Overcoming Doubt

Today’s blog post is more than four years in the making. In the Summer of 2018, I released my novel, Status: Activated and in preparation for the release, I wrote a mini-series on this blog about the inspirations and influences behind the novel. In both of the posts I published, I mentioned a future installment where I would discuss George Lucas’ influence on my novel. Yet that post never made it out of my drafts.

The influence of Lucas on my novel came in two main areas. One was the way in which Lucas describes the six Star Wars films he was involved with as the story of Anakin Skywalker, yet it could only really be argued that he is the main character in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. This was a concept I liked, albeit never got to utilise since my series never progressed beyond the first novel. I did however have a loose plan for at least three more novels, and whilst John Staunton was the main character of the first novel, Lara Taylor was to have been the main character across the series, as well as the main character in the second and fourth novels. Switching up the main character allows the exploration of different themes without burdening one character with an unbearable amount of drama and trauma, which appealed to me whilst I was mapping out the future installments.

The second influence also revolved around the character of Anakin Skywalker, specifically the way in which it is clearly apparent that when Lucas started writing what became A New Hope, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were different characters. At some stage before the release of The Empire Strikes Back, this had changed. There are those who use this as a criticism of Lucas, highlighting the rather clunky “From a certain point of view” explanation as proof Lucas didn’t have everything mapped out from the beginning. Which of course, he didn’t. No one can have a fully formed idea for six films before even the first film has come out, and I actually see the willingness to adapt or completely change an idea as a positive attribute. I definitely tried to keep an open mind throughout writing my novel, telling myself that just because one idea was already written down, that didn’t mean that it was a better idea than the one forming in my mind.

So why didn’t the blog post come out in 2018? Having read through the draft again, I’m really not sure. Occasionally when writing a blog, I’ll find that the act of writing things down is enough to organise my thoughts on a topic, and publishing it is an unnecessary step, but this definitely wasn’t one of those occasions. Other times I start a blog but cannot think of a way to end it, and whilst that was possibly the case here, I could quite easily have come back to the post the following day and been able to work through the ending, as everything else was in place.

It is more likely that I just decided that the post wasn’t very good and scrapped plans to publish it. I have hundreds of draft posts I’ve scrapped for this very reason, though the irony here is that this particular post was planned to promote my novel. If you asked me what I am most proud about regarding the novel, it wouldn’t be the characters, the pacing, the humour or indeed anything else related to the actual content. It would be that it actually exists and is available for anyone to read, and if they wish, to critique.

Writing the novel took me two and a half years, and there probably wasn’t a single day in that period where I didn’t question whether I was capable of completing the project. I would tell myself that I hadn’t read enough novels, hadn’t studied how to construct a narrative or write compelling, believable characters, that I didn’t understand how to edit or any number of other limitations. Yet each time I questioned myself, I pushed through, reminding myself that each of these challenges was an opportunity to learn more about myself and more about how to construct a novel.

The biggest challenge was definitely finding the acceptance that this was not going to be a perfect novel. The perfect novel of course does not exist, but it is something which you strive for anyway. My battle was always the third act. It always felt rushed, and trying to find the right balance between creating a finale full of drama and excitement whilst staying true to the tone and the characters established in the rest of the novel was something I never truly felt happy with. It improved over time, but eventually you reach a point where you have to decide whether to accept the imperfections and publish the best work you are capable of, or to keep striving for something that is likely never to happen.

I’m proud that I took the decision to share the novel with the world, even if the world didn’t notice. The project was complete, and regardless of my overall opinion on the novel, I was able to take great satisfaction from that. And as I was reminded of reading through the old draft of the George Lucas influences post, an idea can always be adapted and improved moving forwards. I could re-edit the novel, or revisit my plans for the sequel, or take what I learnt and apply that to a completely different idea. Doubt is normal, but if you can find a way to overcome it, it will feel particularly rewarding.

Journalling into 2023

I started a bullet journal in 2019 in response to my attempts to paint. I enjoyed the idea of painting, particularly the pace of the activity and the headspace I could find during the early stages of each painting. Unfortunately most of these attempts would end in frustration as the painting never ended up looking anything like I’d hoped for. The bullet journal was an attempt to capture that headspace but without the frustration.

