It wasn’t too long ago I was bemoaning paying for Zwift through a lack of use and suspending my membership. At that time it was suspended until early November but this week I signed on again. Here’s why.
I blame my new job. I’ve gone from a regular 9-5 job either working in an office or from home so a regular ride or commute was easy. Now I’m an Area Manager I don’t always know where I will be or if I do, the plan sometimes changes as I react to needs of the business etc. so I drive more. Not ideal but it is what it is and I do try to ride to work as often as I can, just not everyday.
Its been a bad week this week. No commutes, I’ve driven everywhere. Must try harder
Up until this week I’ve resisted rejoining Zwift. I’ve been keen to ‘tick over’ and maintain my fitness. I have nothing to train for at the moment. I’ve been coming home and doing 50 mins on the rack watching a virtual cycling video on YouTube to pass the time while taking on a self-made workout on Rouvy which allows a one hour ‘Freeride’ for non-subscribers.
Rouvy works quite well with a video because you can select what wattage you want to ride at and with the video on fullscreen you can minimize the dashboard to the corner of the screen.
Rather than just ride at a prescribed level, I’ve been doing a kind of sweetspot ramp starting at 180w for 5 mins and adding 10w every 5 mins until I get to 260w then a 5 min warm down. Its been a good workout with a TSS (Training Stress Score for those that don’t know) of just over 50 its hard enough to be hard but easy enough to repeat the next day.
I’ve got back into it a bit recently and then started thinking about Zwift again for a change of scene. I was a bit bored last weekend (I always spend money when I’m bored or can’t sleep) and fancied a go again so I signed up and did another workout on there. It all came back. I really enjoyed it so on Thursday night I created a custom workout to mirror what I had been doing on Rouvy. My sweetspot ramp.
I don’t know whether I’m just fitter or its the Zwift effect but I smashed it. Having others round me (on screen!) seemed to spur me on to push harder when it gets hard in the last 10 mins. In all, great motivation. So I’m back on Zwift again now and probably there to stay now through the Winter.
…and then I couldn’t sleep one night so I started looking at new Turbo Trainers. I nearly bought a new Saris H3. It was in the basket at 3am, finance application started then I bailed. Thats me. I’m a nightmare.
No doubt races and YouTube streams are coming again soon too! Watch this space.
Adios
Saris previous incarnation is CycleOps, I have a H2 Direct Drive turbo and it has no resistance, messaged Saris and had no reply, useless, would not buy anything from them again.