Dreww10

With a goal of doing some racing this summer, I've been researching and evaluating my current abilities to determine how I need to be approaching my training. Interestingly, I'm beginning to think that I may actually need to work in reverse. But I could use some advice.

Because I spend a lot of my riding time (6-12 hours in winter, 12-16 in summer) in "no man's land" of Z3/Z4 HR, along with doing Z5 intervals and fast group rides, I'm able to go out and maintain a pretty hard effort for a long period of time. I'll often sit on the nose of a group ride in Z5 for 10 minutes or more, and Z4 intervals I can do virtually all day long. I'm not particularly 'fast' at higher HR's, I'm just able to ride there for a while.

But, what I've found though, doing some intentionally easy rides of late, is that I can't keep up a moderate pace and maintain a low, endurance-type HR at the same time. While I know average speed doesn't really matter, just to give some context, maintaining a Z2 average HR results in a typical average of around 13-14 mph, which is much too slow to hang with even the slowest on no-drop club rides. I find that I cannot physically keep my HR any lower than the very top of Z2 (132-133 bpm) and still be moving. But, on the opposite end of the spectrum, I can average 20 mph at 153-155 bpm average and 21.5 mph at FTP of 167 bpm. Conversely, I also generally fatigue at about 55 miles whether I'm riding at a moderate pace or hammering with everything I've got. There's literally no difference on when my legs are cooked.

In essence, I can ride as slow as possible or I can hammer, and the HR swing between the two spectrums isn't all that significant. And, while I can outrun a typical recreational rider when going all-out, that typical recreational rider can run circles around me, if both at %max HR. To me, this seems like a obvious sign that I'm actually very un-fit. So, how true is the 'ride slow to ride fast' approach in a case like this? Will spending a lot more time riding as slow as possible net better speed/endurance at Z2 and more efficiency and speed at the top end? Because we've had a mild winter and I've been able to keep up my mid-summer interval training, I'd in effect be working in reverse, rather than building from base miles to intervals like a typical spring. So, what might this look like....cut out most of the intervals and just ride slow?