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I thought this would be straight forward but I'm struggling.
I've just started a training plan on Zwift building up to a 110 mile ride in mid-May.
Some of the longer sessions (2 hours+) are going to be uncomfortable and boring on the Wattbike so I thought I could do them outside. But how can I do this?
I don't have a power meter so they couldn't be the exact same workout as on Zwift anyway but I assumed I could follow a workout based on time or heart rate but can't find anything. Doesn't seem to be anything available for my bike computer (Karoo 2).
I could stick a piece of paper on my top tube but doesn't feel very 2024.
It will depend on the type of workout and the type of terrain where you live. I assume 2+ hours is endurance?
You could try and get HRM and for endurance rides just stay in the right HR zone or use relative perceived exertion (RPE) generally on a scale of 1-10. I have gotten very hung on on hitting the exact watts on the indoor trainer but really at my level of fitness just using RPE/HR is likely just as effective.
Yeah I have a HRM and was hoping to be able to incorporate some intervals into a kinda zone 2 session over 2+ hours. Really I want something that will say "do 2 minutes of 150bpm" or "do 2 minutes of 75% exertion" or something like that.
Garmin have training plans that you can use or make your own, I have done this in the past and it would beep when you need to change between HR zones
I have been trying to do more of this outdoor to break the boredom after winter. This week did 2 sessions.
On road 1 - found an 8-10 mins climb and did 3 repeats keeping HR 160-170 and then checked afterwards it actually worked.
2 - similar length climb but part of a loop did 30s off and 30s recovery until I got to the top then practised descending while recovering and repeat.
Probably want as accurate hitting the numbers as on trainer but having prepped a lot on the trainer for big rides realised my handling was quite poor so need to spend more time outside!
Trainer road give workouts based on RPE who you can do outdoor
I'd just use the 2-hour outdoor sessions as Z2 endurance and use the trainer to do intervals. It's sort of going to defeat the purpose of long Z2 sessions if you keep doing higher exertion intervals during them
Good point @scotroutes. Maybe I am overcomplicating it. Zwift workouts do seem to be very complex sometimes, especially the longer ones
I’m with Scotroutes. You can add intervals at the end of a Z2 ride but not during. But if you doing lots intervals in doors then why bother.
Similar: big ride mid may; zwift training plan w 2 HR endurance session each week (gran Fondo),; no power just HRM on the outdoor bike.
I find it pretty much impossible to match any kind of scripted ride outdoors, because the terrain hills etc dictates the effort. I can moderate the effort on the flat, but a hill is a hill and it takes me whatever it takes to get up.
But when I look at the HR distribution across an entirely indoor week versus a week where the long session is outdoors, there is almost no difference, maybe a couple of percent more in Z4 and 5.
So I'm of the mindset that doing a decent outdoor session and enjoying it probably gives me more real riding benefit for my training than the zwift session. And I get a coffee and cake halfway round.
I just go back to the zwift plan overview and mark that endurance session as done.