Since all of my non-work goals were related to running at the time, it became an alternative way to track my runs. Garmin Connect and Strava are fantastic tools for tracking individual activities, but I had always found the weekly and monthly views rather limited. I developed a very simple system. I bought some squared paper and coloured pens, and then logged my monthly runs using 1 square per kilometre and a different colour for each location. I then added symbols to denote the type of session and type of surface for each run, and very quickly I built up a much better understanding of not only my overall training volume, but how much variety I was getting too.

I kept up the journal throughout 2020, but by the end of the year it felt like it had served its purpose. The message about the importance of variety in training no longer needed reinforcing, it was deeply ingrained, and the act of creating the journal felt more like an obligation than a way to relax and slow down. So I put my pens and paper away and reverted to Garmin and Strava for monitoring my training.

2023 will be different. One of the biggest challenges of 2022 has been adapting to doing more different sports on a regular basis. Not only have I had to learn from my own mistakes, it has exposed the limitations of Garmin Connect and Strava. If you stick to one primary activity, the data it provides in terms of your fitness specifically for that activity tends to be pretty accurate. However, if you regularly do two or more different sports, then the data about both your overall fitness and your fitness specific to each activity becomes less and less accurate. My VO2 Max has plummeted in recent weeks as I’ve reduced the number of runs I’ve been doing and whilst it is quite probable that my VO2 Max has decreased, given the volume and quality of my training on Zwift, it seems unlikely that the decrease has been as drastic as my watch is telling me it is.

There are also goals which a fitness tracker cannot inform you about. My main goal this year is to become a greener athlete, particularly when it comes to purchasing, or not purchasing, new kit. There are probably some budgeting apps I could use for that, but the more apps you use to try to monitor something, the less likely you are to pay attention to it.

A journal feels like a better solution for next year. I’ve given my journal the title “Happier, healthier, greener”, and what I record will fall into one of those three categories. I will record things like my weight, my activities each day and what I ate and when, but the comments around how I feel in terms of my health and happiness will be more important. For example, I know that changes in my pre-sleep routine have impacted how much sleep I get each night, which always has a big impact on how I feel the following day, so I’ll be recording what I did before going to bed and how well I slept.

The idea is to get a snapshot of each day that I can refer back to. Sometimes it is easy not to notice changes that happen gradually, meaning you can lose sight of the impact that is having. For example, yesterday I wrote about going to the cinema. When I was living in London, I made a conscious decision to go to the cinema more often, and was glad I did. By contrast there was never a conscious decision to go to the cinema less frequently, and it took a trip to the Showcase to watch Avatar to remind myself of what I’ve been missing out on.

My hope in writing today’s blog is that I can commit to the journal and use it to achieve my goals for the year. 2023 has the potential to be a very good year for me, with changes that could shape certainly the next decade of my life, if not beyond that. Those changes will not be easy to implement however. There are challenges I’m aware of now, and challenges that will arise unexpectedly, but they are also challenges which can be overcome. And the first step comes with some paper and some coloured pens.

Avatar: All of the Water – Worth Watching?

I don’t often put a lot of thought into which cinema I go to for a given film. Often it is just the nearest cinema to me at the time, particularly if it is a major new release with plenty of screenings each day. However, for Avatar: All of the Water, just any cinema didn’t feel right. It is the type of film which you want to see on the best screen possible, but more than that, I wanted to go somewhere which would hopefully help me to reconnect with the cinema experience.

When I moved to London in 2013, a trip to the cinema became a regular part of my life. In 2016 I averaged more than one film every week, and I would see anything and everything. This year however those trips have been fewer and fewer. Prior to today, I had only been to a cinema to watch The Batman, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Everything Everywhere All At Once and Jurassic World Dominion. I regretted not watching Top Gun: Maverick at the cinema, but with films like Thor: Love and Thunder, I was more than happy to wait for them to be available on streaming or rent them on the Play Store. Whilst that specific example is probably a reflection on the overall response to that film, there have been films which received even less favourable reviews which I’ve enjoyed watching in the cinema, and when you are watching a great film in the cinema, it is a truly fantastic experience.

