WATT WORKS FOR ME ZOE BACKSTEDT

The youngest member of the storied racing family talks about her first pro victory and juggling the demands of road and cross

You were sidelined for most of the summer with illness. How did you train to return to racing?
Zone 1 rides, as flat as possible, keeping the heart rate low. For the first week, I started with just half an hour a day on the turbo, and slowly progressed from there. When I started to feel stronger, I added 30-40 watts and just kept the chain tight for a few minutes. I'd sometimes do four times four minutes over the space of two hours. By the time I got up to eight minutes and it started to hurt a bit, I knew I was getting stronger.