On the menu: 9 times 300 Watt

Blog number two about the academy is coming now. I did not do any more Academy sessions at the weekend because my calves were slightly tense. In addition, my treadmill had Corona and I had to wait for a test. This test is negative and now I can stop by again. So I’ll start the running workouts this weekend. This post is about two topics: I trained outdoors with the Stryd and Zwift, and the second topic is Workout # 1 at the Academy. Have fun while reading.

Zwifting. Works outside as well

The day before yesterday, on Monday, I started again after a very relaxed weekend. At the weekend, after the last V02max session on Friday, it was only easy to roll. On Monday in the late autumn darkness, I went out with my cell phone and headlamp. I wanted to test to what extent Zwift also works on my smartphone and in our woods. In short: works for an endurance run. I have to try intervals to have proper testing ready.

What did I do: I put my phone on, put it in my arm pocket and started Zwift. Stryd was quickly connected and then started running. I also let my Garmin run with it. On the clock I ended up 14.3km. On Zwift it was 14.5km. In terms of pace, too, there was only a second difference between the two devices. I want to write more details about this and how it differs in another post. I’ll go into the details (pace, distance …) there.

All in all, I had a very good start to the week with 14.5 km.

Das Knie muss die Watt halten

The whole thing set the scene for a nice Tuesday with the second academy workout on the bike. The second workout was actually the first workout on the list. But I couldn’t stop pressing the V02max on Friday, so it is the second one in total.

The workout really was about pushing the pedals. It was 3x (3 x 4 minutes). Every 4 minutes the cadence was reduced by “Coach Dan”. From 65 to 60 and in the third interval to 55. Sense: “Strength training like in the studio”. My thought with 300 watts and 55 TF: It’s not exactly easy on the knees here either. If you take 55 rpm and 4 minutes, you get 210 turns. I certainly don’t do that many leg presses or squats in the gym for strength. Well maybe he lags in comparison, like someone with knee problems after this set.

Everything worked for me. The hardest thing: Keeping my head in the game. A 55 TF at 300 watts also makes you very tired in the head. But apparently not just in the head. As you can see in the screenshot from Strava: Each of the rounds, the AVG of the NP has decreased by 1 watt. Why this happened: Mystery. Looked very strange on the training evaluation graph as it should have been controlled by the ERG Mode.

Bitte nicht verwerfen.

But that wasn’t the only thing that looked weird. Because I had a slight moment of shock when my Ipad jumped back to the start screen after the workout was over. Apparently, 222 people in a group workout overload the Ipad or Zwift so much  It would have been super annoying if it hadn’t saved the workout for me. Because I’m not up for the 55 TF again. I prefer to do the 3 minutes V02max again and sweat a little more.

After the third restart of Zwift it worked and I was able to save the unit away. 16% of all academy units are behind me. The next ride unit continues on Thursday.

Until then, ride on, Tom

Tom Hohenadl