Radish_legs

another update on my zwift FTP plan thoughts. Last Tuesday I did a zwift race for 30 min and then I did one of the long 65% zwift workouts.

Yesterday (Thurs) I decided to do an outdoor group ride because of the good weather. This is fast race-like group ride. Further context is that I was dropped from my group ride last Saturday (some extenuating circumstances, but not a good response from my legs). So last night I actually made a breakaway. I've done this ride over a 100 times, there is almost never a breakaway. Partly because of traffic lights, and partly it's hard to ride away for 40 fast guys. It ended up being about 6 of us. And they were the strongest guys in the group. One Cat 2, the others Cat 3s (the guys who win the cat 3 races). And then me. So it made me feel better that legs have not been screwed by doing the Zwift plan the last couple months. Also, that VO2max can come back pretty fast.

So now I have to decide whether to continue the zwift workout plan or keep farting around with zwift racing and the group rides.

rubiksoval

Yeah, probably right about the pro-tour pros.

American Conti teams seem to be a little more indiscriminate. There's one new team that essentially just rounded up some of the better regional/national cat 1s (including the Cat 1 national crit champion) and made a whole new pro team, so it happens.

Radish_legs

There's a local guy who was on my current race team 2 years ago. Switched to a higher profile local team last year. And kicked A. And this year he is on a continental pro team. He did this by winning.

ancker

Somewhat not the point, but...

Winning or not, racing is my motivation. I've only done a couple Zwift races, but getting 2nd in my first attempt was basically all the motivation I needed for like 3 weeks. I haven't raced much in real life for a couple years due to kid, but it's still my main goal and motivation. I have zero illusion that I'm going to win much, if at all, or ever upgrade to a 3. But being in a race and not getting dropped is exhilarating and makes me want to train my a** off until the next one. I could get into my hereditary high cholesterol, family heart history, etc, but that's really all secondary to just wanted to feel frickin' alive riding 28mph next to 30 other guys.

So yeah, racing means something real to lots of people. It's not all about going pro, winning money, or partying with podium girls.

mattm

Well, yeah.

Winning as an amateur doesn't necessarily make you pro, but certainly gets you noticed if you place well at big races like Gila. I'm talking p/1 fields of course.

I just watched Logan Owen otf at the TdU on TV the other day. He used to be a Seattle-local badass, then I'm sure he did some higher-level stuff, next thing I know he won a stage at the USA Pro Challenge last year.

Now he's on that "EF Cannondale" ProTour team or whatever. He certainly didn't get on TV/a ProTour team by winning at Strava or Zwift, or by not doing well at amateur races.

Whether or not amateur racing - or any bike racing - actually matters is more of a personal question. If it doesn't matter to someone, I doubt they'd go through all the trouble to do well at it, no matter what the level of competition.

Ygduf

this is precisely my point about why it's kind of silly to **** on someone for liking or caring about a zwift race or strava segments. Everyone gets to decide what they enjoy and care about and that's what gives it meaning.

rubiksoval

I was referring more to people trying to get ready for the racing season by using Zwift races all winter long. Of course there are people that have no interest in racing and love Zwift up and down and no worries there. But some people get so caught up in it that they actually sacrifice their real season. I've seen that happen a couple of times now. Used to be the same thing with the Dec. and Jan. group ride winners who were toast by June, so it's not just a zwift thing.

But it's something for newer riders (especially self-coached who may not have a group of experienced racers around them) to be cognizant of. You simply can't drop weekly race-level efforts all year long and expect to improve or even maintain decently high fitness. I think many people eventually figure that out on their own at some point, but it's better if you can get to that point without screwing up a bunch of your races (I did that my first year racing).

Ald1 

I'm on week 5 of this program and find it getting a bit boring. It's helped my spinning but my HR rarely gets out of zone 3. I'm mostly in zone 2. Some background, I'm 65 and started back into cycling last May and did about 1,500 till the weather set in. Participated in a bunch of B group rides with no problem. Got a wahoo kicker and want to hit to good weather in good shape. Should I stick with the 12 week program? or any better suggestions? All experiences/opinions welcomed. Thanks. I know this is a racer thread. I only want to compete with myself!

Ygduf

maybe take a couple days easy, re-test ftp and continue on the program with the new number as a base. You're pretty new and new riders can see improvement quickly. You might have already exceeded your old base enough to no longer be stressing yourself

Radish_legs

It's pretty easy in the beginning. It gets harder as it goes. I'm in week 10 now and the harder workouts are not super easy. For example, tonight I did over unders at 285w x 2min then 250 x 3 min repeated x 4 (total of 20 min), 10 min at 150w, then repeating the 20 minute over/under block.

I think there are probably better ways of doing this training. I don't think it is optimized. I think you probably need to add some harder efforts, for example on group rides or solo rides. If you don't, those VO2max efforts are going to be a shock to the system. There's just so many times you are going above threshold on a spirited group ride.

