Australia Eastern time, Sydney & Melbourne. When you move one way, we move the other a week or two later. Current time diff is 11 hours, it'll go to 10 in March for a few weeks then to 9, then 10 then 11 as the cycle completes so not ideal either.
Ahhh - I hadn't realised it was different times to us. I know America change was usually 1-2 weeks different to UK/EU as always causes chaos with Zwift ride timings...
Garmin is the worst motivator ever.
Made me laugh, Garmin 'random number generator'!
Whoop is a bit better but does 'massage' a bit too much, other times says something without really explaining 'why' it's got there, so can feel you don't have much of a coach. I was
overreaching on Monday (15.8 strain), then same
again on Tuesday (16.4 strain) after having not ridden since Thursday so neither felt that hard... Then same again last night (18.2) - but that was
probably more accurate after
doing 2 TTT's in a row on Yorkshire with 4x Pot Bank.
There was a conversation back in the spring on 3R Discord where Garmin told Cat she was under-training and needed to increase her volume.
She is nearly always averaging 30-35 hours per week & over 1000km leading doing the same group rides week after week...!
I'm just going for consistency again. There is the 'tour of Bristol' in April that I wouldn't mind doing and may do it solo but going to stick to a plan until then. Also, I find it hard to cram in a lot of hours a week so my plan is to do my main days on Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Do a half hour Z2/Endurance ride on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then a 'longer' - for me 2-3 hours is about the max I can get away with, ride on either Saturday or Sunday.
Consistency is big, but also with your training. Having a bit of a routine to settle into, with breaks/recovery also 'planned' to make sure you give the adaptions to the training and improvements regardless of the sessions involved. Some of them can be hard to measure and longer term so sticking to the plan to get there is almost harder than the sessions - as a lot of it can be mindset. Sometimes 'free your mind and the legs will follow'.
Frustrating to be stuck around 300w for so long but such is life eh!
It's a nice figure to be 'stuck' at. I've come to the realisation these days I won't improve much. I'm mid-40's and it's hard to sacrifice any more time, or any more focus, to improve... I'm better being consistent and that has been a big thing for me since covid times. I'm much happier riding my bike, when I don't have a goal, but also when I don't have big 'peaks' - as there is nearly always a big dip afterwards. Being consistent keeps me in good fitness, can just ride what I want, when I want and when convenient/easy to do. The number of times before when going well I'd have a week off the bike for a holiday, then spend a month getting back to the same level. These days with a week off, usually within 2 I'm back to where I left off.
For me my FTP fluxuating 240-280W with my weight also around 75-80kg depending on season and training was a battle. Now I'm more like 250-270W and 76-78kg constantly. Zwift is a big reason for that!
Solid effort! I'm not brave enough to turn my TD higher than what appears to be around 80%. I have 52/36 on my bike with a 11-30 cassette on the trainer and if the TD was any higher I don't think I'd get up some of the hills with my gearing. I like to think my change to 75-80% is something like a 50/34 11-34 but it feels good enough to me
Interesting as have my difficulty the same, I like to feel the gradient as suits my style of riding - punchy.
I'm riding 50/34 and an 11-28t cassette and nearly always in the top 3 cogs (11-12-13). During a TTT on some flat parts or racing downhill I will spin out 50x11 very easily, so much so last time I changed my chain (4-5 weeks ago!) the indexing was off and couldn't get into the 11t, tweaked/indexed but then some skipping and it not quite 'right' with it falling back to the 12t at the most annoying points. Figured a new cassette... Got a R7000 in BF deals, fitted it last weekend and still get the occasional skip back to 12t. The RD won't adjust out far enough so a job this weekend is to re-do the limit screws... Possibly even a spacer needed on the freehub, bit weird as it didn't need one before with the 5800 11 speed so shouldn't now with the R7000 11 speed!
Do think even with my TD set similar to yours I might have something else going on... My FTP is around 260-270W at the moment, I'm going well, but still don't think I should be spinning out a 50x11 on the flat... Out on the road doing similar powers on flat roads with 50/34 & 11-34t I'm nowhere near the top of the block. I'm hardly ever as high as the 11t even when going downhill!
Kinda' regret changing my hours from work as it was really nice being able to get my training out of the way with before going to work but life is currently lifing.
