TWEAK ZWIFT RUNNING FOR SOME SOCIAL WORKOUTS

THE COVID-19 CRISIS has affected Canadian triathletes in many ways, including making it a challenge to participate in group runs. During this time, many of us have turned to Zwift as a way of staying fit and being social. If you have done any time on the Zwift running app, you probably are doing a good portion of those runs by yourself, due to nature of your workout, fitness level and the possibility of a miscalibrated treadmill that underreports your true running speed. The number of folks that I see running at a relatively slow pace on the program is significant.

While there might be discrepancies between the running speed displayed on your treadmill and Zwift, there’s no doubt that the time measured is accurate. Unless you have one of those rare treadmills that actually can “talk” to Zwift, you are stuck doing a workout that doesn’t respond to, nor account for, incline in your workouts. That shortcoming, however, can actually work to your advantage in designing and executing social and effective sessions.

As an experienced runner, you already have a pretty solid grasp of how hard (from a heart rate perspective) your hard runs should be and how easy the rest of them need to be. Keep those numbers in mind when trying this out.

When signing in to your Zwift account in run mode, if you are using the Runn sensor, you will likely see a wrench. This wrench is actually a key to unlocking the magic of running on Zwift. Here’s what to do: • Before starting your run on May Field (a popular route for most users), click on

that wrench icon. When prompted, adjust your speed accordingly, but with one