rubiksoval

I guess my point is z2 doesn't mean anything and kind of pointless as an indicator of increased performance.

If someone is doing those types of intervals, it's probably more to be able to hit the hills harder or stay in the group longer or take stronger pulls in a paceline (z4 and z5 stuff) and probably not because they want to increase their ability to ride all day at an extra 10 watts. But I guess stranger things have happened.

redlude97

I guess it depends what you take this to mean, I'm sure he'll be back shortly to clarify. We were discussing his longer ride planned for last weekend with 6000ft of climbing so I figured he was referring to that. The bigger picture message is that you can get aerobic gains from anaerobic(still mostly aerobic) intervals, which is a relatively new concept to most.

Carbonfiberboy 

The coach who coined "magic intervals" said that the first client of hers who used them maximized interval power in weeks 15-18. That's starting a long way out from an A ride. More info here:
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/a...urance-events/

Carbonfiberboy 

That ride went quite well. I was 15' slower than last year, but my CTL is 15 points lower due to statin use - though I've recently changed statins with positive results. It turned out only be 5300'. Bridges screw up RWGPS. I was able to average 92% of LT on the climbs. Out of 5 hours saddle time, I had 3:22 in zone 3, mostly at that 92% average effort, almost no zone 1 or 4 and the rest zone 2. Legs were starting to cramp the last 5 miles. So major success. This coming Sunday's training ride is 114 miles and 7200', but in temps up to 97°. It's always a tough ride.

Thanks for the podcast. Very interesting. As you can see, I'm trying to hit that master switch from both sides.

rubiksoval

Interesting. Only 4-6 efforts seems so little in the scheme of things. Also seems like those recoveries are kind of random.

I'm very surprised he continued to do the same workout for that long. I'd be very interested to hear how other athletes respond to these after such a long time period.

rubiksoval

Ouch.

redlude97

Just as a caveat, those are HR zones so power is actually dropping as the aerobic decoupling gets worse throughout the ride

Carbonfiberboy 

Yes. Strava guesses that my power dropped ~8% on the last climb from what it was on the first. Mental effort was higher on the last one, though. There wasn't any more to be had. Wouldn't have held the pace if I hadn't had a rider yo-yoing ~100 yards ahead of me. Fits with our discussion on training ride pacing. This route has almost no flat.

redlude97

I hope that you didn't take that the wrong way, I just happened to bring it up since it was on my mind from our discussion. The fact that it only dropped 8% is actually really good, usually its a bit better to look at it in the other direction and see how much HR increases at certain power but still, less than 10% is a good indication of great aerobic fitness. The fact you didn't cramp until the end was also another great sign since you were worried about that prior

Carbonfiberboy 

No, no. That's was a good point and prompted me to go have a look at that. I do the steady power thing on my rollers because I know what steady is there. As I get fitter, less HR drift becomes very noticeable. One more big hurdle and then a 10-day taper. At this point it's gonna be what it's gonna be. Last year I was the 15th oldest rider out of 800 for my event. Finished #262 . Gonna be way behind that this year, but as long as I have fun it's all good. Thanks for the help.

fstrnu

Anyway, back to VenaCava's question.

VenaCava,

Revisiting your question after a healthy bit of internet A.D.D.:

Is it a dumb decision? I have no reason to believe this is a dumb decision. The only evidence you have supplied is that "it has been such a nice escape" so based on that I'd say keep doing what you are doing.

Should I do less and focus on performance rather than these long rides? Based on information provided, no. Why stop doing what you are enjoying?

Now, if you can supply additional information such as goals like competing at a certain level or performing better on group rides or weight loss, etc. then I can probably provide better advice.

However, your question, of course, implies that you are in some way interested in improving performance.

So, assuming that you are after general fitness improvement I would recommend the following:

Wait...you mention that you've been "building endurance", so maybe your question is about how to better build endurance. Or maybe more literally you are asserting that you have built endurance so what to do next. I'll go with the latter.

So, if you have a good "endurance base" then you might want to build speed or power. I'll assume no need for specificity, such as the ability to repeat high intensity efforts to criteriums or ability to specifically attack hills or the peloton in road races, etc.

I'll also assume you don't live in a hilly area. So to simply build fitness and power:

If you like to chase numbers then, then you need some ability to measure performance. Does your stationary bike have power or speed or distance or variable resistance? Tell me more about your bike and what it can measure.

If chasing numbers isn't that important then I'd recommend simply incorporating some higher intensity into your rides whenever you want and starting with 20 minutes total time at higher intensity and gradually increasing that total time as you become more comfortable.

If you are looking for more structure and a more scientific approach then let me know.

As I said before, I would avoid overly an overly structured schedule with different workouts at different intensities until you can better understand what's going on and how your body is responding with fewer variables, etc.

Of course, we don't have enough information from you yet so really any highly specific recommendations are silly anyway but it's fun to watch egomaniacs defend their arbitrary schedules as if it was their newborn child.