Zwift. Is it any good ? Should I try it ?

Q. Zwift any good ?
A. Yes and No.

First of all let me just say that I would recommend you use a power meter or smart trainer for these apps. If you think your Fluid 2 alone is good enough then have a look at this video.

I'll come clean right away and tell you I have used Trainerroad for many years and for 'Training' it is fantastic. The User Interface has everything you need for specific workouts and the training plans are really well thought out, it's very very good indeed !

      Stick some music on, follow the graph and keep that wee white ball where it should be. Simples !


So, that was Trainerroad and this blog is about Zwift but I just wanted to give you a bit of background for what is to come next.

Zwift in workout mode just isn't as good as Trainerroad, There i've said it Trainerroad blows it out of the water.

                                                             Too much useless info ?

The above shot shows a virtual cycle around a virtual island, there is a schedule down the left so you can see what's to come in the workout. The top middle shows some useful info but NOT your average power for the lap. The 'wee white ball' does this well on Trainerroad. The bar on the right is useful in another aspect of Zwift but completely superfluous in workout mode. The HR line and graph at the bottom are just stupid !

So although you will hopefully get your workout done, the user interface needs a complete overhaul.

Zwift for group riding?  I hear you ask.

Yes, Yes YES.


The various group rides and races are brilliant !
This is what Zwift was made for. Have a look at Zwift  Events and you will see a whole host of rides, usually there will be a description of the event PLEASE read this and follow the instructions :)

                                       Me on one of  the MGCC Winter Rides

If you just want to get the lie of the land then may I suggest the ZZRC sub 2 ride or if you have decent ability the sub 3 ride. The 2 and three refer to Watts per Kg. If you don't know then stick to the sub 2 for now and go back through my blog posts.

                                   The very interesting WBR Buffalo Herd Ride

For races there will quite often be A to D categories based on your FTP Watts/Kg. Some events have a one lap warm up where you must stay with the leader followed by a two lap race. Others are handicapped in such a way as D'd start first followed 2 mins later by C's and so on look for the MGCC ( in the winter ) for these ones. Another good one was with WBR Buffalo Herd ride on a Saturday where the leader messages various drills to do during the ride.

So is Zwift any good ? Yes and No :)

Upgrading Mountain Bikes to 1x11

First of all let me tell you that upgrading to Shimano M8000 XT 1x11 is easy and should not pose any problems as long as you have a half decent bike tool kit.

I have built up a collection of tools over the years some have become obsolete and new ones have appeared.

I was quite fortunate as all my bikes have an BSA 68-73mm threaded bottom bracket.

I first started on a Cube LTD Race, 26er from around 2007. This had a Shimano triple. I bought all necessary upgrade kit from Evans Cycles.

When finished the bike was about 500g lighter ! I added some Absolute Black chainrings to my collection at this stage also.

Now the kits came with an 11-42 cassette, but I wanted more range so I purchased the One Up Shark which gave me 11-50 !! I also could increase the chainring to 34t or even 36t.

Above pic is not the finished article, this was a start there were more developments later on so stay tuned.

Flurry Of Activity and a Triathlon, Modifications and Mountain Biking.

Seems ages ago now but on 19th March 2016 I completed a Wee Triathlon. It was actually called 'The Wee Triathlon'.
I chose this one because, well I can't really swim ! Last October I got into the pool and could swim only 20m before I had to stop for a rest. This Triathlon had a 400m pool swim which I thought I might be able to manage. During training I managed to get my time down from 25 minutes to 16 minutes. During the Triathlon I did it in 12 minutes.

My finishing times were as follows

I'm happy I managed the swim without panicking/drowning. I also enjoyed the cycle and run, which were quite hilly.

I also got a new bike and did a lot of work on it and the other bikes since I had two weeks off work.

First changed rims on new bike and went Tubeless

Then serviced the Reba forks

Took the both the new bike and the Cube with the serviced forks out on a 48 Km ride with various off-road terrain types. The 26er hardtail Cube was better on steep uphills ( it's lighter ) but the 29er FS was a lot better on technical descents.

Overall they both did the cycle in exactly the same time !

We also took the 29er and a Cannondale Prophet 26er FS to a trail center and found them to be 'overall' about the same and as much fun as each other.

I my age, for anything really rough I'm going to use one of the FS bikes every time, for forestry roads with lots of climbs its the Cube.

The Best Heart Rate Zones For Running ?

From around 2010 through most of 2013 the slightest bend of the knee in the wrong direction could result in painful swelling for days or weeks.

