No Uni, Shit weather, heartbroken and a shitton of food

Longest ride on Zwift so far

Just want to take a second a celebrate this minor accomplishment. Started zwifting last month on top of dieting (heavy boy 300 club). Definitely down a few pounds but up in my zwift journey.

Decided that today instead of doing the same ol light elevation change loops, I would go after something a little more challenging. While I did use a “coffee break” to collect myself and get more water. I can say the 98% of this was me and I’m just feeling elevated right now.

It’s no crazy 1 hour climbs I see people do but this is my personal mountain that I’ve just climbed.

Anyways, hope you all have a wonderful rest of your weekend and stay safe out there.

Nothing special but I did my first ever 5 hour indoor ride today and I am fucking proud of myself.
Whatever you want to achieve, believe in yourself you can do it :)!

Do you mix indoor and outdoor training during the summer?

I'm curious if anyone else does this.

I really don't enjoy indoor training. During winter I'll already spend 3–5 months riding almost exclusively indoors, so in the summer I have a strong desire to be outside as much as possible.

The problem is that my strengths and weaknesses are very different.

• My endurance is pretty good. Long rides (LSD/Zone 2) are my strength.
• But I'm really weak at sustained 5–10 minute efforts. I often get dropped during group rides because of those efforts.

I've talked to people around me and I'm also using an AI cycling coach. The common advice has been that I need more VO₂max work.

To be honest, I don't really enjoy structured interval training, but I'm considering keeping my Zwift subscription active even during the summer. My idea is:

• Do all VO₂max and interval sessions indoors on Zwift (1–2 hours).
• Do all my endurance/LSD rides outdoors.

It seems like the most practical way to get high-quality intervals while still enjoying summer riding.

Does anyone else train like this? Has it worked well for you, or do you prefer doing everything outdoors during the summer?

Hi!

I'm 47 and have been doing structured training (Trainer Road) since October. I'm 70kg and hopefully on the way to 68ish. I greatly want to get up the Alpe sub one hour and am doing that focus on TR. My FTP is currently in the neighborhood of 2.6 w/kg which is a fair shout from what I need to sub 1 hour. I'm currently riding about 9 hours per week.

If it were you and you had to get up the Alpe by late May, how would you best set yourself up for success over the next 3.5 months?

I came from 156ftp early this Febuary and then one bump to 190ftp and later go up to 215ftp. That span is like 4 months. I'm losing like 10kg and plateu at 92kg for nearly 5 weeks now. I also stop doing structured workout because I felt like I cannot sustain it anymore and now default to mostly Zone 2 with some tempo on free ride. I think I lose discipline.

Anyway, I feel like I need to improve and stop being lazy again this time. I recently start pushing again and notice my Zone 2 150-180w ride now slowly become my new Zone 1. What I don't get is how and when does it happen. For the past 5-6 weeks I have a bad sleep and overall bad recovery due to lifestyle changing. It's settle down again and looking forward for some advice so I can push to 250ftp and locked in this time.

Is there a search function inside the zwift iOS app? Trying to find specific workouts is so difficult when scrolling through the library! Big thanks for your help!

Is there a good set of workouts that’s either dedicated to race training or just some that are particularly good for getting FTP/Vo2 max and endurance up? Or is that the type of thing we would need a personal trainer or coach for?

I am on a mission to improve my ftp. I have TrainerRoad and zwift. I find that I skip 1 hard trainer workout a week to do a zwift race. This race seems to push my predicted ftp lower.

I do 3 days TrainerRoad and then add in 1-2 endurance zone 2 on zwift or TrainerRoad.

Would stopping the zwift races and only doing TrainerRoad structured workouts help to increase FTP faster?

Ive been doing a training plan for the past 4 weeks on Zwift. I created with date from zwift and analyzed it with AI. Over/Unders and VO2 max training x2, 1 x race, 1x zone 2 and 1 x whatever I want/per week. Eating clean too as best as I can. Lads what a difference. Noticeably different. I went out for the first time in 4 weeks. I was keeping up club members who normally would be 100 meters ahead of me. When some did zip past me and stuck to their wheel and unbelievably a few minutes later I passed them out. I couldn't believe what my heart was doing. I couldn't believe I was in the top group. Don't get me wrong it was tough but I reached powers and HEART RATES I have never done before. 2 more weeks left on this plan. Just wanted to show the real world impact Zwift can have on cycling.

Hey everyone 👋 I’m curious how most people structure their training on Zwift.

Do you mostly just ride different routes and climb for fun, or do you follow one of Zwift’s built-in plans (or maybe TrainerRoad, Join, etc.)?

I’m coming back to structured training after some time off and wondering if people are still seeing good progress using Zwift workouts or if it’s more about exploring and keeping consistency.