I therefore chose the cinema where I enjoyed the greatest film experience of my life, which was Jurassic Park at the Showcase in Coventry. That film was one of those moments where all the stars align. I was 6 years old, right in the middle of an obsession with dinosaurs. I’d been to the cinema only a handful of times before, enough times that I didn’t get restless but few enough times that there was still a novelty in going to the cinema. The visual effects astounded adults, so you can imagine what it felt like as a 6 year old. The ‘magic of the movies’ will never surpass that day for me, so if there was one place to go to rediscover that, it was the Showcase.

For those unfamiliar with Coventry, the Showcase is a multiplex on the edge of the city. Whilst it might lack the convenience of the Odeons which have been based in the city centre, the site does offer a lot more space. This not only means more screens, but also bigger screens. Today I went to the biggest screen they have, which also offered huge reclining seats and an enormous amount of legroom for every seat. I’m not sure whether every screen is quite so spacious, but it meant that even though it was pretty much full, distractions from other members of the audience were minimal and distant.

There’s not a huge amount to say about the film. In terms of the visuals, it is truly spectacular. There are several sections of the film where not much is happening, and yet I was absolutely fine with that because the sights and sounds were engaging enough. There is an extended action sequence in the third act which is a particular highlight. A few films recently, particularly Thor: Love and Thunder have visibly been rushed into production, but you can really see that time, thought and a lot of effort has gone into making this film look and feel as good as it is possible for a film to look today. There will be blockbusters for the next 10-20 years which don’t look as good as this, because though the technology will continue to advance, time won’t always be made available to implement that technology successfully.

The plot is not something to spend much time thinking about. It gets the characters to different locations and yet in a narrative sense doesn’t really go anywhere. The characters are okay. I at least knew who was who, which wasn’t always the case with the first film, but I didn’t really care about any of them. The fact that this franchise isn’t based on any existing media means that the story and the characters could go in any direction, and whilst I certainly didn’t hate the direction any of them took, I wasn’t surprised or intrigued by it either.

Despite that, it did the job I was looking for. It reminded me why it is worth going to the cinema rather than just waiting for a film to arrive for home viewing. It’s a much better way to experience the art form, and it doesn’t have to be a blockbuster. Indeed, some of my favourite cinema visits whilst I was in London were to watch thrillers like Gone Girl and Nightcrawler. I don’t know what the next film I watch at the cinema will be, but I do know I’m not going to wait around 6 months for it.

My Tiny Race Series Debut

Having completed Alpe du Zwift yesterday, I wanted to round off my pre-Christmas training with a race. My criteria was simple. It had to start mid-afternoon, and had to look fun. After a short amount of scrolling through the Zwift Companion app, I found what I was looking for – the Zwift Insider Tiny Race Series.

This series consisted of four races, and though it was possible to only enter some of the races, the vast majority of people entered all four. The races started every 15 minutes, though the length of each one meant that I was never in danger of missing the start of the next race. The first race was just 2.95km, and the races then got progressively longer until the final race over 7.41km. All of the races started from the same place on the same route too, meaning that although I wasn’t familiar with the route beforehand, by the final race it was only the final 1.8km which was new to me.

If you’ve never seen a Zwift race before, they always start at a frantic pace. Even on long courses with plenty of opportunities to make an attack, most riders seem intent on trying to thin out the peloton as quickly as possible, and when you race over 2.95km with no real hills to negotiate, that process becomes even more insane. My average power was only 1W lower than the guy who finished 10th, but my lack of familiarity with the course proved my undoing and I finished 72nd out of 90.

I was hoping that with the first race out of the way, things might start to settle down a bit, but that really wasn’t the case. Race 2 was probably my worst race of the 4. I tried to follow the group for as long as I could, but realised that I wasn’t strong enough to sustain that beyond the first kilometre or so. I dropped back to 84th place, albeit the field did grow to 97 riders for that race.