After much hard work I have recently, quite hesitantly started running again. It's slow, more like gentler jogging. As with the cycling I am trying to follow some sort of plan. With cycling I could use power zones along with heart rate zones, with running it's going to be pace zones.

I established my pace zones by putting my time for a given distance into a pace calculator.

Here is one from Runners World but there's one on Strava settings if you use that and they both give the same result.

So here's mine. Yes the pace is very slow, if you've had my trouble over the past few years you will appreciate my softly softly approach. Something else I needed was heart rate zones.

Now there's the easy way to get HR zones and then there's the better way ! You could work out you're max HR by going for a run and getting steadily faster until you eyes pop out of your head, then set up your zones as percentages of this. It's better than using 220 minus your age but it's still not right.
It does not factor in your resting pulse like this.

Look at the formula box to see that resting pulse is a factor of the zones, it's added on. I used this method up until last year when I started training on the bike. I then discovered the Coggan method of using your Lactic Threshold Heart Rate. I established this on the bike by doing my 20 minute power test to find my Functional Threshold Power. This is fully explained HERE. 

So what I did this time was find the last run I did for an event, which is where I ran as hard as I could for 40 minutes, my average HR was 178. This gave me the following zones.

What did I hope to gain from this BETTER method ? Hope fully a correlation between running pace zone and HR zone. Now I know from my cycling power zones and HR zones that there is always some overlap, and that this would probably be worse with running especially when there was any sort of gradient involved. Here is my first try at running in Pace and HR zone 2.

I'm pretty happy with the results. 85% in pace zone 2 and 96% in HR zone 2 ! You may have noticed that I have six pace zones and only five HR zones ? Well I'm going to wait and see if I need to adjust things. I am doing mostly zone two running with one of either tempo, VO2max or Threshold per week so it may take a few weeks for me to decide what to do, if anything.

Watch this space and hope I don't get a knee injury.

One Year Gone

I have now past a year since returning to cycling.The last few months I have been doing a lot of standing up on the pedals for short periods when out cycling, something I could still not do without feeling a bit of knee pain.

Although I am Totally Metric, I also completed my first ever 100 mile cycle.

A great Highland Cycle, I took it easy and felt great at the end. Probably won't match this distance again until next summer. So far this year I have clocked up 3500 Km cycling.

You can see it's my best year yet.

My knees have been feeling so good I took an extraordinary step last week.  I went for a run !

Now during my years of unending knee pain and swelling I visited three different physiotherapist, all of them told me my running days were probably over. I may be pushing the boat out a little too far here but I want to give it a try.

I did get a bit carried away and went a wee bit too far and fast for someone with my knees.

So to set the record staright I went out again a few says later and went a bit shorter and slower !!

Both these runs were done in fields of stubble, as the weather gets worse or thses fields are ploughed I will have to do some running on the road. I was told about Hoka One One running shoes. After a bit of research I purchased these.

 I have made up a couple of workouts based on the pace guides from runners world I have from years ago. These pace zones tie in pretty well with the zones generated by Strava.

Yeah the pace zones are fairly lethargic, but bare with me. Proper specific training has helped me over the last year and I'm hoping it will help me with running too.

Why Are The Government Making You Fat ?

I'm going to cut straight to the answer for those of you who get bored with reading. It's very profitable for big business that's why. Yes it's all about making money. Still with me ? Want to know more ? Here's how it's happening. You are being told to eat far too many carbohydrates, mostly in the form of sugar. A recent critical analyses study into the treatment of Diabetes with a low carb diet was packed full of useful information.

The table explains that the obesity epidemic started after carbohydrate intake reached 43% of total daily calorific intake. For a man eating 2500 calories a day this is 269 grams per day.

So lets have a look at the government guidlines in the UK.

Well what do you know ? The UK guidelines say you can eat 300g a day. For a man that's 48%, way over the amount that causes obesity !

So why are the government advising you to eat far too many cabohydrates/sugars ? I told you, money.

There are eight advisers to the government on Nutrtion and 5 of them are in the pay of sugar and confectionery companies.

You can read the full article HERE

So how do you lose all that fat the government and big business have been feeding you. You eat fat, that's right, eat less carbs and more fat. Eating fat does not make you fat, carbs do.

Eating fat is healthy there is no link between fat ( whether saturated or not ) and heart disease. In fact it looks likely that Carbohydrate intake is linked to coronary disease.

