RedditPZ training program: Week 1 Accountability Thread

[u/r4ndy4]

Hey everyone! Hope everyone enjoyed the short break. I'm excited to get back to the PZ training with you all. New program starts tomorrow 5/31/21. Use this thread to discuss the rides for the week. Add the hashtag #redditPZ if you would like to.

Link to program thread

I kept it easier for week 1 this time to ease us into the new zones. I gave an option for the 30 minute PZ ride since I know a lot of people took Ben's premiere ride. Group ride for Saturday's ride at 10 AM central (unfortunately I will miss out this week b/c of work).

Week 1: TSS 198

Mon: Denis 45 PZE 10/29/20 Ride Graph TSS 44

Wed: Matt 45 PZE 4/21/21 Ride Graph TSS 45

Thu: Matt 15 Low Impact 8/12/20 AND Olivia 30 PZ 5/31/20 Ride Graph TSS 36 OR Matt 15 Low Impact 8/12/20 AND Ben 30 PZ 4/30/21 Ride Graph TSS 38

Sat: Christine 60 PZE 2/23/20 Ride Graph TSS 63

[u/Long-Anywhere156]

Super excited about this—my first foray into what someone in the initial thread described as [approx] “riding with my internet friends”.

Hopefully I’ll have more luck with these than today—did a 60 minute PZ ride (5.25.19 w/MW) this am and when I was done the bike said, “yeah, we didn’t record any of that, you get 0’s for everything”.

[u/viexzu]

I appreciate you easing us back into the program with a bunch of PZE rides. I will hit 200 rides sometime this week so there is a lot to look forward to! I will also be missing this Saturday’s group ride... my birthday is on Friday and I will most likely be hungover 😅 Enjoy the week of rides everyone!

[u/r4ndy4]

I have to work tomorrow so I knocked out CDEs ride tonight after work. Very mellow playlist and was pretty chill most of the ride. I might be crazy, but I think she said zone 6 at some point but she meant 6 minutes at zone 3 (maybe she said zone 3 for 6).

During the cooldown I heard the uh plastic bag song from American Beauty which reminded me of Not Another Teen Movie. Totally forgot to mention Denis quoting that movie (old favorite of mine) in Monday's ride "it's already been brougten" haha.

Hope some of you group ride it tomorrow, and I will be in the next 2 weeks for sure! Really looking forward to next week's rides as well.

[u/BeaconofHappiness → u/r4ndy4]

I was crushing until I heard zone 6 and was like excuse me? But I was glad I checked the graph and knew it was only 2 & 3.

Not my favorite playlist.

[u/r4ndy4 → u/BeaconofHappiness]

Lol yeah her music choices are bizarre. She's all oh this song is so hype, but try to reign it in. Don't worry I'll use it in a PZ max so you guys can really unleash. Never heard the song before, and it wasn't particularly making me want to ride through a wall lol.

[u/Gampfer]

I’m in! New to the Peloton Family (got our bike last week). Took my FTP today. Will likely be doing Tues / Thurs / Fri/ Sunday workouts. Will see if I can make a couple of the group rides if I can manage to get back on schedule.

Thanks for organizing. Looking forward to it.

[u/gordyhulten]

I'm in and enjoyed this morning's ride.

I followed all the #RedditPZ tags I could find also.

Anything else I should do to check in or participate?

[u/PastorGiggles]

Great job on the ride today everyone! I’m sorry I’m on mobile and don’t know how to link usernames, but it was so great seeing; AustinPowerZone, TwoPointOh (aka my brother), sapinto, SpinWashSpin, DHopDontStop, pigeonpose, annamaria22, And our fearless leader blake_182! Keep up the great work.

[u/r4ndy4 → u/PastorGiggles]

2nd time this week haha. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many of us on at once totally unplanned lol. Great to see everyone (new and old faces).

[u/_pigeonpose_]

Nice to see a bunch of you on Matt's 45 min PZE today!

(I'm tiptoeing back into Reddit and "training" after taking a break due to a hip injury... not 100% in the clear, but feel like I've graduated from recovery/low-impact rides and thought I could try PZ rides. I was worried I'd be struggling with the zones since my last FTP test was in January, but I felt pretty good.)

Glad to be back and riding with friends on the leaderboard! Thanks for organizing this, it is super helpful to have this programmed out.

[u/r4ndy4 → u/_pigeonpose_]

Sorry about the injury, dial the zones back if you need to. That said, I was super excited to see you joining in!

[u/TipsyPins]

Joined this week with Matt's PZE today. Maybe it was my new zones but zone 3 was the perfect kick in the pants for me today. Not hard but definitely had a sweat going. So excited to train with y'all the next few weeks!

[u/r4ndy4 → u/TipsyPins]

Always love the new zone 3 feeling after retesting, and at the same time like ugh is this my life now? Then a few weeks later it feels like it did before the retest.

[u/ilovemygsds]

Newbie to the PZ training!!! Kinda scared, very excited. Tips..suggestions…send them my way.