By race 3 I realised it was pointless trying to stick with the early pace of the peloton. Instead, I let the group go, settled into my own pace and then tried to pick off other riders who had failed to sustain the pace of the peloton. I was almost last at one point, but was soon making up places. I also noticed that the same riders were around me from the previous races. I took on my favourite role of freelance domestique, taking some long turns on the front of each small group I found myself in. I know it’s not the smartest way to race, but I find the role strangely satisfying. I was back up to 72nd place, and though the field for the third race was only 83 riders, my average power was actually 5W higher than on race 2, despite the cumulative fatigue (I had done a training ride before the races plus parkrun this morning) and the route being 950m longer.

Going into the final race, I applied the same tactics. I knew that there was actually a bit of a climb to negotiate this time so tried to hold a little bit back for that, but still did my turns on the front of whichever groups I found myself in. At the bottom of the climb, I found myself with two other riders. One was 59kg and managed to put about 18 seconds into me on the climb. The other was 75kg and put about 5 seconds into me on the climb. Given there was only about 2km left, I thought both were gone, but decided to push on the descent, catching and passing the 75kg rider within sight of the line and reducing the gap to the 59kg rider to 6 seconds. That was good enough for my highest placing of 71st, albeit the field was now down to 82 riders.

I had been looking for fun and this certainly delivered. The short races don’t really play to my strengths – I don’t have particularly good peak power, though I can sustain a solid power output for a long time. The fact these races didn’t suit me wasn’t a problem though. If anything it was a good thing. As a training exercise, it was fantastic. Four efforts of between 4 and 13 minutes with recoveries in between, and a level of competition to encourage me to push to my limit. The social aspect of the series was really fun too, seeing the same names in my groups each race and trying to see who I could get the better of each time. It is certainly something I’ll keep an eye out for in the future.

Conquering Alpe du Zwift

When I set myself the target at the start of this month to climb Alpe du Zwift by Christmas, I thought it was a generous timeframe for a fairly modest goal. I was confident I was physically capable of completing the climb without any extra training, but in buying myself some time, I hoped to be able to pace the ride well enough to enjoy it. I was all set to take on the ride on Sunday, but had an issue connecting my phone to the trainer which took a couple of days to sort (if you find yourself with the trainer connected but ‘No signal’ showing, I eventually resolved this by unpairing all of my other Bluetooth devices and then restarting my phone and the trainer). Then I had a couple of days where I was feeling under the weather, meaning that I woke up this morning knowing it was virtually now or never in terms of doing it before Christmas.

Thankfully there were no signs of the cold that I’d been battling earlier in the week, though I was conscious that if there were any lingering effects, going deep in terms of effort was likely to expose that. I took the ‘Road to the Sky’ route which gave me about 5km of mostly flat roads to cover first, which I used as the gentlest of warm ups. All I wanted to do was settle into a nice cadence of 85-90 rpm, using the easiest gear available to maintain that cadence.

On the climb itself, that meant the easiest gear on my bike. The first time I rode on Alpe du Zwift, whilst I was in the same gear, I was using a higher cadence. I had felt like I was holding on before I’d even reached the first hairpin, and whilst I was able to battle through to 30 minutes on the climb, I was never sustainable.

Today though was an entirely different experience. My speed was a lot slower. Zwift breaks the climb into segments between the 21 hairpins, with varying distances between them. What I was finding was that segments which had taken me 4 minutes at the start of the month were taking 6 minutes today, meaning that I did have to revise my expectations around how long the climb would take. But my heart rate was much, much lower too. Between bends 13 and 12, my average heart rate on my first attempt was 175 bpm, whereas today it was 129 bpm.

The effort felt strangely easy. When I started riding on Zwift, a 10% gradient always felt like it needed a big effort. Today there were times where the gradient was in double figures and my heart rate was actually dropping. It would have been one of those days where I questioned the accuracy of my heart rate monitor, but for the fact that I was breathing normally and not sweating too much either.

