It's cold and raining, the roads are dangerous, we're all more pressed for time than ever before, and there's a global pandemic. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it's so important these days to take time out of your day to get the legs and heart working. In comes Zwift.
As someone who doesn't have time, and more often than not motivation, to hit the road for a spin, I decided to give Zwift a crack and see what all the fuss is about. Not being much of an athlete at all, I loved it! While it's not quite like the outdoors, being able to gamify what would otherwise be a pretty boring process of spinning made a huge difference. A 45 minute workout, which I'd normally get to 20 minutes on a spin bike before losing my mind with boredom, actually became fun.
A big bonus for me is how easy it was to get everything up and running. I can’t speak to HR monitors and the lot, but I just plugged in my smart trainer, opened Zwift and after a couple seconds it showed power, speed, and cadence were all reading from the trainer and I could go start my workout.
It is important to note that while Zwift offers a free 7-day trial, which is amazing, you won't be able to change your FTP from the default. This may seem insignificant if you are reasonably fit, but for a novice like me who’s cycling experience is the occasional coffee ride, trying to do a MVDP workout based on the default FTP just wasn't possible. Given the fact that I had to Google what FTP was, you can trust that this is coming from a complete newbie.
I'd imagine that people like myself would
eventually get board of the game but Zwift is one step ahead of me. They're currently running their "Fun is Fast" campaign which when I jumped on featured Geraint Thomas podcast rides, workouts designed by Mathieu vdp and other pros, and a time trial challenge against Anna van der Breggen. While I only had the chance to have a go at MVDP’s push-until-you-break workout, I’ve only heard good things about the other challenges. Over the next week they'll be taking Zwifters on France Fondos and then Champs-Elysees races, which I'll definitely be checking out and seeing if I can get my numbers to climb!