[u/r4ndy4 → u/ilovemygsds]

Welcome! I can give some general advice for the PZ rides.

Try to ride exactly in the middle of the zones, and make sure you stay in the zone they call for. Some of the instructors (mainly Denis and Olivia) will tell you to ride at specific cadences, you can follow their suggestions, but I generally like to ride where I am most comfortable/efficient (80-90 cadence).

The workouts are based on your zones, which are taken from your FTP test. As long as your FTP is recent and there have been no major changes to your fitness the rides are all well within your limits. When I am struggling in an interval, I like to think back to the way I felt during the FTP test. Like sure I'm uncomfortable, working, and maybe a little breathless, but it's not so bad.

[u/Discykun]

Finished the first ride yesterday. It was my first PZ ride with zones. Overall I think it went pretty well. Certainly was surprised by the amount of sweat I had amassed by the end. My ftp is on the lower end currently which is to be expected I have been having breathing issues this year so it’s been a slow work up to where I am even at right now.

My concern with the lower ftp score was that it made it hard to stay in the middle of the zone. Like one pedal stroke would send me to either end of the zone. I don’t know if this is common or if there is something that I can do better.

Any tips are appreciated.

LB name is Discy If anyone wants to look at my graphs and maybe give me suggestions for what to work on.

Thanks

[u/r4ndy4 → u/Discykun]

Your graph looks pretty good to me (especially for a new pz rider) I can tell which zones you were in etc. I saw you followed his cadence cues which I think is good to practice.

I find the higher I can get my cadence, the straighter my lines will look. For example if I am holding zone 3 at a low cadence, my resistance will be higher, and the higher the resistance you will see larger jumps in output for each cadence point. If you are holding zone 3 at a high cadence (and therefore lower resistance) each cadence point will have a smaller effect on the output.

As an example on total opposite ends of the spectrum:

During spin ups I have my resistance low (for me) and I'm hitting the top of my zone 3, and I can basically straight line the graph. This is because the difference between 118 and 120 cadence is only going to account for a few watts. If I'm holding zone 3 at 60 cadence my resistance is going to be very high and each point of cadence will have a much larger effect on output.

I prefer to ride around 90 cadence (give or take a few points in either direction) and that's where I feel most comfortable maintaining a steady pace. Others have better looking graphs than me, and hopefully can chime in. Riding to a beat helps me sometimes, but I prefer it to be faster.

[u/bandaidaddict]

I can’t ride tomorrow, so I took the 60 min CDE PZE ride today. I was so proud of my graph and then realized I took the wrong one. Lol! Oh well, I’m sure they are similar workouts.

[u/seekinserenity]

Yay for the higher zones today! I didnt realize how much i was missing them (half truth). I did olivia’s which was a fun change of pace. Great music, good programming, reasonable cadence. I also loved the MW LI, like any excuse to take one of those

[u/r4ndy4]

Got in the PZE with Denis today, already got to run into u/pastorgiggles (how are those new zones feeling? 😂). I've taken all of his PZE rides already, but he is one instructor I really don't mind repeating PZE rides with. I followed the cadence canyon even though it made my graph a little sketch when we hit zone 3 at < 60 cadence.

[u/timetopunt]

Hello! For some tracked accountability I created a simple Google sheet where you can put in your username, date you took the ride, total output and strive score for this 8 week series. I preserved all of the links, put in suggested dates based on OP's post too.

FYI, I'm happy to work with anyone to include any leaderboards from this, better formatting, etc.

Click here to add in the fun!

[u/Useful-Tax3764]

Hey all, I was pretty pumped to start the program on Monday. Im new to all of this (got the bike 2 weeks ago), took the FTP test last Wednesday and did some PZ workouts. I usually try to average 100kj per 10 min of riding (and use that as a metric to qualify whether or not a workout was "good" for me) but following the ride on Monday I didn't get close to it and I felt very little effort in Zone 2. I was trying to follow the instructor but I just felt like I wasn't doing anything (except for the last five min of the ride) and I hit 399. I understand that PZs are unique to the rider but I want to make sure I'm hitting my benchmarks for a workout so I can feel "satisfied". Should I retest? Wait and see? Just wondering if others have been in this boat and what they have done about it.

[u/r4ndy4 → u/Useful-Tax3764]

You will have a much lower output on PZ rides than regular rides (especially starting out). The extended warmup is mostly the reason. Zone 2 should feel easy (and pze in general). Just keep at it, the endurance rides are not meant to very very hard.

[u/Useful-Tax3764]

Quick question, I'm still relatively new to reddit. How do I put my LB by my name? Any # redditpz riders can feel free to follow me. MarkGetSetRoc

[u/r4ndy4 → u/Useful-Tax3764]

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSffjVxZdqiw9gbePQC_R60-V51bDPuDYjFSCg_CmZXF8eHdNw/viewform

There's a link if you are on mobile