“The Racer’s Edge” Challenge Launched

November 5, 2024

LAST UPDATED November 4, 2024

Zwift launched Cardio Crusher, their first “mini Challenge”, in September. Then Route Chaser: The Grade arrived in early October. Yesterday, Zwift launched the third mini challenge, named The Racer’s Edge.

This challenge focuses squarely on racing, with four race-focused workouts on the menu plus an actual race required in order to complete the challenge. Here are the details…

Joining the Challenge

To sign up for this Challenge, first click its card on the home screen (the big banner at the top, or the smaller card under “Challenges”):

Once you’re signed up, the card under “Challenges” will show a progress bar.

Then choose one of the 5 Challenge items to get started:

Clicking a card from this screen will take you into Watopia to ride a pre-assigned route (each workout uses a different Watopia route). You don’t have to ride the workout at this time, but now you’re officially signed up for the The Racer’s Edge Challenge.

Workout Details

The bulk of this Challenge are the four race-focused workouts. Here are images of each, with a short description.

Race Ready

This session is about race replication. Short intense efforts (30-60 seconds), followed by longer sustained efforts (4 minutes). Led by Time Trial Specialist Kristin Armstrong!

At/Over/Under

Three sets of three intervals designed to increase your body’s ability to buffer lactic acid and increase lactate tolerance. The intervals themselves are 3×3-minute intervals, starting off “at” FTP, then going up to zone 5 (over), and finishing at zone 3 (under). You will repeat this 9-minute block three times.

Explosive 30s

In between recovery intervals, you will undertake two all-out 30-second efforts and two all-out 2-minute efforts. The 30-second anaerobic efforts hone your ability to do short, explosive efforts in quick succession – mimicking attack covering and punchy courses. 2-minute efforts simulate the high-pressure moments that often dictate race-winning scenarios – late-race attacks, final climbs, etc.

Ultimate Warm-Up

A proper warm-up is key to top race performance, especially in Zwift races that start fast. Designed and led by Sir Bradley Wiggins, this session is the perfect warm-up before any Zwift race!

Completing the Challenge

To complete The Racer’s Edge, you must finish all four workouts shown above, plus join and finish a Zwift race.

Both the homescreen banner and the Challenge card will show your progress:

Getting Creative

Choosing a workout from The Racer’s Edge homepage takes you straight into Watopia to begin riding the workout. This works fine, but what if you want to ride a particular route instead of the route Zwift has assigned for each of the workouts?

Once you’re signed up for the Challenge by clicking on The Racer’s Edge card and clicking one of the workouts, you can access the workouts via an alternative method and give yourself an option of which route to ride for the workout.

First, sign up for the Challenge. Then access any of the four required workouts by going to Workouts>All Workouts from the homescreen, then scrolling the alphabetical list. (Just make sure you choose the shorter “Explosive 30s”, as there are two workouts by the same name.) Choosing the workouts from this list instead of from the challenge card page brings up the route picker. Choose your desired route, knock out that workout, and you’ll get credit for completing it in The Racer’s Edge challenge!

200IQ tip: if you want to get double credit, select one of the Route Chaser routes you haven’t done yet, and knock it out while completing one of The Racer’s Edge workouts!