from an event feeling I could have gave more. You were right there though IMO to disregard whoop and go on RPE.
Someone can probably give you the exact mathematical answer but basically you extended your cool down and TTS is time based so actual TSS was a bit more but as it was cooldown TSS at a low IF its nothing to worry about.
I’ve had to keep it at endurance pace for a couple of days because of a cold, but got back into some more Sweetspot Climbing today. It’s so much more satisfying to do these while feeling the gradient changes of the (virtual) terrain than doing them on the unchanging slope of workout mode.
Happy I got this done this morning. Never did it back in the day when it was part of the main plans. Only really got tough during that towards the end of the final interval. 140g of carbs during it
A bit of a grind fest on during tonight’s workout until I got the ‘almost finished motivation’. I’m maybe needing to do something to make it cooler so I feel comfortable pushing into that zone sooner