The physical demands of climbing Alpe du Zwift is apparently very similar to climbing Alpe d’Huez. But I definitely found the experience a lot easier than I think I would have done had I attempted the ride in the Summer, even assuming identical fitness levels. Firstly, when I was in the Alps it was incredibly hot, whilst my flat was at a pleasant temperature this morning. Toilet breaks were easy, and I had access to whatever food or drink I wanted without having to carry any of it with me. However, I think the biggest factor was the data I had available. I was mainly focused on my cadence, using my heart rate primarily to spot whether any fatigue was setting in. I knew the exact gradient at all times, and knew how far I had to go too. Whilst you can get pretty much all of this data on a top end head unit, on the road you can only ever glance at the information briefly because your attention needs to be on the road ahead to you. Not only could I look at this data throughout on Zwift, I could take my hands off the bars whenever I felt uncomfortable or wanted to wipe away some sweat without having to worry about keeping control of the bike.

These might seem like minor details, but it just made the whole equation a lot simpler. My time was a relatively modest 1 hour 44 minutes, but I finished feeling relatively good. When I’m in peak running form, 1 hour 44 minutes is a comfortable Half Marathon, and that is what this felt like. My heart rate remained in zone 2 for the vast majority of the climb and peaked at 150 bpm. I even started utilising a few of my other gears closer to the top of the climb, and now I have a baseline of what a steady, sustainable effort looks like over the full climb, I can start to think about where I can push a little bit harder without going too far.

The Goal Of Becoming A Greener Athlete

Over the years my running goals have had common themes. Lose weight has quite often been one, run faster and/or further is nearly always another and occasionally I’ve identified a challenge which pushes me outside of my comfort zone and towards achieving something for the first time. In 2023 my main objective is just to enjoy whichever sports I play, and although some of those previous goals could help me achieve that, running faster or even achieving something new doesn’t necessarily equal having more fun. Quantifying fun is always tricky and whilst I might start journalling again to track that, I’m going to look elsewhere for my 2023 goal.

Interestingly a topic I’ve been considering for a few weeks is also a topic covered in the latest edition of Runner’s World, which is being a greener runner. The article is by Damian Hall, who is the co-founder of The Green Runner, whose members pledge to improve on one of their Four Pillars. One of those is how you speak up, which I guess I’m doing with this post, and the other three are around the three areas where runners contribute the most emissions – how to eat, how you travel and how you kit up.

Despite the fact that I would like to lose weight next year, I won’t be making any pledges around what I eat. In part that’s because I have already made several greener changes in recent years, most recently substituting cow’s milk for oat milk. However, when I tried to entirely give up meat and dairy in 2019, I went too far the other way, losing weight far too quickly and regularly feeling physically drained. A more balanced approach with an eye towards a greener diet is a more accurate description of what I’m aiming for next year.

Travel is a tricky one for me to commit to as well, since I’ve already signed up for two Marathons next year, one of which is in York and the other is in Connemara in Ireland. But both of these are holidays for me as much as they are running events, and I very much intend to keep holidays as part of my life moving forwards. I will spend more time looking at the greenest options for those trips, but my bigger focus will be on local commuting. Whilst I generally walk any journey less than 2 miles, there are a number of journeys longer than that where I could cycle instead of driving. Last Summer was a step in the right direction, but I can do a lot more next year.

The area where I’m setting my primary goal is in regards to my kit. It is a very ambitious objective, but it isn’t impossible that I could go the entirety of 2023 without buying any sports clothing, shoes or equipment. The only exceptions to this would be anything which can make a big difference in other aspects of becoming greener. For example, it would be easier to justify buying a cycling rucksack if that was going to make the difference between me riding or driving to work. I do actually have a couple of rucksacks already, but if a similar scenario presents itself and I don’t already own the necessary kit, then those are the occasions when I can invest.

Historically these types of purchases have only accounted for a small percentage of my overall running purchases. The majority are either replacements for shoes I have deemed to have reached the end of their life, or just the allure of having new kit to wear. On the latter point, a lot of this is vanity. It’s nice to have new kit for a running event rather than being pictured in kit you’ve worn many times before, but if that kit is still perfectly functional, why replace it? There are things I’d rather spend my money on.

Kit that is no longer perfectly functional is a bit of a different challenge. I could get better at repairing my kit. Last year I threw out a pair of otherwise very good running tights because I ripped a hole in the knee after falling over. Had I asked, my Mum probably would have sewn the hole up and whilst some of the stretch in the fabric would have been lost, they would still have been fine for the majority of runs.

