Originally Posted by
Classtime
Cool. For my peace of mind, I’m interpreting avg. HR as a percentage of LT as a measure of overall effort. I have a tendency of turning timed events into a race and I don’t want to over do it when 4 weeks after an extraordinarily long ride, I have to do an even longer one.
I know what you mean. However, I always TT'd my events and brevets with an emphasis on short stops at controls. That's where one can save big time. As it is said, there's no slower speed than stopped. Getting close to a control, I'd make a list of things I wanted to do in order of criticality. I didn't always get all of them done. However I never overcooked it and always had some good efforts left all the way to the finish. Most of that is training and fueling. Pacing kinda takes care of itself as long as one keeps one's leash on until one gets into the swing of it.
I never an an issue with being tired for the next one, more the reverse. The idea is that every excursion into the Dark Side makes you stronger. So just go there. There will be "discomfort."