Zwift Chat

[Whorty]

3-hours is long time on a saddle, indoor and outdoor. Refuel is vital in that kind of long training session, better take enough drink and energy gels and bars next to you or banana or at least something to eat.

I can normally get by on a 2 hour ride without eating, just water with a SIS tab dropped in. I make sure I'm fueled up well beforehand. For 3 hours I may take a banana in with me, and/or a nut bar but as I'm not looking to push hard I'm hoping my fat stores start to come in to keep me going.

I used to take an energy gel before a race on bkool or zwift, but I think they were just placebo's as I can't believe they helped much in a 60 minute race

 

[Whorty]

Long Z2 is much harder than you might think

190 watts is just in zone 3 for me (185 is in zone 2) - yes, expecting it to hurt a lot as I get over the 2 hour mark but I want to see how I'm getting on ready for ToC, and it will help me burn off a few extra calories. Wife may need me every now and then during the ride so I may have a chance to get off to help her and hence get mini rests

A couple of weeks ago I did a 2:10 sweet spot session which was higher Z3 watts mixed with Z2, and I've done a few 1:45 rides too. This will be the longest though since training for ToC last year.

 

[kipster]

I was thinking the same and did build it that way first but then I started to over-think it so just set it all at 190, figuring I can come out of ERG every now and then to either push a bit harder, or take a rest. I can always use the % change too to tweak the power as I feel fit as the ride goes on. The problem with a long ride is knowing how you'll feel 90 mins in, so what I set prior to the ride may not match how I'll feeling later - this is where I ca just come out of ERG or increase/decrease power on the fly.

Probably worth saying I do try to vary the cadence on the ride too, standing up at times, spinning a bit faster, slowing down etc, just to give me a bit of variation.

I used a variation of this:

The zwo file for this is attached (remove the .txt at the end), edit it in notepad to extend out to the required duration and pop it in the zwift workouts folder on the pc / laptop and it will appear in custom workouts in zwift.

 

[JuhaL]

I can normally get by on a 2 hour ride without eating, just water with a SIS tab dropped in. I make sure I'm fueled up well beforehand. For 3 hours I may take a banana in with me, and/or a nut bar but as I'm not looking to push hard I'm hoping my fat stores start to come in to keep me going.

I used to take an energy gel before a race on bkool or zwift, but I think they were just placebo's as I can't believe they helped much in a 60 minute race

Caffeine gels are also handy on a long ride. But they are better save for a last when you start to feel fatigue and you feel that you need something extra boost end of a ride.

 

[JuhaL]

190 watts is just in zone 3 for me (185 is in zone 2) - yes, expecting it to hurt a lot as I get over the 2 hour mark but I want to see how I'm getting on ready for ToC, and it will help me burn off a few extra calories. Wife may need me every now and then during the ride so I may have a chance to get off to help her and hence get mini rests

A couple of weeks ago I did a 2:10 sweet spot session which was higher Z3 watts mixed with Z2, and I've done a few 1:45 rides too. This will be the longest though since training for ToC last year.

Better remember that heart rate seems to happened to increase linearily on a long ride, so on a long ride heart rate might be get higher than expected, probably one zone higher.

 

[Freelanderuk]

3-hours is long time on a saddle, indoor and outdoor. Refuel is vital in that kind of long training session, better take enough drink and energy gels and bars next to you or banana or at least something to eat.

Most of my rides are fasted including this 3 hour one this morning , I use energy tablets that Aldi sell for 75p a tube in my water and that’s all I have, really burns the fat 😀 down another 2lbs this week😀 be catching up with Carl soon if he is still trying to loose a bit😂😂

 

[steverob]

I think I would be inclined to have small variations in power over the time frame, some at 200w some at 170 etc.. just to vary the workload, rather than a static 190w for the duration

I did something similar the last time I went for a PR up the Alpe. Set up a custom workout that had a 15 minute warm up (figured it would take me about 10-12 mins to get from the Jungle spawn point to the Alpe, then could just hit the button for next segment at the start), followed by 21 segments of either 185, 190 or 195 watts picked randomly (180 is bottom of Zone 3 for me). The time period for each segment was set to the time I took for each bend on my previous PR - that way I could then see if I was up or down on my previous time.

