burnthesheep wrote:
I feel like I can’t as a lower volume rider mentally stop riding endurance rides too hard. Like constantly in tempo for hours rides. They say ignore the ctl and do your 80/20 but mentally that is tough when reality is a low volume rider like me has several off days per week where it should be enough recovery. Even when I go inside for workouts and try erg z2 I inch up the damn resistance till my HR is the last bpm in z2 by hr.
I just need convincing that 2 hrs of true z2 is more beneficial than 2 at the limit of z2 tempo and sacrificing better intensity work later.
I suck at this.
A lot depends on how you're defining 'beneficial'. As for all the comments that you can recover from what you're doing, given your low volume, so what? Do you get more stimulus from riding higher in the zone, or low in the next higher zone? Yeah, a little. Training isn't (or shouldn't be) about the stimulus, it's about the adaptation, always the adaptation.
Hypothetically, let's say your power at LT1 is 200W. The difference in adaptation from riding at 180W vs 195W is minimal, but the fatigue at 195W is much greater, and greater still if you decide that 205-210 makes more sense. And, yes, you can do your harder sessions harder, and thus get better adaptations, if you back off a little on your easy sessions.