There are many benchmarks that people create for themselves on Zwift or in the real world, like a sub one hour Alpe Du Zwift, sub 20 min epic KOM, sub 4 hour 100 miles, etc. In my case, I wanted to get under 10 minutes on the Fuego Flats Reverse segment on Zwift. This seemed like it would be very hard for me since I am very light so I don’t go as fast on the flats. I have many goals on Zwift, but a lot of them I end up just procrastinating on. I forced myself to do it, just to see how fast I really am. This ride was done a little while ago, but I just came around to posting it.
The day that I had planned to do it, we had just had the floors redone in our garage, so I had to reset up all of my equipment that was taken out on the day before. Here is a picture of what our garage looked like once I had finished setting up my trainer and bike.
To get ready for the actual segment, I tried holding around 4.5 wpk to see how many MPH I went. I used a pace calculater to find out that I needed to average at least 26.5mph. I got onto my fastest equiption for flat routes, Cervelo P5X with the 858/disc. I also put on the Bell Jaivlen for the looks. I started out the segment strong, holding 140-150 watts, I was on track to get under 10 minutes, or at least I thought I was. On the little hill I raised my power slightly to maintin speed, I eased slightly on the downhill. My heart rate went up to 209, and it just kept going up. I continued grinding, expecting my ETA to come up any second. The time read 10:14. I wanted to quit and ease off, but instead, I kept pushing. Trying to make up every last second. My power began to rise and my legs were burning. The last mile was flat, fast, and torture. My ETA was still over 10 minutes, but slowly dropping as I continued to pound on the pedals. In the final 0.3, my ETA was 9:59, it was going to be a close one. I got out of the saddle and gave it every last bit of energy I had. My heart rate raised to 215, just 2 bpm off of the highest it has ever been. I came in with the final time of 9:52, an average power of 5.1wpk, 154 watts, 26.7mph average, and 206 bpm average. I had done it.
This was by far one of the hardest efforts I have done on the trainer. Of course, a link to the strava activity here: https://www.strava.com/activities/5004837582/overview. Have you done this? What are some of your goals? Leave a comment below!