Lucianotes: One Year on Zwift

One year ago, March 17th 2020, in order to avoid going crazy during confinement, I acquired Assioma Favero power pedals and set them up on my indoor spin bike. Then I logged onto Zwift. Now is the time to look in the rear mirror and analyze the disease I have developed (and you might be sharing with me since you read ZI).

Since that day I’ve been trapped inside the game. I have reached such a degree of addiction that I can say I see the matrix. Today, I am an Alpe du Zwift junkie talking watts and cadence for 10 hours per day, world Jeopardy champion in “the turns and slopes of Titans Grove” category, keeper of the clouds, and I call Watopia dinosaurs by their name. 

My best friends are D. Diesel, C. Cadence and B. Brevet. I still have my ups and downs with A. Anquetil as she unavoidably puts  some distance into me after 20 minutes, which has me thinking she does not really like me despite my best efforts.

So the first thing I did was an FTP ramp test: 193 Watts (if you boo at this point I will take it personally and I think you will regret it once you read through the entire post and see the table at the end).

(If you are nearly as psychotic as I, you went directly to the end of the post to check the table and came back here. You are so predictable…)

I understood that with my 85 kg and 2.25 w/kg I was positioned at the very base of the food chain and almost every Zwifter would eat me alive in any race. That is exactly what happened in the first race I joined on March 20th. I remember suffocating and breathing so heavily that I was actually able to communicate with the dinosaurs. In their own language. This may explain my current closeness with them.

I have quite a competitive mindset. Never retreat. After reading around, including one post by Alejandro here at Zwift Insider explaining how he improved on Zwift, I decided not to race again until I accomplished at least a basic training plan. For me, that was the 4 week FTP Builder.

I am not going to lie. I have suffered. A lot. If you ever wonder about the small red stains appearing randomly on the sides of the Tempus Fugit circuit, let me solve the mystery immediately: these are the small pieces of lungs I have been spitting during my first 4 weeks on Zwift. (Who is the sadist who invented low cadence FTP intervals workouts? He should be thrown in the same jail as the guy who invented the FTP ramp test!)

After two weeks I was so tired of playing with my spinning bike resistance in order to adapt it to the workouts that it became clear I was going to need a smart trainer and a bike to put it on. Having literally never ridden a road bike before, a whole new IRL world was opening to me. 

What can I say about smart trainers beyond the fact Erg mode is the sweetest of drugs and that my Zwift experience skyrocketed to a whole new universe?

After one month on Zwift, I was not a monogamist yet. By that I mean that I was also evaluating and riding on other platforms. What made me definitely decide that my relationship with Zwift was exclusive was ZESP. ZESP is the largest spanish-speaking community on Zwift, with close to 2.000 members. 2.000 friends would be a more accurate description of what ZESP is. As I was feeling a little bit by myself and disconnected, I decided to join them. 

Now my Zwift universe is populated by hundreds of ZESPers sharing a similar craziness to mine on Telegram and on the many group rides and races they organize each week. Beyond the individual experience, it gave me a sense of purpose and being part of something bigger, including a Zwift Racing League team. I definitely have ZESP blood running through my veins. 

My life also became way more complicated to organize. I went from seeking an adequate work/life balance to seeking an optimal Zwift/life/ZESP/work balance. In that order of importance, I guess. 

From there things proceeded in cycles. 

After the 4 week FTP Builder I started the Gran Fondo training plan which I combined with long summer rides in the mountains close to Madrid.  

During the months of July, August, and September I was clearly entering the virtuous circle in which as you improve, you become more motivated, so you improve even more, and so you are even more motivated, etc…

October was the beginning of the Zwift Racing League so it was motivating in itself until December, when I started to prepare my vEveresting with a personal coach and monitoring activity on Training Peaks. End of January, the second season of the Zwift Racing League had already started and finished last week.

Since nobody cares about feelings and subjective perspectives, let me share with you what really matters: hard figures. Because who wants to enjoy being an absolute loser, right?  I have to pinch myself to believe the results obtained throughout the journey… Enjoying and progressing. Best cocktail ever.