How to Best Choose Between a Virtual Race vs Planned Interval Workout? (#236)

OVERVIEW
Virtual racing on TrainingPeaks Virtual, Zwift, Rouvy or other indoor cycling platforms can be a fun and intense addition to an athlete's overall program. They can even become the central focus of your season! But too much virtual racing can work against you by removing too much of the specificity and contrast your training plan needs in order for you to experience gains in fitness and performance. If you want to jump into virtual racing or hard virtual group rides, here's a guide on how to do it wisely and effectively. 

TOPICS COVERED

• Swap race for interval session?
• Mistakes to avoid when adding virtual racing to training plan
• Bringing contrast to your training

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LINKS/RESOURCES

• CTS Membership: https://trainright.com/membership
• TP Virtual: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/virtual/
• TP Virtual Race Hub: https://tpvirtualhub.com/

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
From the team at CTS.
This is the Time Crunch Cyclistpodcast, our show dedicated to
answering your trainingquestions and providing
actionable advice to help youimprove your performance even if
you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, Coach AdamPulford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches whomake up the team at CTS.
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,

(00:30):
other coaches and experts in thefield to provide you with the
practical ways to get the mostout of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now on to our show.
Now on to our show.
Welcome back, Time Crunch fans.

(00:54):
I'm your host, Coach AdamPulford.
We've had some good questionspiling up from you, our audience
, and I'll start by answeringone of these today.
Then I'll knock out a bunchmore of them in the coming weeks
with our signature short formatepisodes.
Let's not waste any time andjust get right into it.
Here's the original question,again coming from an audience

(01:16):
member.
I'm one third of the waythrough the new competitor
program and really am enjoyingit.
Any suggestions on how toincorporate shorter Zwift races
into it?
Maybe just replace a hard daywith a race once or twice a
month?
Thanks much, Matt.
Yeah.
So incorporating Zwift racesinto a training program this is

(01:36):
a question that I get a lot andI do see some bad habits with
just probably too much Zwiftracing, or at least I have some
advice on how I think we canbetter weave it all together.
So for some context to everyonelistening, Matt is referring to
the CTS membership, where hesays he's in the new competitor
program or a phase of trainingwithin that.

(01:58):
The CTS membership is a way toget CTS workouts, training
programs and have access to oursupportive community without
being fully coached one-on-one.
So it's a more economicaloption for those wanting to be
on a training program with someextra perks but not full
customized coaching.
Now, whether you are a coachedathlete, a self-coached athlete

(02:20):
or you're on the CTS membershipor anything else, my answer of
how to incorporate a Zwift raceor multiple races into a
training program is very simpleyes, swap it for a hard interval
day, so long as that hardinterval day is closely related
to the stresses that you'regoing to be doing in the race
itself.

(02:40):
So let's unpack that a littlebit more.
Yeah, Matt, you're on the righttrack, but I just I want to
kind of double click on what Isaid and make sure you kind of
know what I'm talking about andthen how to adjust when the
training program adjusts as well.
So what that means is typically, if you're in some sort of

(03:02):
threshold or sweet spot or FTPphase of training, swapping an
interval session out for a Zwiftrace is a decent option because
it'll be really similar from atraining stress score and the
stress or strain that you'reputting on the glycolytic energy
system or on the body energysystem or on the body.

(03:24):
If we're talking FTP intervalsor sweet spot or something like
that, it's going to be anywherearound 85% to 105% of FTP.
That's going to be theintervals that you'll be working
with when you go to a Zwiftrace.
You will likely average powersomewhere within that 85 to 105%
of your FTP.

(03:45):
It's a hard threshold day,plain and simple.
So you can also do a Zwift raceand then check your TSS or
intensity factor of that raceitself and compare it to the
prescribed workout and ifthey're similar, that's a great
way of making sure that you'rekind of staying on the program.
Let's take a look at an examplehere.

(04:05):
So let's say you're doing aprogram and your hard days for
the week are Tuesday, Thursdayand Saturday.
In those days maybe you havesome form of threshold work each
day that the total intervaltime is around 30 to 40 minutes
of total work or total time inzone for each workout.
30 to 40 minutes of total workor total time in zone for each

(04:27):
workout.
So, for example, that would bea three by 10 threshold at 91 to
105% of your FTP.
Now, if you're following thisprogram, you probably like doing
intervals, you like training,but maybe you want to change it
up and do a Zwift race.
Simply skip the Saturdayintervals and do that Zwift race
.
I find that there's a lot moretime spots available on Saturday
and if you're like many of myathletes, you'll have a little

(04:50):
bit more time in that day towarm up, hit the race.
Hit the race when you want toand maybe even sneak in a little
extra riding time at zone twoendurance or something like that
afterwards to get a littleextra volume on the day.
So this is a solid way ofincorporating some of that
virtual racing into the program.
You can also do this weekly ifyou really want to and if you're

(05:10):
really into Zwift racing andyou want to change it up, Okay,
but you know, if you like doingsolo training.
There's no need for you toincorporate Zwift racing at all.
You can simply do your intervalwork, progress through it and
it's all good.
Swift Racing just adds in avariety and for some people it's

(05:30):
really exciting and they enjoyit.
And I should mention here thatSwift is not the only game in
town TP Virtual, Rovi andthere's a few others out there,
existing.
In particular, TP Virtual is anew virtual riding and racing
platform and it keeps onevolving.
It has some unique anddifferent racing that is pretty

(05:52):
different than Zwift.
So stuff like scratch races,missing outs, time trials,
points races, team points races,road racing, crits and a ton of
other stuff.
They're doing some reallyunique work on TP Virtual, and
there's some other cool stufftoo, like automatic workout
uploading and automaticthresholds carrying over.