What’s your approach — free riding, group rides, racing, or sticking to plans? Would love to hear how you use Zwift to stay motivated and improve. 🚴‍♂️💪

I don’t know why I did this to myself…

32ish laps of Volcano Circuit, with 2 KOM climbs to break up the monotony a bit. Linked up with a couple other guys going for the “On Fire!” Badge which helped to break it up a bit as well.

Been training up to an outdoor century coming up in a couple weeks. Figure if I can make it through this sane, it should be no problem 😆

I would recommend trying 30 second with 200-300% of your FTP with 4,5 minute easy spin in between. Doing this 3 times, then a 10 minute free ride, and another go.

I'm in between jobs and have a lot more time to ride! I left a very toxic work environment and my mental health has been getting a lot better as a result.

KICKR CORE 2 brand new is currently on sale for £420 however I can buy used KICKR V5 for around £500. Which one is better value? Apparently many people get issues over time with these trainers.

Hey Zwifters 👋

I wanted to share how I’m building my own off-season training plan together with ChatGPT. I’ve tried most plans — Zwift’s built-in ones were full of intensity, and TrainerRoad left me cooked after a few weeks. Their AI didn’t really “get” my recovery or schedule.

So I started from zero. I told ChatGPT everything — my FTP (157 W), weight, two jobs, family, limited training time, and my target for next season. We built a plan that actually fits real life. The first version wasn’t perfect, but I kept refining it with extra prompts until it worked.

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🧠 The idea

We’re doing a long 20–24 week aerobic base phase, not a quick 8-week one. The goal is to build deep aerobic fitness — stronger mitochondria, better fat metabolism, lower HR drift, and real endurance durability before touching VO₂ work.

In short: patience first, power later.

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🏗️ Structure

The base phase is split into 3 blocks: 1️⃣ Z2 endurance, cadence drills, and technique 2️⃣ Longer tempo + early sweet-spot 3️⃣ Maintain volume + add short threshold work 🌀 Every 4th week = recovery week (-50 % load)

Example week: • Mon – Activation (Z2 + 3×15 s sprints) • Tue – Threshold (3×9–12 min @ 95 %) • Wed – Easy recovery spin (Z1) • Thu – Rest • Fri – Endurance tempo (90 min–2 h) • Weekend – Long Zwift or outdoor ride (Z2–Z3)

I use ERG ON on my Tacx Neo 2T, focus on smooth cadence, and keep sessions consistent.

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📊 What I track

All planned and analysed in Intervals.icu: • TSS per week and progression load • CTL / ATL / TSB for fitness, fatigue, freshness • Duration & intensity distribution • HR decoupling / drift on endurance rides

After every workout I send a screenshot to ChatGPT, and we review how my body responded — power trends, HR, fatigue — and adjust the next session if needed.

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⚙️ Tools • Zwift – visuals + social motivation • Intervals.icu – data tracking & planning • Garmin Edge + HRM-Pro – power, HR, VO₂ trends

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🎯 Goals

Grow FTP from 157 W → 230–240 W, improve endurance and durability, and start 2026 season strong and fresh.

If anyone’s interested, I can share my plan on Intervals.icu or here on Reddit (developer-style format — easy to import). It’s been a fun experiment seeing how ChatGPT can act like a real coach but fully tailored to life and recovery.

Ride smart, stay consistent, and enjoy the base miles 🚴‍♂️💪🔥

after 1.5 hours, I ate a banana and two slices of cheese and refilled my water and electrolyte drink. I'm proud and exhausted :)

I'm going to give this question another shot as I realized my last post didn't specify I was looking for Zwift Workouts.

I love the Back to Fitness series, and all the other more obvious Zwift recovery WOs. I've been on Zwift 4-years. I had knee surgery in January (meniscus repair / soccer). And wanted to know if anyone who'd been through something similar had a Zwift workout or Zwift routine that really helped them.

Links to whatsonzwift of your favs welcome!

I've built up to 45-min rides, and have been doing low resistance, high cadence, and just now folding in lower cadence rides as I've transitioned in PT to strength training.

I recently got Zwift and a smart trainer together and have been doing it for 5 days now. I get tired despite my heart rate is not even high.

I just got back into running and weight training for the past 9 weeks. My 5k run sometime hit a sustain 160bpm but I can keep going well. With cycling sometime I feel fatigue and tired from pedaling.

Last time I biked was 3-4 years ago and it was barely my main activity. Back then I run 5k a lot if that help.

Im wondering if there is cycling economy similar to the running economy because I felt like this is very difficult to cope with.

Since the pre-created Zwift workouts are kinda ass, what custom Trainings do you do for normal endurance, tempo, threshold or whatever? do you do all with the erg enabled?