Even our 'Fast Diet' friend Dr Michael Mosley has now been convinced that we had it all wrong.

A low carb. high fat diet is the way to a healthy life, I know I'm on one. 

Carbohydrate Intake During Exercise

I'm sure you all know that in order to maintain your ability to run or cycle over 90 minutes you must intake carbohydrates. Certain companies who supply carbohydrate powders and gels would like you to take up to 90g per hour.

I'm no expert but I do like to experiment with my training and nutrition. Since October 27th 2013 I have been mostly on a Low Carb High Fat LCHF Diet.

It's great ! Initially on exercise days I ate more carbs especially on days with long and/or strenuous cycles. Lately I have been reducing the amount of carbohydrates consumed on exercise days.

For example, I would consume around 50g carbs on a non exercise days and up to the government guideline amount of 300g on a workout day. ( WARNING: If you follow the governments advice on Carbohydrate intake, you WILL get fat ! )

Now it's around 150g or less more when exercising. I don't even bother with the essential post workout carb intake. I just have protein.

Lets go straight in and look what I did at the weekend.

A 4 hours cycle over 100km

You can see average heart rate is 149 BPM, for me this is classed asTempo (Zone 3)as per my LTHR zones.

 My effort was averaged out as 139 watts which is Endurance ( Zone 2 ). There's always a wee bit of crossover here depending on other factors.

Anyway after 90min I really should have been tucking away up to 90g carbs to keep my muscles going right ? Well no.

What I had was one scoop of High 5 2:1 Energy Source in each 750ml drinks bottle which lasted me the whole four hours. Each serving ( which is two scoops ) provides 44g carbohydrate. So I only consumed 11g per hour. No cramp, no exhaustion.

Ah, maybe I just scraped home before my carb supply ran out. Well luckily I have been monitoring my blood glucose during this experimental period. If I have two Weetabix ( under 30g carbs ) for breakfast my blood glucose after two hours in around 5.5-5.8 m/mol. Immediately after this ride it was 5.8 m/mol.

Wait a minute, if I had consumed all those recommended carbs I would have done a much better job right ?

Let's see.

Trust me, that's the same ride from three weeks ago. Shows how accurate the Garmin is when you look at the Km. Anyway, I knocked 10 minutes off the ride time and with a lower heart rate and power output than in this one.

Food for thought, so long as you keep your carbs lo :)

#LCHF

Using A Power Meter: Power Curve.

In my effort to combat the effects of arthritis I had managed to overcome the knee pain hurdle by slowly increasing my cycling distance and intensity. I also had a cortisone injection !

Having made some good gains cycling outdoors I could see myself losing this initial fitness during the winter so bought a turbo trainer and joined Trainer Road. Full details of this are HERE.

The decision to buy a power meter was made easier with the introduction of the Stages Power Meter, why ? Price. I did consider the Powertap G3 hub, but the hassle of having to get it built into my wheel put me off, it would have meant a week of missed training with me driving to our NOT LOCAL bike shop.

So now I've used power for training, what next.

The other thing Trainer Road does with my data is that it builds up a power curve. It uses the power I am able to produce over given time periods.

It builds a graph with this data. All the above data has been gathered during my training sessions which have been Sweetspot Intermediate Base 1. I won't show you the program, you'll have to join Trainer Road.

I also use Strava, and the premium version will also build a power curve for you. I upload my Trainer Road workouts to Strava but I can also include my outdoor rides.

Today I went out and did a 30 second all out sprint, and then a 5 minute paced effort, they were both on uphill Strava segments.

http://app.strava.com/activities/121733658

You can see three of my attempts on this segment. Position 3 and 2 were last year when I had started building my strength outdoors. In October I beat my September result by pushing the lap button and trying to beat my previous speed.

I achieved my fastest time yesterday by pushing the lap button and simply looking at the Watts I was producing. Time and speed were not an issue, I knew it would be 5 or so minutes and what wattage I hoped to produce.

Overall on the segment this gave me a pretty good result.

I did well, segment wise and I also gleaned valuable power information. I actually paced the 5 minute effort, based on recent efforts so that I didn't blow up halfway into the 5 minutes.

I now know that I should be able to maintain 267 watts over 5 minutes.

The Strava curve also gives you Watts/Kg.

Now for comparison. My 4 w/Kg would make me CAT4. The pro riders are pushing out 6-7 w/Kg !

So to stand a chance I would have to increase my 5 minute power from 267 watts to 462 watts !!

After my training is done I'm going to be doing an FTP test, more about that later.