(06:13):
So I'll link to a little bitmore about that in our show
notes, but I just want to leteveryone know, if they didn't
know, TP Virtual is anotherreally cool training racing
platform if you're looking forsomething different other than
Zwift.
Okay, so I covered what to doand how to do it.
How about we talk about how andwhat not to do?

(06:37):
First thing of what not to dois don't do a Zwift race if your
program is calling forsomething overly specific or
individualized to your training,like one minute max efforts
with long recovery periods orVO2 intervals, so something like
super hard that again, like Isaid, has long rest periods, and

(06:59):
certainly don't do theintervals during the race.
That's just plain silly and noteffective.
When you're doing training likethis, the hard max efforts or
VO2 and that kind of thing, therest periods are just as
important as the work periods todeliver the training
adaptations.
Typical Zwift racing or virtualracing platforms they're hard

(07:20):
from the gun, from start tofinish, and maybe you have some
micro drafting recovery breaksin there.
Like I said, it's mostlythreshold, mostly hard tt stuff.
It's good, it's it's quality.
Well, I mean, it'll make youtired and you'll rest and you'll
get better from it.
But when you have somethingthat's more specific or say
harder or easier, just different, don't do the swift race.

(07:43):
So, like I mentioned, maybesome of the TP virtual races can
mimic some of that VO2 stuff ontheir shorter races and like
the missing outs and that kindof thing.
But overall, if you're doingspecific work, stick to the
specific work and virtual racingis not that specific work.
It's not going to be your bestoption to replace it.
So during threshold blocks, gofor the Zwift race.

(08:05):
Other times don't.
So the second thing not to dois, if you're following a good
training program and you want toadd in Zwift racing, don't add
in the racing in addition to theintervals, Okay, and in my
example before I said, justreplace it this time.
The bad habits I see is theywant to do some Zwift racing, so

(08:26):
they add it in, but they'regoing to keep all their interval
days.
Okay.
This puts you in the boat ofgoing hard pretty much every
single day for many days in arow, many weeks in a row, and if
I or any other coach with apodcast out there has told you
anything, it is likely thatgoing hard every single day is

(08:46):
not a great strategy in training.
That is the quickest road toburnout, staleness and
unproductive work.
As a self-coached athlete, mybest piece of advice is to
follow the program, and even ifthat program is a bit more
conservative than you'd like,that's probably better, because
when you miss a good night'ssleep or you miss a workout or

(09:08):
you have a long day at theoffice, you'll have some padded
in bandwidth to help you notburn out, and so reaching for
the stars in training everysingle day is not advised to
anyone, even my elite athletes,but especially the time-crunched
athlete, my elite athletes, butespecially the time crunched

(09:29):
athlete.
Finally, my last point here isremember to bring contrast to
your training.
Keep your hard days hard andyour easy days easy.
That's what bringing contrastto training means.
This pertains especially to thetime crunched athlete and
especially on the higherintensity days.
So what is higher intensity?
Let's just call it zone fourand higher for my argument's
sake here.

(09:49):
Okay, so that's threshold andabove.
My general advice is to keephigh intensity sessions to two
to three days per week for mostweeks Now.
This can be using hardintervals or group rides or, in
this case, a Zwift race orvirtual race of any kind, or
group rides, or, in this case, aZwift race or virtual race of
any kind.
The other days of the week aregood for zone two endurance
riding, recovery, miles, restdays or strength training.

(10:18):
Now, this framework usuallyhits the mark for most busy
people to do enough of thetargeted work without going
overboard and getting too tired.
On any one day you may besitting there listening to me
and thinking I can do more thanthat and, yeah, you probably can
for a short time.
You can get away with four tofive days of hard intensity in a
week and that's, you know.
That's.
That's very realistic.

(10:39):
However, if I'm doing that withan athlete, I'll usually pad it
on the backside with extrarecovery or just more endurance
work to slough off some of thatstrain and stress associated
with stringing together a bunchof hard days in a row.
So there's a time and place forweeks like this.

(11:00):
But in general, you are betteroff playing the long game,
combining high intensity withendurance days, maybe even
alternating those and lettingthe CTL rack up over months,
versus one or two big gloriousweeks and then you get sick or
burnout or get injured orsomething like that.
So keep in mind, long days arehard too.

(11:21):
Now, if you're fortunate enoughto rip out a long ride on the
weekend right now and you'retrying to work on building that
endurance with longer and longerrides let's say you're going
for three and four hour ridesversus the 90 minutes and two
hour rides that are typical onthe weekend for time crunch
athletes then that long ridebecomes a quote hard day too

(11:43):
when it comes to playing thiswhole contrast game.
Now maybe it's all zone tworiding, but because you're
riding for longer than you'reused to, the TSS is racking up.
You're out there in theelements longer, there's more
strain occurring to your body inthose final couple hours
compared to the first two hours.
So keep this in mind whenyou're tallying up all the hard

(12:07):
days versus easy days, and thiswill help bring balance to your
training program as well.
So let's take this thing homewith a couple summary points.
The best way to incorporate anyvirtual racing into your
training program is to do theracing on your hard days, so
long as the hard days mirrorwhat the virtual race provides.
Most virtual racing isthreshold based, so I suggest

(12:29):
doing the races on the days orphases of training where
threshold is the focus.
Anything specific or max effortbased training.
I suggest sticking to theprescribed workout itself.
Keep your hard days hard andyour easy days easy, and you'll
have success over the long run.
That's it.
That's our show for today.

(12:49):
If you liked it, please shareit with a friend.
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trainrightcom backslash podcastand you can ask any question
that's related to all thingsendurance training and we'll do
our best to answer it on afuture episode.

(13:10):
Thanks again for listening andwe'll see you back here next
week for more actionabletraining advice.
Thanks for joining us on thetime crunch cyclist podcast.
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(13:32):
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