Originally Posted by
RChung
[Sorry for two posts in response, I thought I had commented about this in my previous post, but obviously this part was excised.]
Long steady riding may help with long steady rides but it's sort of like many of these discussions about marginal gains: mass-start racing isn't like TT'ing, so it often doesn't make sense to think about marginal gains in steady state. Mass-start racing is much more about a series of crises that you must survive. If you do survive, you get to recover until the next crisis. The marginal gain hardly matters when you're between crises (it matters, but hardly). Marginal gains help when the **** hits the fan and you're clawing to hang on. This is sort or what happens during your sportives: separation doesn't occur in marginal increments spread out over the century, nor when things are easy and slow: separation occurs when things get tough.
Exactly. My steady plodding Z2 friends (exaggerated for effect!) tend to get dropped too easily from fast dynamic groups in these events.
The two major events I did last year were quite different. One was a flat century (Tour of Cambridgeshire) which was exactly as you describe above. It started with a massive peloton, which inevitably split and fragmented along the way. I managed to hang on for dear life in a fast group close to the front. Riders were shelling off the back on nearly every acceleration or rise. HR was 2.7% Z2, 85% Z3 Tempo and 10% at Z4 threshold. Over 30 mins accumulated time at VO2 max or higher power.
The other event was a 4500m mountain epic (L'Etape du Tour). This was much more of a steady plod up the big cols. HR 32% Z2, 58% Z3, 10% Z4. Zero time at VO2 max and only 6 mins total at threshold power.
So quite different training focus required for each. More Z2 volume would likely benefit the L'Etape much more than the Tour of Cambridgeshire. The latter was honestly like a mega-long Zwift race!