Last week I didn't do any of the plan. This was the group ride I did on Saturday. and it starts with me getting gapped and fighting to not be dropped. That was an above FTP interval.

Ald1 

Thanks for the advice, makes sense. Good to know things will get a little harder but agree with the max effort. I live between two mountain so when the weather breaks, I need to start my rides with a 2 mile climb so no way to stay in Zone 3. Maybe the ftp builder plan days 1-4, day 5 rest, day 6 zwift group ride/race, day 7 rest?

trainsktg

https://zwiftinsider.com/congrats-zw...ubaix-victory/

Keith

Radish_legs

another thing to consider is that the FTP builder plan is not designed to get you into "race-ready" form. It's designed to increase your FTP. In something like Trainerroad they would have a block designed to build FTP, and then you would go into a later "build phase" and then finally a more specific phase that is designed to get you to your peak.

Part of the attraction of something like this FTP builder plan is that it prevents you from peaking too early. Last year my form peaked in about March and that was too early. This year, I am behind my pace from last year. Which isn't the greatest thing. Our first race is this weekend (I am not participating). But hopefully in May I will have some form.

TexMac

I totally get where you are coming from, I too only have 1 hr a day to train and have opted with the Zwift "Gorby" which is pretty much 5x5 @110%ftp, and to make it harder I either add another 5 minute interval or hold 120% on some intervals

caloso

What's the rest between intervals? One of my bread and butter workouts is 5x5' at 103-108% with 1' rbi. It's the having to go again before being fully recovered that's the key, I think.

I got this one from the "Workout Cookbook" sticky thread.

TexMac

It's 5 minutes rbi.
just out of curiousity, which workout would give you more bang for your time
5x5 @102-108% with 1 min rbi OR 6x5 110-120% with 5 min rbi?


I know the best answer would probably be doing both diff days

jsk

The first one (ZeCannon) is really a threshold workout. Even though you're a bit above FTP, it's still right on the Z4/Z5 border. The first couple reps won't seem that hard, but the 1' rest really takes its toll on the second half of the set. If done right with an accurate FTP it's a pretty tough workout, especially if you extend it by adding more reps.

Your second option is more of a VO2Max workout, although I would say if you can do ZeCannon at 108% you should be able to do the VO2 session at higher than 110%.

As far as bang for your time, the ZeCannon session is more time-efficient just because there's a lot less rest. You can do that workout in an hour including warmup/cooldown. But again they work on different things so it depends on what you want to get out of it.

TexMac

Good insight. Just purely fitness, can't have any goals without knowing when mom comes out of stroke rehab. Makes me think I should just do one TT & Vo2Max interval per week.

Radish_legs

I just finished the 12 week program. I skipped the first two weeks (which were optional). I skipped many of the recovery-type workouts because I was doing other kinds of riding. Toward the last 5 weeks of the block or so, I did all the hard workouts. The "Threshold development" workouts.

Of course group rides were sprinkled in pretty frequently esp on weekends.

What's my verdict? I don't know. Definitely it got harder towards the end. But never once was I at my ragged limit. None of the intervals were ever higher than my stated FTP. But were the last 3 weeks or so pretty mentally taxing on some of those over-unders? Yes. I would definitely not call them "easy."

When I did xert workouts last year, many of those were absolutely brutal, but that was something else entirely, not FTP development.

Radish_legs

In terms of results, I did a Zwift group ride yesterday where I rode off the front. So I was putting in my own effort. It wasn't an FTP test, but I did overtime ramp up my effort. So there was perhaps a bit left on the plate, but not a lot. I set power PRs from 26 min all the way to 45 min. The maximum delta between this ride's power PRs and the previous peak power (last year's) was 8w. At 30min I was 284w (compared to 278w previously). At 45 min I was 275w (versus 274w last year).

It's hard to interpret this, given the lack of true FTP testing both last year and this year. But it was gratifying to come up with some PRs, even though pretty small. And this accomplished while in the process of losing weight.

rubiksoval

Did people make all sorts of funny comments about your riding off the front of their group ride?

Half of the entertainment of the zwift group rides I've done is watching people complain about that stuff. That and the leader yelling at people to obey them. And to stop at certain points to regroup. Ride I did yesterday told everyone to stop at the top of the mountain for five minutes! Stop? On your indoor trainer ride (even better for rollers!)?

Those group rides are a trip.

Ttoc6

My favorite past time is reading the zwift racers/riders group on facebook in the winter vs the summer. There are some damn technically inept people out there is the first thing you'll notice. But the cheating threads are great because you can predict almost to a T the comments in each and every one.

Radish_legs

I started the ride late. And there were already guys off the front. So I just moved up, and spent most of the ride in about third place. Eventually second and almost ended up catching up to the first place guy. No one said anything. Just comments within the group itself. Like"guys in front slow down.". But they are talking about the guys in the group. Not solo guys 90 seconds up the road.