The Zwift Insider Tiny Races on Saturdays are incredibly popular, four short races within an hour, great for z4+ and recovery training.
Article about weekend just gone, typically we are told the routes around Wednesday before.
All about this week’s routes and last week’s results.
zwiftinsider.com
They've been very popular, lots of hype about them!
Also there's the new World Indoor Cycling Rankings (WICR) series. Seems to have had a popular start and exploded so the organiser struggled and round #2 in December had less races so it might not expand much more until he gets some help. Lots of people who got bored of ZRL seem to be riding it so it's got very competitive.
https://worldicr.com - Riders are able to dip in and out as they want to, the points going towards their club.
I'm just about to start
the DiRT series as a mini stage race (6 races in 20th - 3rd Jan), actually riding NOT with R3R again (with TBR). The days I'm racing with R3R tags could be numbered. Best group and endurance rides on Zwift, but the Race team seems to be almost dead. Just no drive, recruitment or leadership, the only focus being on the Development team(s) to prepare riders for the e-Pro team (r3r-nopinz), but they're soon going to find there's no crowd left to draw them from... Without me and 1 other leading there would be no FRR or ZRL teams. Without me and 2-3 others herding we'd have no WTRL TTT teams. Sucks and quite depressing!
I think I am set on doing Z2 + a Zwift race. I had planned Sunday off due to work, but also took Monday off the bike as my hamstrings were killing me from basically doing 9 hours of squats and lots of walking on Sunday. Today, despite being sore I felt better after my post work ride then I have in quite a while.
See that just sounds like a massive shock, if you where already quite fatigued and under the weather. Even if you where recovering, a massive load like that on top of it just knocks you back further. You talked about plateauing but how where your last 3-4 weeks before that? A plateau is quite natural if you've not fully recovered from previously load, it's can almost be like feeling you're on a downward spiral. When all you need is a bit more rest to recover from the efforts. Never forget that it's the recovery which makes us stronger - not the training/strain itself. A plateau is sometimes finding that new 'base/normal' but only really if you've not peaked/strained before it and are just adapting to a constant.
My volume is far less, but I do tend to be a 'creature of habit', adapting to constants and just pushing through. But my volumes tend to be racing, so they're short 'spikes' not a massive load which take days to recover from. I've always 'prided' myself on having a strong base - riding all weathers and my commute every day. But lets be honest, I'm riding <20 mins per day at high-tempo with maybe some threshold peaks. There's no 30-40 min trailer rides towing 40kg anymore to give me a base (walk kiddo to school). So my commutes are such a short time & strain it can't really give that much base training.
But when you throw the Zwift racing I do - generally an hour TTT bouncing at threshold, or races where I'm very much just doing intervals. I don't take any extra rest for those, they are my 'normal'. So that is my base. I take enough 'rest days' during the week (can't ride every day so it's a race Tuesday - ZRL/DiRT/TFC - with TTT Thursday) and my schedule being so consistent that gives me my rest days (without 'booking them in') to build and maintain that base. The only other riding I generally do is on weekends. Then it's far more endurance based - with the club outside for 3-4 hours on a social (generally easy riding with hill efforts), or 2-3 hours on a Zwift Group ride, generally at tempo but sweeping so again several minute efforts with lots of rest between. They're fundamentally very similar kind of 'strain'. I have got conditioned to riding that most weeks without any additional rest, but my riding infrequency and short commutes gives me that rest and my body has just adapted to it. That's the base.
For FRR kinda proved I can ride 'every day' at that high intensity (did 10 days of racing in 9 days) and still push good numbers. Not going to say it didn't hurt and fatigue, but the base was there so was able to push through it and perform. I did take an easier week afterwards (by skipping the Thursday TTT), but did feel like I could've done it without suffering too badly (as rode a TTT on the Tuesday, slightly easier but still in good form so not a big strain).
They normally have a counter on the back but the last one didn't. This was the only trouble I was having until Christmas when spending time at my parents house with their cat was making my breathing laboured, fortunate to have not gotten ill in that time as that usually causes big problems. Night and day difference and feel so light on my feet again. Hopefully all that oxygen starved exercise will have made improvements in the background now that my breathing is normal again.
