I would like to be able to build a 10 mile Time Trial race/workout. I know how to create workouts on Zwift but it would be cool to create a distance based workout rather than a time based one.

What you can do is use What’s on Zwift? to create a workout from a GPX file.

Create a 10 mile route in any route planner, upload the GPX file to What’s on Zwift, and get a custom made Zwift workout.

The resulting workout is still time based but the time is determined from the route distance and elevation data together with your FTP, weight, and the wanted intensity factor. 

Of course, if you want you can edit the workout in the workout editor in Zwift.

When your FTP or weight changes you can just as easily create a new workout from the same GPX file.

Bonus tip

You can find many ready-made routes online, e.g. at Ride With GPS. Here is a selection: Route search at Ride With GPS.

The zones are the same as Zwift uses.

It has just been updated such that the power target can be either an absolute number (in watt) or a percentage of FTP (this is the new bit).

A quick update, 8 hours later: 

I made it possible to enter a zone number from 1 to 6, too. The format must be like z1, Z3, or simply 6. In general, if the ‘power’ number is less than or equal to 6, it will be interpreted as a zone. See example 2 in the tool.

The zones are the same as Zwift uses.

You can read more about the Simple ZWO Creator and the supported input format in the original announcement post or simply try the built-in examples to see how it works.

How to use the MAP and FTP Calculator

Setup and download a custom workout file to use for the test in Zwift.

Record the results of your test (using a ramp test to exhaustion), specifically the watt level of the final completed stage and the duration ridden of the last, uncompleted stage.

When you press ‘Calculate’ the following will be returned:

• MAP (final completed stage + percentage of uncompleted stage)
• Estimated FTP
• 20 minute target value for a 20 minute FTP test

But there is more.

Input your weight, and you will also get the FTP in w/kg as result of the calculation.

Finally, the calculator returns estimates for VO2 max in l/min as well as VO2 max in ml/kg/min.

Find the calculator and read more at https://zwifthacks.com/app/map-ftp-calculator/

The updated version is already live at https://zwifthacks.com/app/simple-zwo-creator/

The online ZWO editor from ZwiftHacks lets you create a custom Zwift workout from a simple text input.

Here you have an easy way to create a workout with predefined steps given duration and power target. The power target can be

1. an absolute number (in watt)
2. a percentage of FTP
3. a zone number from 1 to 6 (the zones are the same as Zwift uses)

There are other more advanced workout editors out there, should you need more than this.

It can also create a Zwift workout (ZWO) directly from more complex multi-column text inputs such as a list of race intervals in a race plan from Best Bike Split or other tools.

When you press the ‘Create’ button the input is analysed and a workout with SteadyState steps is created.

Each line in the input field is analysed by itself. If it does not have a format which Simple ZWO Creator recognises, it will simply be ignored.

The lines which go into the workout must have this format:

1. The line must start with either ‘#’ immediately followed by a number or just a number.
2. After the number there must be one or more white space characters (space or tab) followed by a duration (eight characters in the format hh:mm:ss).
3. After the duration there must be one or more white space characters.
4. The line must end with a number (one or more digits) followed by either nothing (i.e. end of line), white space, or one of the strings ‘%’, ‘w’, ‘watt’, or ‘watts’ (case doesn’t matter) plus nothing but white space until the end of the line.
   The number may be immediately preceeded by the letter ‘z’ (case doesn’t matter), In general, if the ‘power’ number is less than or equal to 6, it will be interpreted as a power zone

Everything between duration and power is completely ignored so these two examples will result in the same:

Interval hh:mm:ss Power
1        00:01:47 193

gives the same result as

Interval Int. Time Total Time Int. Dist. Total Dist. Grade   Speed      Power 
#1       00:01:47  00:01:47   0.81 km    0.81 km     +0.71 % 27.03 km/h 193 watts

In this example the power number is less than or equal to 6, so it will be interpreted as a power zone:

Interval hh:mm:ss Zone
1        00:01:47 2