The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

Martynt74 said:
I'm not sure any intense workout is enjoyable. Certainly not at the time!

I had an enforced Z2 ride on account of 1 deraillieur battery being flat. So did the whole ride in the small chainring!
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Short and intense I can handle and usually the more intense, the more rest and recovery and the shorter the session. I just bought another training plan on training peaks. Honestly I am not really looking to follow a training plan at the moment because its "summer" but I do find myself on the trainer more than outside at the moment due to our lovely weather and honestly, for ~£25 I bought it partly just for the workouts. I have quite a nice set of workouts on trainingpeaks now that I can play around with and use when I want to do an indoor session.

I will probably follow the program come winter but for now I just want to pick some workouts when I need them.
 
platypus said:
How do I correct the date of a zwift ride folks? I noticed the system clock was wrong midway through a ride and synced it thinking nothing of it, now its got me down as having done todays ride yesterday (started with the clock on the 14th)!
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Is there a way to export the file from zwift or another platform that is linked to zwift? You could almost certainly change the date in the file at that point.

The other thing to check is whether whatever app is the primary logger/capturer of the data isn't on the wrong timezone or something like that.

I don't think there is any way to manually change it in zwift unfortunately.
 
dod said:
didn't know that, means I'm still drinking far too much. Is it the same for all coffees or just some of them?
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Oh, I think I google'd this later and found it not as bad as 30%. I think the point being though, Decaf does have caffeine in it, when you might be expecting it to be caffeine free. (Depending which source, I can see articles saying between 2 and 10%)
 
AndyCr15 said:
And that's point 3, a lot of people think sleeping pills are the answer, but of course they aren't. Try things like bananas, kiwi, cheese, and milk. I believe all are supposed to help you sleep.
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As someone currently on a very short course of super addictive sleeping pills I can confirm that they are awful in the long term for your sleep patterns.


I’m only allowed to take them 2nights in a row and need a 3 night break. They don’t put you to sleep but in a more susceptible state for it, but if the problem is in your head then your body will sleep but your brain won’t. So the day after taking one I’m groggy like I’ve never been before because my brain hasn’t switched off, it’s just been put into an altered state.

I’ll be off them soon but they really do not give you a proper sleep nor do they make you feel refreshed.
 
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Oh I wasn't looking for a sleeping pill per se. Just a supplement that helps my sleep after a hard workout in the evening. I have never taken sleeping pills and wouldn't want to either.
 
fez said:
Oh I wasn't looking for a sleeping pill per se. Just a supplement that helps my sleep after a hard workout in the evening. I have never taken sleeping pills and wouldn't want to either.
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Why can't you go to bed a hour earlier and get up a hour before everyone else to do the workout? I've switched from straight after work to the crack of dawn for my outdoor workouts and loving the new routine.
 
Trifid said:
Why can't you go to bed a hour earlier and get up a hour before everyone else to do the workout? I've switched from straight after work to the crack of dawn for my outdoor workouts and loving the new routine.
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Because I would be up at 5am for some of them and I am very much not a morning person. I tried to do a ride at 5:30 one weekend and it took me a good hour and a half to wake up properly. I could move my entire schedule but thats not really ideal when you only need to be up early a few days a week.
 
fez said:
Because I would be up at 5am for some of them and I am very much not a morning person. I tried to do a ride at 5:30 one weekend and it took me a good hour and a half to wake up properly. I could move my entire schedule but thats not really ideal when you only need to be up early a few days a week.
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I wasn't a morning riser either, used to really value spending at least an hour slowly waking up slowly in bed and tearing myself out at 8am for work. I'd say you get used to it, I even like the excessively long mornings on my rest days. And being out on the roads with pretty much no cars makes it all worth it.
 
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fez said:
I don't think I have asked this here before but if I have, apologies. Does anyone else struggle to sleep well after training in the evening. Did a VO2 max session from 8-9pm last night and as usual, struggled to fall asleep and didn't sleep well once I did. I often end up eating afterwards because I have a light dinner around 18:30 and I want to give my body some calories to recover and compensate for the 600-1000 I usually spend on the trainer.

I often have a shower and try to keep it relatively cool to bring my core temp down but does anyone have any other tricks. Heard some people talk about supplements that help them sleep better after night training. Any thoughts?
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I'm a "late night" trainer (usually 8pm or later in the week, as I rarely finish work before 7). If I've done a hard workout (intervals or similar), I usually try to go for a short walk outside to help me cool down, and have an easily digestible meal afterwards - something carby but easy to digest (eg pasta) seems better than something hard to digest, even it if's lighter.

