- Morning, Trainiacs.
Just finishing up a leg strength workout on Zwift.
That isn't the main attraction for today,
'cause the main attraction is, we are in California.
Look at this.
There's hills.
There's elevation.
We're here working with Zwift and Specialized
for the Zwift Tri Academy.
We are going to hang out
this week in the Wind Tunnel.
There's gonna be Sarah True, there's gonna be Tim Don.
I've brought Sarah Smarties,
and the Zwift Tri Academy Smarties to buy friends.
So I threw it out on Instagram,
what the most common questions were
about how to best train with Zwift
and get the most out of Zwift, how to get Zwift set up.
We're gonna talk to the people from Zwift,
from Specialized, probably Sarah, probably Tim,
and we're gonna answer those questions sometime soon.
Right now.
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So that's it, we're here.
We got like, the entire Zwift Academy here.
We got Tim Don over there, Sarah True over there.
About to get some bike fitting going on right now.
Gonna go over to the Wind Tunnel, the Wind Tunnel.
And I think instead of me answering a bunch of
how I train with Zwift questions,
we're gonna get Sarah and Tim to talk about it,
'cause I'm intrigued about how they use Zwift.
I haven't told them.
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- My favorite route to ride is Volcano.
- Volcano.
Why?
- Oh yeah.
'Cause it's epic and it's a volcano.
How can you not love it?
Yeah, no, I think that's definitely my favorite.
- For me, I like the Volcano
because I don't ride much outside in a volcano,
so it's pretty cool.
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Always for me, we're always downloading a session
from my coach, Matt Bottrill.
So yeah, I love the fact I can take the brain
out of the head and I just cycle.
I just follow the prompts on the screen
and yeah, get in that hurt locker.
- I do both ERG Mode and Free Ride.
So it all depends on what I'm doing that day.
If I'm just doing two hours aerobic,
then it's a lot more fun to be riding the course
and letting, you know, the terrain dictate what you do.
And then, you know, there are times
where I have specific workouts,
so I really like the ERG Mode.
I can just upload my session from TrainingPeaks
from my coach into Watopia and have fun playing bikes.
- Playing bikes.
- Because of Zwift, I think my enjoyment of being on
an indoor trainer has definitely drastically shifted.
You know, like a lot of people from a northern climate,
the trainer was a necessity in the winter
that you just kind of had to wrap your head around,
but now, it's something that's fun,
that I do even when it's beautiful weather outside,
because it's efficient, it's fast.
I know exactly what I'm doing.
It just allows for, like I said, a more efficient ride.
And it's a good way to kind of mix things up.
- The biggest benefit for me with Zwift
is when I lie about my weight and I win all the races.
(laughs)
No, it's just engaging.
I'll be honest, I've always struggled
with riding on the trainer, you know,
throughout my whole career.
And for me, like, yeah,
you know, when I've got my kids going,
oh, are you gonna ride past the fish again,
or in the volcano?
It's just awesome.
And the fact I can download my sessions
and as soon as I finish, I pressed bing,
and then my coach has got it.
It's like, mental.
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And we wanna just finish.
(laughs)
No, you know, I like all sessions.
You know, I struggle with sprints there, but on Zwift,
but yeah, so for me, it's more steady state,
so like threshold work.
Yeah, on a trainer I find it a lot more engaging
on my muscles than out on the road.
So yeah.
- Explain.
- Yeah, well, I think when I'm on the bars
and it's set to that power, as soon as my cadence drops,
you know, it turns me on to focus about that,
while on the road, you can push a little bit harder
to catch up for what you've lost.
You know, it's a bit like running on the treadmill.
You're running at 19k an hour,
you're running at 19k an hour.
As opposed to averaging it on the road,
you might go 20k an hour, 18k an hour.
I find that's the same with Zwift.
So it really engages the muscles for the whole effort.
- Oh.
