Breaking it Down and Building Up: My Training for Zwift UCI World Champs

My Pre-Zwift Training Year

As I write this, my Strava says I have logged 27,380 km in 2020. That is about the usual pace for the last few seasons but it has been accumulated in a much different way than before. I guess my first real workouts of the year were lap sessions of the hospital wing where I recovered from my final post-accident surgery in January. I didn’t bother to log them on Strava but they definitely did happen and it was hard work. I was back on Zwift by the third week of the year, stubbornly turning the pedals, body aching and not willing to give up on being ready for the first races of the season. I heard the phrase “too much too soon” a few times but it worked. I was doing practice lead-outs at 55kmh with Elevate Webiplex teammates at the beginning of February, even if I was trying to catch my breath for the next hour afterward.

I was back on top of my fitness and putting in key workouts in Southern California to prepare for the Redlands Cycling Classic in March when the light switch on our season was flipped off. Life changed again after that and so did training. I took a couple of weeks off right away to let some of the pressure off but I felt like I wanted to keep working and there were still races on the calendar tentatively. So I got back into structured training but with a little more room than usual for some fun.

I put in intervals – short, long, TT, climbing all through the summer. I also mixed in some adventures, doing a 300km epic with my buddy Deon and a bunch of big rides over 200km during the spring and summer. (I think I had only ridden 200km+ 3 or 4 times ever in training before this year.)

The training commitment wasn’t entirely wasted. It certainly helped me in the Echelon Zwift stage races but none of the other goals ever materialized. I stepped away from the structure in September when the last of the calendar was wiped clean. That turned out to be good timing for a mental break because Zwift brought some new developments for the fall.

Evaluating the Requirements

The Zwift Racing League was announced and I eagerly joined Team Finesse Wahoo for the campaign. My coach and I took time to break down the calendar and the requirements for success. The key observation was that all 5 of the “scratch races” (mass start) in the series were fairly explosive courses, none of them suiting my natural capacities as a climber/TT rider. The climbs were all between 1 and 6 minutes and would require efforts of 8-10+w/kg to make a difference, not sustained pushes at 6-7 w/kg where I usually do well. We changed course in that direction and I started doing more racing so I could feel out exactly what I needed to do to be effective.

The shift in training took on more gravity when I was selected for UCI Esports Worlds in early October. The original course appeared to feature a finish at the top of the Volcano climb. While not a pure climbers finish, that 5-6 minute slope would have fit my profile fairly well. When the final Figure 8 Reverse course (finishing on the 1.5 minute Hilly KOM) was confirmed, the preparation was again tilted in the anaerobic direction. At that point, I was okay with the switch because I had already been honing that type of form for the ZRL racing.

The Process

I started doing a selection of all-out 1-2 minute intervals in training and my power started to edge up there. When training this way, you have to be more careful with overall balance and recovery since you can’t train explosively on tired legs. I actually took a 6-day break to visit family and that helped me get ahead of the game so I could come back fresh and smash the pedals. I had a whole summer of work behind me and that little refresh was important to set the stage for the work I needed to do. Noticing the benefit of complete rest for this type of training, we built in a full off day into my schedule each week for the build-up.

However, in my first ZRL race I found myself slipping back into my IRL approach to racing. I had good legs but I chose to use them to make a steady, sustained attack on the Volcano KOM. Without a big enough burst in a key place, I never got enough of a gap and only succeeded in stringing out the field. I learned from that and came to the next race in Richmond with more focus on applying power in the right way. I managed to hit out hard to take the KOM points on Libby Hill and make another move on the Governors climb to initiate a breakaway. I didn’t commit to it and it came back but I started to feel effective for the first time. In the next scratch race in NYC it clicked and I attacked the 2 short KOMs with strong 8-9 w/kg pushes on the steepest sections and made the break that won the race for the team.

This process moulded my training for Worlds. As we get closer to the big race, we have started doing practice races as a national team to prepare. That combined with ZRL provided more than enough chance for high intensity training each week and my coach and I would try to make objectives for each event to keep improving my form.

Any success I have in high-end Zwift events will also be based on the combination of an improved punch and my usual capacity for sustained power so in the background I have continued to do aerobic work. A tempo session here and there, some longer z2 riding around races, and the ZRL team time trials have been key elements to that side of the preparation.

If I have learned anything about racing at the top level, it is not about your capacity to do one thing well. Rather it is about doing everything well enough to put yourself in position to actually use that more specific talent. If you refuse to adapt, you will always be looking for that one race that suits you perfectly and miss every other opportunity.

The Final Touches

There isn’t much to do now with around a week left until the event. There will be a couple of hard sessions left and then a careful taper to race day to find the right balance between freshness and readiness. I will be mindful of my diet to preserve my usual race weight of 61kg for the official weigh in 24 hours before the start. I also have to make sure all the technical aspects are dialled in. Then it will be time to put all the work into action and represent my country against the best in the world.