Ok so I’m locked down, unable to ride much outside let alone race. What can I do to tie me over? Join Zwift of course!
So I did that and after 2 weeks I found myself getting sucked into and hole of pushing too hard and overreaching. I noticed even steady endurance rides on the platform turned into flog fests where everyone started racing and measuring their manhood. For example, I joined a group ride with some friends some of which are probably a lot less fitter than me. I found it hard to even hold a wheel and these dudes were flying. It certainly wasn’t the tempo ride I was told it would be. I got pretty annoyed and jumped out and back into trainer road for the ride I was looking for.
So does all this virtual doping and doctoring of numbers really benefit these dudes i real life? Hard to see how it does.
So by trying to keep a little bit of social normality and riding with these dudes on Zwift I found that after 2 weeks my training schedule had gone to pot and I was sucked into doing overly hard workouts and races that I feel are to my detriment. I get using it as just entertainment and doing the odd race but I think that doesn’t even do much to help with training in the long run and trows you off course a bit. Also the repeated crashing of the app is frustrating and its hard to justify given the price.
Anyone else experience this? Or do I need to work around it and give it some time?
Yeah I had a similar experience. My trainer came with 30-day free Zwift, so I thought this is the perfect time to use it. For the first two weeks or so I was on there 1-2 times a day. And just like you I was pretty much always just blasting it.
But for me personally the novelty of it wore out relatively fast and I got kinda bored by Zwift. But I have to say it was a nice distraction and sometimes it’s good to switch things up for a while. I think it was what I needed to get my motivation back for structured training. Now I’m back on TR laser-focused on the Plan, getting faster.
Massive Zwift fanboi checking in. Why are there so many Zwift posts on the TR forum? I come here to get away from it.
What you’re looking for is discipline. A good training program requires it. It’s not optional. You’ve also shoehorned in a crack at the app crashing and the price. Irrelevant sideshows to the main event you’re posting about, your training. Channel that energy into better training focus.
Same. I did 2 races, a very long ride and an easy spin in Z last week. I did 1 of my 4 TR sessions.
I was over planned TR TSS for the week (fine as I’m furloughed so have better recovery, actually hit my planned increased number) but the quality/style of sessions were a million miles away from plan.
Will stay more on plan this week. Have a race and an easy group ride today on my TR rest day though. Prob be a 120 TSS day based on the last 2 weeks.
Also just to get back to what you said about needing good focus for a good program. Where Zwift is concerned it is much harder to stay focused as I feel as everyone is always showing their worth. also the riding around thing doesn’t do it for me. I suppose trying to compare TR and Zwift is apples to oranges but to me Zwift is not a good one and only training tool in my opinion.
I think it’s the nature of “social riding” that leads to this.
As @GPLama mentions, if you go for a bunch ride, unless you all agree before the ride it’s going to be an easy one, you’ll take it harder than a simple recovery.
So, either group up with friends who agree on the objective, or just focus on TR.
I can’t do Zwift, it just doesn’t work for me.
I completely understand why other people do, however, and I think it’s very well done.
If I want to get away from TR, i load a GPX route on my garmin for the moment, or, looking forward, I might try fulgaz or rouvy.
At the moment, I can’t justify the increase in TSS. Staying focused on the plan
This sums up my thoughts pretty well. Zwift is a lot of fun and I like a ego-motivated smashfest as much as the next person, but it’s not great as a complete training tool- and with limited funds I can’t justify paying 2 subscriptions, so TR is way better value for me personally.
App stability issues should be raised with customer support, personally I find the iPad app and BT connection to be much quicker and more reliable than the PC app and ANT+ connection. YMMV. FWIW I also think the pricing is fair - developing and maintaining a virtual reality world on that scale and quality with tens of thousands of concurrent users is a whole different ballgame from a tech perspective to an app with very simple graphics that usually works offline with one user (notwithstanding the new group workout feature).
In terms of training/racing, Zwift is what it is. It’s just like racing or group riding in the real world. Or going to a popular local loop or route on a sunny Saturday morning when there are hundreds of riders out and you’re constantly passing, being passed, having people sit on your wheel, etc (e.g. Box Hill or Richmond Park if you’re near London). Great for motivation and distraction when you need it, the time flies by much more quickly than watching the clock tick down on an interval, and you can often push yourself harder chasing a wheel than you can chasing a power number. But it’s not structured. Either limit your Zwift riding to a couple of days a week when you need something different to keep you fresh. Or learn to zone out and just do your own thing regardless of what’s happening around you (I’ve never learnt this!). Or just go into erg mode so you don’t have the option to chase wheels. Though then I’m not actually sure what the point of Zwift is - the point for me is having a social and interactive world to ride in, so if I’m ignoring those aspects I might as well just watch Netflix while doing my workout.
You can but to be honest I find them a bit pointless. Whole point of Zwift for me is the interaction - instead of just putting out watts because that’s what virtual Chad is telling you to do, you’re putting out watts to hang onto a group, or do a pull on the front of a group, or break away from a group, or set a PR on a segment, etc. The no drop feature takes most of that interaction away, your watts have no on-screen impact other than moving you to the front or back of the group. You can’t get dropped, you can’t break away, and your speed is determined by how much effort the whole group is putting in (and in my experience most of the people who decide to join a no drop ride do so because they want to cruise and not hammer it, so you’re unlikely to be setting any PRs).
I’ve mainly tried to stick to my TrainerRoad workouts, and swapped out the weekend rides for events. I did try a recovery ride, and it was like a race - way over posted w/kg. I did a couple of the classics workouts - I like the TR interface better. I’ve also done the Alpe a couple of times rather than a sweet spot.
So far I’m quite enjoying it to be honest. Out of my 5 midvolume sessions, I’m doing 3 on TR, 2 just riding on zwift. Earning the drops/ levels with the TrainerRoad days though!
It is a great tool for instances like today when 20+ people I know will all ride for 75 minutes together when all are very different abilities and strengths. Some will ride hard, some will plod round, some will do efforts, some Z2 if WAY w/kg higher than others.
For me zwift serves a couple of different purposes at the moment. Firstly, it’s just a bit of fun. I go on there when I am fancying some unstructured riding. I can’t get outside at all at the moment so it’s nice to just be able to ride along on a varied course and to try to imagine what it’s like to be outside.
Secondly, I’ve found that it’s a really good place to see how my structured trainerroad training is going - to be able to measure the improvement in a non-test environment. It’s been great being able to see my PR for Alpe du Zwift, for example, come down from 57 minutes to 47 minutes, which is a result of the work I’ve done on TR. I don’t tend to do group rides as they end up being too much of a smash fest - if I want to smash myself I will do it on my own terms.
I’m furloughed off from work at the moment so have quite a lot of time on my hands. I’m doing a low volume plan, so it’s easy to add in extra volume on zwift and through extra TR recovery rides without compromising my training plan. I just have to maintain a bit of discipline in terms of making sure I recover enough so that the TR sessions are the priority.
Zwift is play while can’t get out, TR is training.
