Originally Posted by
rubiksoval
I'm sure there are, but I'm not talking about long hours of z2. More z1 and coasting. I did a few rides early on with a powermeter where 50% would be z1 or below. Most of my rides now are closer to 10% below z2.
In any case, I would never redo what I did earlier on. And I wouldn't let my son do that, either. I genuinely feel it's a massive waste of time and not conducive to riding as well as you can, and at times a step backwards.
First thing I'd suggest to someone not riding/racing well on 15+ hours would be to scale back.
Ah yeah I was assuming big volume of z2. Historically I've done well with large helpings of z2 in the training season. For me z2 is so much easier than any other kind of structured workout ("easy" in terms of just cruise in z2 for as long as possible, as opposed to 2x20' @ 80% following by 5x5' @ 75.5% etc).
The larger point though is I think a lot of cat 1's that have been doing this for 5+ years (and most likely big volume at some point in their past), switch to more focused training and get away with it - or even improve. But that work done in the past still counts, if that makes sense. So it's a tough sell to say "I didn't need to do that in the past".
All that said it does sound like a bunch of z1/coasting is not useful, no matter the volume.