There have however been occasions where I’ve worn through huge sections of the sole of my shoes to the point where it creates an imbalance when I run, and that type of issue you can’t really repair. What you can do however is ask whether you actually need to buy a replacement pair. Whilst I wouldn’t recommend ever going down to only one pair of shoes, you don’t need the perfect shoes for every run. Indeed, a lot of my runs are on a mixture of terrains or at a mixture of paces, meaning there is no perfect shoe for the whole run. If I find myself with one fewer pair of road shoes, why can’t that be an incentive to do more trail running, or get on my bike instead?

My drawers and cupboards are already packed with running kit. To be honest it would be a struggle to fit more in, so I’m particularly well stocked for this challenge. Given the financial savings on offer, I have plenty of motivation beyond being greener too. But ultimately the great attraction of running is that it can be a pretty sustainable activity, depending how you do it. I’ve been doing okay so far, but I can do a lot, lot better.

Ramping Up

12 months ago an extended spell of cold weather like we’ve had over the past fortnight would have left me with a daily dilemma in terms of exercise. The risks of running when it is cold, dark and icy are not inconsiderable, though I’m sure I would have been tempted into running for fear of my fitness regressing by not lacing up and getting outside. However, this year everything has been simple. It has been an easy decision to jump on Zwift each day, and whilst time will tell what state my running form is in, my cycling form has felt like it has been increasing at a good rate.

I’ve been doing the ‘Back to Fitness’ training plan, which I picked partly because it is only two sessions per week, and most of the sessions are 30-45 minutes long. That felt like something I could fit in around running, and though I haven’t run for almost two weeks now, it is a 12 week training plan. I’m intending to start my Marathon training in the New Year, so it was important to pick a plan which I could do alongside that. This week’s sessions both focussed on high cadence work, and this is something I’ve enjoyed about the plan. There are sessions where the focus is on building power or endurance, but also sessions which are focussed on technique, which is something I’ve never really given much attention to on the bike.

This week’s two sessions were separated by a ride on the ‘Mountain Route’, which can be found in the Watopia world. The route is 30km, which made this my longest ride on Zwift to date, and features the Epic KOM climb. The climb is 9.5km at an average gradient of 4%. The gradient isn’t constant, with a few downhills and false flats, but I found most of it pretty comfortable. My Strava data shows my average heart rate was 139bpm, and I found that I was concentrating on my cadence as much as anything else, on the basis that if I got that right then everything else would follow.

If you choose the Mountain Route, when you reach the summit of the Epic KOM you don’t get a downhill to recover, at least not immediately. Instead, what you get is the ‘Bonus Climb’, which is 1.1km at an average gradient of 14%. Needless to say this was no longer in my comfort zone, but I was pleasantly surprised when my attempt to power my way all the way to the top actually worked. The numbers I was putting out felt like ones I wouldn’t have been able to sustain for 5 minutes a few weeks ago, yet alone 8 minutes.

That climb gave me the idea to try a ramp test today to see whether my FTP had increased. My first FTP test was a 20 minute maximum effort, but the ramp test offers a different way to estimate your FTP. You start off at 100W, and then every minute increase by 20W until you cannot go any further. Because the Zwift Hub adapts the resistance throughout, you don’t have to change gear or really think about anything beyond continuing to pedal.

My FTP going into the ramp test was 208W, and since the FTP should theoretically be the maximum power you can sustain for one hour, I knew that the first 6 or 7 minutes should feel fairly easier. After that I knew that eventually things would start feeling tough, I just didn’t know exactly when that would be or what it would feel like.

It started at around 300W. I wasn’t tired in a normal way, but suddenly the legs felt a little bit heavier. It was like using the leg press at the gym – if you set the weight perfectly, the first few reps will feel quite easy, but by reps 8, 9 and 10, it will feel hard, even though the weight hasn’t changed. The only difference here was the ‘weight’ was increasing every minute. From being able to sustain a pretty consistent 90rpm from the start of the test, it started to drop. Initially it was a small drop, but then the resistance increased again, so it dropped much quicker. I realised that the end was quickly approaching. The test will only calculate your FTP based on your average power across the last full minute of riding (i.e. starting at the point where the resistance increases), so I knew that I wanted to make it through to at least make the final effort count. Pedalling was becoming really difficult, and when the resistance went up again, it wasn’t even a question of whether I wanted to continue or not. I couldn’t continue to pedal, so I clicked that I was done.

