Watts Up in Watopia: Alpe Pace Partners

On July 14, Stage 12 of the Tour de France features the classic triple climbs of the Galibier, the Croix de Fer, and the Alpe d’Huez.

While you are watching this epic battle in the Alpes for the Queen Stage, you can use a pace partner to race up the Alpe du Zwift and set a personal best.

See the Festival d’Alpe events running July 13-15. Every three hours or so, one of these events allows you to select a pace partner by watts/kg and finishing time. You will surely be joined by others to follow the pace partner up the Alpe. Here are the choices of pace partners:

A – Andrew Alpinist – 4.0 w/kg – 49 minutes
B – Beth Baroudeur – 3.3 w/kg – 59 minutes
C – Christopher Climber – 2.8 w/kg – 69 minutes
D – Danielle Danseuse – 2.15 w/kg – 89 minutes
E – Émile Étape – 1.6 w/kg – 119 minutes

Each Event Pace Partner will start you off with a gentle warm up, at 66% of the climbing pace for the first 5km of the route, before you reach the climb itself and your Event Pace Partner sets off at climbing pace.

Good luck chasing your best Alpe time ever!

Here’s what we at Slowtwitch have planned for the rest of the week.

Guest World Schedule

Here’s this week’s guest worlds, so you can plan to earn some of the route badges you are missing:

Monday: London & Yorkshire
Tuesday: London & Yorkshire
Wednesday: France & Paris
Thursday: France & Paris
Friday: Innsbruck & Richmond
Saturday: Richmond & London
Sunday: London & Yorkshire

Slowtwich Indoors Event Preview (All Times Eastern)

Go to Zwift Events to sign up for these rides and runs.

Monday 100/100 Group Run, 7:00 AM & 7:00 PM
Join us for a group run on the virtual track of May Field that will kick start your week. Don’t forget that each of the five ride workouts and five run workouts have a short and long option. Rather than canceling a workout when you are crunched for time, you can complete the short version and still reap the benefits of the program.

Tuesday Ride of the Valkryies Workout (Women Only), 6:00 AM
This event is by and for women. It’s an almost no-drop, rubber-banded Structured Training workout, featuring a warm-up, set of intervals, and a cool-down. This week’s workout is Nuanced Differences, which features intervals around 2 minutes in length at varied wattages within your tempo range.

Tuesday Structured Training, 7:00 PM
Our Tuesday ride features triathlon-focused cycling workouts written by coaches and pro athletes affiliated with Slowtwitch. The workouts last 60 minutes and will help add variety and interest to your weekly training schedule. This week’s workout is Going Up!, which features some progressive 30s interval sets pushing you well past threshold.

Wednesday Group Run, 7:00 AM & 7:00 PM
A more scenic group run on the Quatch Quest course.

Thursday Rise & Grind, 5:35 AM
This workout is an early morning bracer for the East Coast crowd. This week’s workout is Hang On, which features six sets of descending 30 second efforts.

Thursday SWIFT Ride, 6:55 PM
The newest ride to the Slowtwitch Indoors family, Slowtwitch SWIFT (Strong Women, It's Fun Together!) is here to bring another women's only ride to a slightly friendlier time slot. This ride will focus slightly more on strength-based work so bring those climbing legs. But even if you're feeling more like Mark Cavendish in the mountains of the Tour de France, so long as you keep the pedals moving, you'll stay with our group. This week’s workout is May The 4th Be With You, which features a 10-minute sweet spot block bookended by tempo/sweetspot intervals.

Friday Festina Lente, 9:00 AM
This structured training workout is designed to get you geared up for the weekend. Roughly translated as “make haste, slowly,” Festina Lente features a workout that will get your engine running but still leave some in the tank for the big rides and races you have planned for the weekend. This ride is led by members of the Kanberra Cycling Team as lead beacon. This week’s workout is May The 4th Be With You, which features a 10-minute sweet spot block bookended by tempo/sweetspot intervals.

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