Of course I forgot that on my previous Alpe attempt that I went out too hard and was suffering by the end, so when doing the workout ride, I was over a minute down by bend 17 (e.g. I was passing through the virtual arch long before I reached the next bend), but then started pulling it back slowly over the course of the second half. So much so that I reached bend 1 (where the workout ended) about 2 minutes up, still with fresh legs. Decided to then try Zone 4 for the last bend to the finish and even sprinted to catch another rider as I approached the line and completely smashed my PR by almost 3 minutes as a result!

 

[JuhaL]

Most of my rides are fasted including this 3 hour one this morning , I use energy tablets that Aldi sell for 75p a tube in my water and that’s all I have, really burns the fat 😀 down another 2lbs this week😀 be catching up with Carl soon if he is still trying to loose a bit😂😂

If and when your weight go under Carl's you can call him as a sandbagger and complain how sandbaggers ruin a ride again

 

[Freelanderuk]

If and when your weight go under Carl's you can call him as a sandbagger and complain how sandbaggers ruin a ride again

Will have to loose quite a bit of height as well to get near Carl’s weight other size it would be like looking at a bag of bones riding😆

 

[JuhaL]

Will have to loose quite a bit of height as well to get near Carl’s weight other size it would be like looking at a bag of bones riding😆

Mind as well we can count weight/height ratio so you don't need to look like concentration camp prisoner

 

[Randyberlin]

Ok. Off topic but a really good read. @Norry1 's coach wrote a book that is a history of a bicycle race in Ireland but is way more. It is filled with the stuff you would expect.. characters like a circus strong man living in the woods with a goat to train for the race... Betty Bassett types who ride long miles to get to races then ride home.
But also insight into the Irish politics and it's weird affect on bicycle racing the last 60 years.I had no idea.
The best thing is he is a really good writer. Its very entertaining and extremely well written. Some stuff that stuck with me was his description of fellow riders when he asked about one dominant rider. The way he wrote about their struggle for words in itself said a lot about the rider.

 

[Whorty]

Most of my rides are fasted including this 3 hour one this morning , I use energy tablets that Aldi sell for 75p a tube in my water and that’s all I have, really burns the fat 😀 down another 2lbs this week😀 be catching up with Carl soon if he is still trying to loose a bit😂😂

Only managed 2:25 in the end. Finished the PRL Half course then a few minutes cool down. I think that proves I'm not quite ready for ToC just yet

 

[JuhaL]

Only managed 2:25 in the end. Finished the PRL Half course then a few minutes cool down. I think that proves I'm not quite ready for ToC just yet

I just check your ride from Strava and i would say that well done ride, heart rate was basically even. Maybe not ready for ToC but not far away either .

edit. don't know but weird that fence is not been used in group rides recently. Must be some issues with fence, can't see other reasons why not use it. Because of that group rides are more like semi races for now.

 

[Brusgaard]

I just check your ride from Strava and i would say that well done ride, heart rate was basically even. Maybe not ready for ToC but not far away either .

edit. don't know but weird that fence is not been used in group rides recently. Must be some issues with fence, can't see other reasons why not use it. Because of that group rides are more like semi races for now.

Yes, the fence has been disabled by Zwift, as it is buggy. Last ride I did with it enabled, riders were zapped left and right, including me.
Not once did I pass the fence, and even with the fence 20 meters up the road, it randomly told me to get back in group. After doing that about 10 times, I and about 50 other riders got zapped.
However, we continued more or less at the same speed / wkg as the group ride. We finished about 1-2 minutes later than the remaining group riders, due to them travelling faster in a big blob.

 

[Whorty]

I just check your ride from Strava and i would say that well done ride, heart rate was basically even. Maybe not ready for ToC but not far away either .

edit. don't know but weird that fence is not been used in group rides recently. Must be some issues with fence, can't see other reasons why not use it. Because of that group rides are more like semi races for now.

My HR wasn't too bad ... in the 180 watt segments it was around 150, and the 200 watt segments about 157. Legs were tired at the end for sure