My FTP came through as 241W, which is a sizeable increase on 208W and a huge jump from the first FTP test when it was 176W. In part that would be down to better technique, and I also think the ramp test suited me better. With a 20 minute effort, it is difficult to reach your limit because you know it is possible to tip over and blow up before the end. With the ramp test that was never going to happen, I just had to push until my legs stopped going round.

I’ve definitely improved in terms of power and endurance though. After the ramp test I did my cool down in the Paris world. I took most of it very easily, though did make one 20 second sprint effort. Not only did I record more than 500W on Zwift for the first time, I maxed out at 599W and probably could have pushed a little harder than that too. Tomorrow I’m going to do some form of long effort. I haven’t decided what yet as I haven’t checked which worlds are available or which events are taking place, but I should be my longest Zwift ride and knowing my FTP currently sits at 241W will definitely help me pace that.

The Alpe du Zwift by Christmas Challenge

I’ve decided to take a bit of time away from running. Not completely cold turkey, and if I feel in the mood for a run, I will. But the last few weeks have been plagued with a minor heel injury and some mild illness, as well as a fairly inconsistent schedule. That inconsistent schedule is going to continue for at least one more week, and that has meant that settling into a routine of running has been a challenge. Motivation has also been a challenge. My next Marathon is in April but I have no performance goals for that event. I want to be fit enough to enjoy it, but the training block won’t start until the New Year. I could try to find a short-term goal, but nothing has captured my imagination, at least not from a running perspective.

By contrast, Zwift has really captured my attention. I’ve been able to train even when my heel is hurting, and on days when I have been feeling under the weather, rather than facing actual weather I can stay indoors and take things nice and easy.

Or indeed not so easy. I felt pretty rough on Friday. I already had Saturday planned as a recovery day in case I had a few drinks at our work Christmas meal, so even though I only had a couple of drinks all night, Saturday played out in a similar fashion. I felt a lot better than I did on Friday, but other than a few short walks, I did no exercise all day. This morning I was again feeling better, but the cold temperature left me wondering whether a long run was a good idea. I quite often pick up colds in the 48 hours after a long run as a long run does have a short impact on your immune system during your recovery period, and that wasn’t what I needed right now. So I decided to jump on Zwift and load up the Road to the Sky route, which is the shortest route to get to Alpe du Zwift, the Zwift recreation of Alpe d’Huez.

I find it odd that you can’t just start at the bottom of the climb. Of course warming up before you start something like that is very much recommended, but I’d prefer to have complete control over that myself, rather than have a few kilometres of gently undulating roads to negotiate first.

When I did reach the climb, I was glad to have seen the real thing in the Summer. When you see the speeds top cyclists can maintain on a mountain when watching on TV, it can be easy to think that the gradients aren’t particularly significant, an impression often reinforced by the camera perspective. But some of these climbs are just as steep, if not steeper than many of my local climbs, and much, much longer.

Alpe d’Huez is a slightly unusual climb in the sense that the gradients are fairly consistent all the way up. On the plus side, if you are able to settle into some sort of rhythm, you should hopefully be able to sustain that for a while. On the downside, there are no real flat or downhill sections where you can try to recover. If you blow, the rest of the climb is going to be a sufferfest.

When I started today, I didn’t really have a set goal in mind. Alpe du Zwift is a lot longer and harder than any climb I’ve attempted in real life or on Zwift, and since the only reason I was on Zwift today was because of my recent cold, I didn’t want to completely destroy myself. But I also wanted to see how far I could get. Eventually I settled on the idea of doing 30 minutes on the climb, which saw me reach bend 11 (the bends count down from 21).

As a training exercise, today was incredibly useful. The whole 30 minutes felt like a hard effort, which resulted in my FTP rising to over 200W, which was a figure I barely dropped below across that 30 minutes. Fatigue hadn’t started to impact the power I could produce when I stopped riding, but it certainly wasn’t something I could have sustained for another 30+ minutes. I didn’t really feel like I could have taken things any easier though, so the only way to combat that is to get fitter.

