Training Log: Build Me Up, Week 8

May 12, 2023

LAST UPDATED May 12, 2023

Welcome to my week 8 “Build Me Up” (BMU) training log.

About this Series:
I’m journaling my way weekly through Zwift’s “Build Me Up” training plan and calling out tough workouts, minor bugs, and Zwift feature suggestions along the way. For your reference, my FTP is set to 321W, as detected by Zwift’s ramp test at the start of the plan.
Past weeks: Week 1 // Week 2 // Week 3 // Week 4 // Week 5 // Week 6 // Week 7

After a tough week 7, week 8 was a breath of a fresh air… a regeneration week! I only did two workouts, throwing away the rather pointless “pedaling drills” workout and riding outdoors to enjoy myself a bit.

Workout Journal – Week 8

Tuesday, May 9: Hang Ten

See activity on Strava

Today was my 44th birthday, so I decided I needed to knock out at least 44 miles. While I would have loved to ride those miles outdoors, my day’s schedule didn’t really allow for it – plus I had two workouts to knock out for the week, and was running out of days to do them.

So I did a long warmup with Coco, then a Crit City race (read about it here), then this workout. Total distance: 56 miles!

The Hang Ten workout isn’t particularly tough, but racing beforehand put some sting in it for sure. The workout is made up of 5 sets of this 7-minute block:

1 minute at 95% of FTP (305W)
2 minutes at 80% of FTP (255W)
1 minute at 110% FTP (350W)
2 minutes at 80% of FTP (255W)
1 minute at 95% of FTP (305W)

Of course, there were some cadence changes thrown in, but nothing too crazy.

Thursday, May 11: Bricolage

See activity on Strava: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

This was the big workout for the week – and at 2 hours long, this was also the longest workout yet in BMU! Bricolage, as the name suggests, has a little bit of everything: threshold work, Z2, Z3 with bursts, and some short VO2 intervals. All with cadence changes mixed in.

This workout was sort of crazy, but not because of the workout itself. I was juggling various things in my day (phone calls, Zwift tests, etc)… then Zwift decided to crash on my PC. Twice! So I had to restart the game, then hit tab to skip through the intervals I’d already done. That sort of sucked.

This workout didn’t look terribly hard on paper, but I was definitely dreading that final 10-minute block at FTP. I knew once I got there my legs would be rather tired. And I was right! But I was able to push through, doing some out-of-the-saddle riding to mix things up in those final hard 10 minutes.

Whine of the Week: Zwift Crashes

As mentioned above, Zwift crashed twice on me during my Bricolage workout this week. This is the first time Zwift has crashed during a BMU workout – but I’ve had various Zwift crashes over the years for sure.

Here’s my specific complaint: it’s not so much that Zwift crashes… it’s that Zwift crashes and I have no idea why. I can’t find any error logs that are helpful. I just wish, if Zwift was going to explode, it would log the reason why first. That’s all.

Summing Up Week 8

This week was an easy week. I got some outdoor rides in, did the two key workouts, and feel rested heading into the next block.

Week 1: 274 TSS
Week 2: 343 TSS
Week 3: 363 TSS
Week 4: 212 TSS
Week 5: 312 TSS
Week 6: 358 TSS
Week 7: 430 TSS
Week 8: 217 TSS (not counting my outdoor rides)

One to Keep, One to Throw Away

I think each week of BMU features a key “cornerstone workout” and another which doesn’t really need to be done, so I thought it might be useful to call those out each week, in case your schedule is tight. For week 8, here are my picks:

Key Workout – Bricolage: While this wasn’t a super-efficient targeted workout, I think putting in the time and doing the work on various energy systems was a great way to maintain fitness during the regeneration week without stressing the body too much.
Throw Away – Pedaling Drills: We’ve already thrown away this 30-minute workout on previous weeks… it’s just nothing special. I skipped it this week.

Coming Up Next Week

Week 9 is next, and it looks like we’re heading into “pointy” short, hard efforts while trying to maintain the fitness base already built. “Mosaic” is going to be a doozy!