I also keep a tub of melatonin next to my bed. I rarely use it - maybe once a week, and only at a low dose - but I think that a lot of my past sleep issues came from anxiety about sleeping. The melatonin works really well for me when I do need it, which means that I'm no longer anxious about falling asleep and therefore have less need for it. My understanding is that it's not illegal in the UK, but that you cannot buy it here without a prescription. So I just buy a big jar of it from CVS whenever I'm in the US.
 
I think the problem is likely just being a bad sleeper and then making it worse, so it's unlikely a supplement would help, as rubbish as that is.

I'm unsure if it's something you can try and train yourself to be better at. I know when i used to play footy, if we had a 10pm kick off, i wouldn't be home till half 11, then would shower and get in bed and it might take a little while to drop off, and that was with the ~35 minute drive home after playing.

I think maybe just try and avoid intense VO2 max type sessions late on and just keep a nice easy Z2 effort?
 
manic111 said:
I'm a "late night" trainer (usually 8pm or later in the week, as I rarely finish work before 7). If I've done a hard workout (intervals or similar), I usually try to go for a short walk outside to help me cool down, and have an easily digestible meal afterwards - something carby but easy to digest (eg pasta) seems better than something hard to digest, even it if's lighter.

I also keep a tub of melatonin next to my bed. I rarely use it - maybe once a week, and only at a low dose - but I think that a lot of my past sleep issues came from anxiety about sleeping. The melatonin works really well for me when I do need it, which means that I'm no longer anxious about falling asleep and therefore have less need for it. My understanding is that it's not illegal in the UK, but that you cannot buy it here without a prescription. So I just buy a big jar of it from CVS whenever I'm in the US.
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Hmm

You think it would be possible to get a tub shipped to the UK? (I don't travel to the US often unfortunately and I think it's ridiculous you can't get the stuff here)
 
fez said:
I don't think I have asked this here before but if I have, apologies. Does anyone else struggle to sleep well after training in the evening. Did a VO2 max session from 8-9pm last night and as usual, struggled to fall asleep and didn't sleep well once I did. I often end up eating afterwards because I have a light dinner around 18:30 and I want to give my body some calories to recover and compensate for the 600-1000 I usually spend on the trainer.

I often have a shower and try to keep it relatively cool to bring my core temp down but does anyone have any other tricks. Heard some people talk about supplements that help them sleep better after night training. Any thoughts?
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Lots going on here that is impactful to sleep.

Training late throws a lot of hormones around the body and there is a post workout comedown period to deal with, especially with higher intensity sessions such as VO2 max sessions. Next up eating late triggers the body in to processing the food, and unless you literally eat yourself in to a food coma this generally also has the opposite effect. It stimulates the body, gives it work to do and so it isn't preparing to shut down for the day. Lastly the cold shower is another negative, you don't need to be dropping the core body temps for sleep, in fact a hold shower to try and cool you off is again going to heighten alert systems in the body and delay and usual bedtime shutdowns. This is a reason why cold showers are a morning routine recommendation as well.

If you are going to exercise late, make it a lower intensity session, don't eat a lot after, make your actual dinner more substantial (effectively preload) and if you feel the need to maybe a recover shake or equivalent after. Ditch the shower or at least the cold part of it, have a nice warm shower to clean off, not cool off. All these things added together with maybe some sleep supplementation if you are still struggling (zinc magnesium melatonin) and you should have much reduced issues.
 
robj20 said:
I never thought I would get there, but I've finally got to 49 VO2MAX on Garmin.
I wonder if I can get into that Superior bracket.
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Grear work. I was up at 51 from 46 at the start of the year and i think 51 was my peak when i was fittest a few years ago. Annoyingly my watch is showing it crash down to 46 with a couple of easy weeks. Although could also be the heat impacting the calculation.
 
Martynt74 said:
Grear work. I was up at 51 from 46 at the start of the year and i think 51 was my peak when i was fittest a few years ago. Annoyingly my watch is showing it crash down to 46 with a couple of easy weeks. Although could also be the heat impacting the calculation.
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Mine goes down if my low aerobic work triggers a performance condition which I think is 70% HR.
But as soon as I do some outdoor or high aero it comes back up.
 
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