I hadn’t reached the halfway point on the climb, so it is likely that the climb will take me more than one hour. That’s a little daunting, but also useful to know as I can plan how much fuel I need on hand.

But the most useful part of the ride was that it has given me something to aim for. Next weekend I’m planning to go again, maybe pushing to 40 or 45 minutes and see how far that takes me. Then at some stage before Christmas, I want to try to do the whole climb. The good thing about the Alpe du Zwift climb is that it is found in Wattopia, which is always available to ride. Therefore unlike the recreation of Mont Ventoux, which is only available to ride on specific days, I can attempt Alpe du Zwift anytime, so I can wait until I’m feeling good. That goal is much more appealing than trying to reach a certain FTP, even though the training which will get me to that point is basically the same.

The Safety Net

The more sessions I do on Zwift, the more I enjoy what the platform can offer. Monday’s session was an easy one, which was exactly what I was looking for on the back of my long run on Sunday. Easy sessions should be a part of any training plan, and the biggest challenge is always not going too hard. Theoretically I could have done the same session on the road. I’m a pretty fair-weather cyclist so that was not going to happen, but if I did, I could have attempted the same session – it was the ‘No Nonsense’ session in the ‘Back to Fitness’ training plan, which was built around three six minute efforts at 165W.

However, on the road maintaining 165W is tricky. You might hit a headwind or a hill, or have to adapt your effort levels around the traffic. On Zwift, you have no weather or traffic to deal with, and although it can simulate hills, if you are following a training session the resistance will adapt to the level required for you to be able to stick to the power level you are aiming for. If you are on a bad day the ‘easy’ effort might not feel easy (though you can adjust the bias mid ride to compensate for that), but you won’t produce more power than you want for more than a second or two at most.

Thursday’s session was a little harder, but actually served as a good warm up for the 7.2km race I had lined up immediately after. After being dropped almost immediately in category C, I reverted back to category D and whilst the initial pace was quick, I was able to stick with it for a while. Then after about 2km the smallest of gaps started to open up. There were a couple of riders ahead of me, and I briefly hesitated as I waited to see whether they would respond and try to close the gap. They didn’t, and by the time I got to the front, the gap had gone and it would have taken a massive effort to bridge across.

Since the group of 7-8 I was with was going pretty quickly as it was, I decided to stick in for another kilometre. I then spotted that although the group in front had gone, there was a solo rider stuck in the gap in between the groups, about 20 seconds ahead. I made it my mission to bring that rider back, and did a big turn on the front to eat into the gap. A few other riders seemed to spot what I was trying to do and started to help out too, and we managed to catch the rider before the final kilometre.

It was a strangely satisfying moment. I had helped to bring back one rider in a field of 56, meaning that I now had a shot at 17th rather than 18th. Ultimately I finished 22nd, and might have finished higher had I sat in the group, benefitted from drafting and then had the energy to attack at the end. Yet I felt like a Tour de France domestique, sitting on the front of the peloton to bring back the break in the hope of my sprinter bringing home the win.

Since that wasn’t what was happening, I thought I might as well try a sprint. The earlier efforts had taken a little bit of the spring out of my legs, but what I lacked in explosivity, I tried to make up for through effort. I went deeper than I’ve gone on Zwift before, and definitely deeper than I’ve ever gone on the road.

Riding fast on Zwift isn’t as exhilarating as it is on the road. There isn’t that sensation of speed, with the sound, the wind and everything else that entails. There also isn’t the danger, and yes, the sense of danger can be exciting. But no one wants to fall off, or go so deep that you are no longer fully aware of your surroundings. If you run out of energy halfway through a ride on the road, you still have to find a way to get home. If that happens on Zwift, you can just end your session early.

What Zwift offers is a safety net. You can’t crash, you don’t have to think about traffic, or about the corners which are coming up. There’s of course an element of danger in terms of overexertion with any form of physical activity, but if you pair a heart rate monitor, that information will be clearly displayed on the screen so gives you every opportunity to avoid that scenario. I don’t need that safety net every time I’m on a bike, but it is a nice option to have available too.