Tonight’s Zwift Group Workout Series: A Bit Of Speed Too!

TRI247 Workout Series #73 – A Bit Of Speed Too…

Wednesday, 22nd May 2019 7.00pm UK time on Zwift

(ZWIFT LINK >>> https://zwift.com/events/view/190551)

Here are the details of tonight’s weekly TRI247 Workout Series group session on Zwift. Your Editor has put together a session to help address one the areas that we don’t typical address as triathletes – speed!

The ‘A bit of speed too…’ session

Steady state / even-pacing / low variability index; however you want to term it, keeping your cycling efforts relatively smooth (because we have to run afterwards), is the characteristic and objective for most triathletes, especially as the distances get longer.

Sometimes however, you need to go fast to get faster, and that is the idea behind tonight’s “A bit of speed too…” session.

After a progressive warm up and some ‘primer’ efforts to get us ready for the main workout, the session includes three block of ‘traditional’ sub-threshold / sweetspot / FTP type efforts. Each one is followed by a set of short, but high(er) intensity sprint efforts with short recoveries, to briefly get us away from our typical triathlon training comfort zone. The aim is to be able to develop that top end power, but doing so while fatigued.

Fear not, the sprint efforts are certainly ‘Tour de France sprint finish max effort’ type levels, but should be sufficient to wake up any sleeping fast twitch muscle fibres that have been lacking a bit of action!

Ride Leader

Leading tonight’s session will be Gary Craig. Gary is known as ‘Keen as Mustard’ at his club, Hillingdon Triathletes, such is his passion for all things Triathlon.

He’s a regular at the Blenheim Palace Triathlon ‘Weekend Warrior’ event (back-to-back Sprint triathlons for two days), and in 2018 completed his first full distance event at IRONMAN Wales in Tenby. He enjoyed it so much, he’s going back again in September. Fresh (?!) from racing the Outlaw Half on Sunday, join Gary for this varied session

Join us at 7p.m. on Wednesday 22nd May 2019 (UK time) on the virtual roads of the new Fuego Flats section in Zwift. Set your reminder now on the link below or via the Zwift Companion app.

[TIP – It is always worth having the (free) Zwift Companion app to hand on your mobile device. Within the workout screen you can toggle your FTP by +/- 10% ‘on the fly’, which will immediately change your power targets during the session. Legs feeling heavy, can’t quite hold your power targets? It happens! Rather than can the session, how about moving your targets down 5% first, before giving up completely? Alas, the body isn’t a machine and can’t always deliver as you hope/think it should, so a bit of flexibility and not getting too obsessed with the numbers can be a good thing!

On the flipside, perhaps you are having a good day or increasing the overall training stress of the session better meets your own training goals for that day? In that case, you have the option of nudging your baseline up in the same way.]

Join us at 7p.m. on Wednesday 22nd May 2019 (UK time) for another quality workout. Set your reminder now on the link below or via the Zwift Companion app.

The session is genuinely open to everyone of ALL abilities. Group workout mode works fantastically in Zwift and ensures that the power targets are tailored to YOUR level. It makes no difference if your FTP is 400 watts or 100 watts, the targets you see will be specific to you – all while being part of the on-screen group.

[To set your reminder, click here: https://zwift.com/events/view/190551]

You can find the custom workout files from all of the previous TRI247 Workout Series sessions on these links, to download and do ride again in your own time:

Custom Workout downloads from previous Zwift sessions:

• Lucy Charles ‘Over-Unders’
• Lucy Gossage ’12 Days of Christmas’
• Lionel Sanders ‘Intervals’
• Joe Skipper ‘ Burner’
• John Levison ‘High Five’
• Ruth Purbrook ‘Over Gears’
• Tim Don ‘Comeback’
• Reece Barclay ‘Mix Session’
• Harry Wiltshire ‘Grim Reaper’
• Paul Shanley ‘Pyramids’
• Karl Alexander ‘VO 2 The Max’
• Jenny Gowans ‘Norse Steps’
• Matt Bottrill ‘Lactic Builder’
• John Levison ‘Russian Steps’
• Sam Begg ‘What Goes Up, Must Come Down’
• Paul Shanley ‘70.3 Minutes’
• Karl Alexander ‘The 13:50 (10 to 2)’
• Richard Stannard ‘FTP Advancer’
• Race Force ‘ChainGang’
• Simon George ‘The Giant’
• Natarsha Tremayne ‘Stomp The Pedal’
• Chris Standidge ‘The Championship Decider’
• Lesley Levison ‘Spiked Tempo’
• Bex Rimmington ‘ Maximal Efforts’
• Coach Kevin Poulton’s ‘Progressive 11’s’
• ‘The Kitchen Sink’ – set by TRI247 Editor John Levison
• John Levison ‘A Bit of Speed too…’
• ‘Glasgow Revisited’ – John Levison
• ‘Club Relays Madness’ – John Levison
• ‘John Levison’s A Bit (More) Speed Too’
• The Dragon – John Levison
• Sweetspot with a Kick – set by TRI247 Editor John Levison
• John Levison’s ’40/20’s FTP Booster’
• Micro Burst Intervals
• Short and Sweet(spot)
• Micro Burst Intervals 2
• Sweetspot Sandwich
• The Sweet Ladder
• 50 Shades of Power!
• Lucy Gossage’s New Year Set
• Paul Lunn’s Kona Quest
• Progressive 4×4’s
• Louise Minchin’s Dare To Tri Big Gear Set
• Gill Fullen’s Lactic Legs Challenge
• Steve Clark’s Ramp It Up To The X
• Hywel Davies’ Hurtbox Time Bomb Intervals

Joining Instructions:

The workout will begin promptly at 7.00pm UK time, Wednesday 22nd May 2019. It is worth logging in 10 or 15 minutes before the session to make sure you are set up and ready to go, where you will be able to warm up in the virtual ‘holding pen’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNTXAkky4qE

Look for the TRI247 Workout Series event in the list on the right of the screen once you have paired your sensors. Click to JOIN and you will be taken to the start line ready to begin the workout.

Make sure you have set your FTP level correctly before you join the workout as all the intervals are based on a percentage of FTP so it is important to get that right. If in doubt, dial the FTP number down 10 or 20 watts as it is better to finish the session than to feel like it is too challenging.

If you have never used Zwift before but don’t want to miss out, head to the Zwift support page for tips on how to get the most out of your setup.

After the session head over to the TRI247 Facebook page for some post ride chat.

Zwift Group Rides: TRI247 Workout Series

The cool thing about a group workout on Zwift is that varying levels of ability can ride together in a group and all finish the session together having done the same relative effort, even if the actual watts are significantly different. It is not a race, but a shared goal to get a good session in the training log.