Just a quick post to wax lyrical about how much I am still taken with my Wahoo Kickr fixed bike turbo trainer and Zwift virtual cycling software combination together with the Strava fitness recording app.
Work has become pretty hectic recently to the point where taking a lunch-hour run feels almost impossible. That combined with my long commute makes it very difficult to maintain any sort of level of fitness. We all know how hard it is to get home in the dark and to go for a late run or head to the gym. And if you do the gym those repetitive laps or hours on a spinning machine can be quite soul destroying.
But with Wahoo and Zwift I’ve discovered a secret weapon. I can get in by 8:15pm and have a 10 mile high intensity cycle ride under my belt before 9pm. More than that – I actually look forward to it! It’s fun to ride alongside other cyclists (albeit remote) from all over the globe. We race against each other, egg on each other and encourage each other. Then when I finish I can indulge my manly love of stats and my competitive urge by logging on to Strava where I get to see how I’m improving, who else was riding around the same time as me and how my efforts compared to theirs. I see how I’ve done for particular segments of the course compared to others and my own previous efforts
There’s an excellent community springing up around Zwift as well. Facebook is full of fascinating posts discussing everything from what your particular set up is to the setting up of virtual clubs and teams for friendly rides and full out competitive races.
And every session can be different – you can go for long “recovery” rides or short burst HIT sessions, or focus on the sprint or King of the Hill sections. Take last night for instance. Late in and food almost ready I still managed to get a worthwhile 15 minute High Intensity session in where I completed a couple of sprint challenges. As can be seen from my fitbit details below I was hitting 150bpm for the sprint sections
One frustration I do have at the moment is that the Zwift app at the moment only really allows you to see who else is riding and (if you’re actually on the course at the time) your current basic stats.
But the Zwift desktop app shows you all sorts of interesting information like speed and power distribution graphs and Zwift appear to have big plans. They’re going from free beta to monthly subscription shortly, then they’re introducing training sessions to complement the course rides already offered and sometime next year the full app will run on iOS and hopefully android.
I for one can’t wait
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Eat see hear Cardiff 