Progress

 

Doing things that seemed impossible a few weeks ago.

When I restarted on Zwift, I was mortified how much zwiftability I'd lost. When I dialed back in 2023, I was on the cusp of actually having (what I considered to be) respectable capability. I could smash up hills, and ride endlessly and effortlessly with the 1.5w/kg pacer bot. Then the big pause as life reshuffled, then weight gain, then surgery. And let's be honest, I'm not 25 anymore.  

It's not like my ego was tied up in my watts/kg in zwift, but yes it was a shock when I came back and I struggled to maintain 125 watts and couldn't find my cadence.

This week, I'm 2/3 of the way through my first TrainerRoad AI plan and took the scheduled FTP test. I tend to be 'good' at these tests, meaning I can get results that are far beyond my actual FTP.  I scored a 188, or ~15% above the FTP from the start of the plan.  That's kinda awesome but I didn't trust it.  I clicked TR's 'FTP detect' button and it came up with 172, or about 5% increase.  I went with that. I'm happy with that. 

Meanwhile, today's workout (pictured above) is something I was nervous about. Four repeats of 9 minutes at my old ftp would have blown me up just a few weeks ago. Today's effort was hard but not painful. "Good" even. Scary. 

The final stretch of this plan starts Tuesday. Four weeks, then a pause for Gencon, and then I'll see what's what. But right now I'm happy with the progress I'm seeing.