Originally Posted by
terrymorse
So what's everyone's opinion about zone 3?
If you do a google search, you'll see it called the "grey zone" or the "mediocre middle". Not much love for zone 3 from the coaches.
I'm a big fan of zone 3, but It depends on the type of events for which you are training. If you are mostly targeting relatively short and fast races (less than a metric century), you will likely benefit from an 80/20 training schedule of Z2 and HIIT. If you are more focused on longer races (century and beyond), long blocks of Z3 SST can be very beneficial.