- I really like doing micro-intervals on Zwift,
on the trainer, because you're able to upload,
you know, on ERG Mode, directly into Zwift
and to be able to do,
you know, 20, 30, 40 second microburst,
hard intervals and that, you don't have to worry about
the terrain outside.
You don't have to worry about stoplights.
It's just with those sorts of short efforts,
you wanna be able to control everything.
And I think that's probably where
I really enjoy the trainer.
I really enjoy the Zwift riding for that, for that purpose.
- All right, so that's how pros use Zwift.
But I don't exactly know everything
about this whole Zwift thing.
I just hopped on a plane and went, yeah, sure, sounds fun.
I'm gonna get, we're gonna get Craig.
You met Craig.
Craig toured us around Zwift headquarters back in the day,
and he's like an 8:54 in Kona kind of athlete.
I'll get him to explain what the Zwift Tri Academy is.
He's from Zwift.
He knows a lot about Zwift.
- What we're doing is we're at the Specialized HQ.
We're here with the Specialized Zwift Academy Tri Team.
The whole goal of this team
is we're taking eight amateur triathletes,
these are everyday people, they've got jobs,
they've got families, they've got other obligations
and triathlon is their hobby, something they love doing.
But we want to give them the support
that top-level pros get and see how far they can go
in this sport.
So, our end goal is to, as with any Ironman athlete,
is to get to Kona and see what they can do at Kona.
So, we're not bashful.
I think we've got a pretty stellar group.
I think we could potentially get a few of them
on the podium, there, knock on wood.
But it's a phenomenal group,
and we've got four incredible partners
involved with this team.
Obviously, we're here at Specializes
giving them the full pro treatment.
So all new gear, they'll be getting a new bike
that they can race Kona on.
They're here at Specialized right now,
so they can go through the full Wind Tunnel testing,
metabolic testing.
They'll have all the data needed to go back
and ensure that they are aero and as efficient as possible
on the bike.
Other partners are Wahoo, supplying the full,
included package of KICKR, CLIMB, HEADWIND.
So, no excuses to not get their training done,
as well as getting them out on the road
with the ELEMNT Bolt and the TICKR heart rate monitor.
And then we've got SIS on board as our nutrition partner.
So, Ben Samuels from SIS has been amazing
in consulting with the athletes
and giving them full nutritional advice,
breaking down what races they're going to
and giving them the exact nutrition needs for those races.
And last but not least, ROKA's back for year two,
supplying the athletes with some pretty awesome
custom kits that they can race in,
so they really stand out from the pack
at their races and at Kona.
And then also the full ROKA package of wet suits,
goggles, speed suits, so.
We of course, are really fortunate to be working with
such amazing partners and these awesome athletes.
I think the 2019 season's gonna be a pretty stellar one.
- Why Zwift to be the company to do this?
- Our whole aim with this is that we want to show
that Zwift isn't just a place where cyclists can come
or runners can come,
but that it is the premier training tool
for triathletes out there.
So, as we pick our athletes, we want people
that are highly involved in Zwift.
So I believe Maggie is a Level 46.
(laughs)
I mean, they live and breathe on Zwift,
and that's why we picked them
is because they are amazing people.
They have great stories to tell.
They're pretty darned good athletes,
and they're pretty passionate about the Zwift brand.
They'd be phenomenal ambassadors to our brand
and our partners' brands.
So we wanna really use this team
to highlight that Zwift is serious about
the sport of triathlon.
And we're fully behind it and going to be working
to develop more of our product
to better support triathletes.
But as it stands right now, it is an amazing training tool
for triathletes, not just during winter months,
but all year round, all the way on through your race.
- So there we go, Trianiacs.
We are here for just a couple of days
at the Zwift Academy,
hanging out at Specialized Headquarters
in Morgan Hill, California where they love dogs.
I like it here.
I really like it here.
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hit that subscribe button below.
And, there's gonna be lots of cool stuff.
I'm going back in.
It's super cool in here, later.