I was going to write the same thing

At about the 3ish hour mark, my z2 rides start to get hard. By 5 it’s rough

Most people ride their z2 rides a lot closer to z1, and then complain it’s not hard enough

I think for the time crunched athlete or people who don't do IM, this is hard for them to comprehend or feel that 4-6 hour rides are necessary. Most don't see the value. In the past, I didn't really want to spend 5-6 hours on the bike unless I'm training for an IM.

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Echoing what some have said, but disagreeing strongly with others:

For elites, tempo intensity is a lot of force on the body and a lot of calorie demand. The elites also have a lot of time and training load to play with.

For amateurs, anything works, but the “scientific” studies always test short duration power (ramp test or 30min TT) after their polarised 80:20 protocol. Of course 4x8min is the best when the test is 30min.

Nobody does studies testing race pace work for long course. In amateurs, an observational study found that time in tempo (Z3) correlated with improved 70.3 performance. Another found time in easy/steady (Z2) correlated with Ironman performance. Obvious really.

Short course sports science works because the race duration matches the quality sessions.

Train at target race output (but not by spinning faster, push a bigger gear). Just don’t fall into the trap of not noticing built-up fatigue, as you can grind out tempo even when tired.

Broad brush: time available gives you your volume; fatigue determines your volume of race pace. Work above race pace can be a sprinkle to keep your torque peppy for hills.

Are we using FTP or HR? This part is the most confusing for the avg AGs

I guess we're getting down to whether we're riding at low Z2 or high Z2. Keeping it simple, I like to finish a session feeling like I've gone OK, not necessarily feeling spent, but it's been a good, quality session. Maybe people are seeing 80% easy and, as you said riding low z2, closer to 1. So nothing more than a recovery ride, just spinning the legs. The swim analogy would be doing a 3km set and doing most of it with fins, PB, paddles etc You're going to finish not feeling particularly exerted.

Well it will be interesting for yourself to see how you go. You’ve done obviously gotten yourself to an excellent level based on your training in the past so will have a good bank of sessions that you will know how you are progressing against.

In 6 months you will be pretty golden - is that the timeline you had in mind?

You’re probably in a slightly different situation than many who this type of training is encouraged to- you have the fitness deep down and now you are reclaiming it in a different way

He has some really good write ups about people who become elite fat burners but not elite in terms of their speed by just doing a lot of this type of work. And he has been consistent over years of his writing in taking a long term view of aerobic development. Obviously if you take a 5-15 year view that puts certain things in perspective.

And then I suppose there is the question of what a person is pursuing - probably maximising fat burning (again a pretty vague term but let’s assume it’s quantifiable) may be greater for your body and health long term, but being a poor fat burner but faster is obviously better for the enjoyment that comes from fitness

swimming is different I think, as getting to higher sustainable speeds requires learning the rhythm and technique for those speeds but once you can do that it’s fine to swim at slightly slower speeds and just build the fitness. But as long as main sets are 2km + or so of short rest hard swimming or long steady ; or descending, you can’t go wrong

Sure everyone can swim faster but that speed is not something that is efficient and maintainable, learning those feelings and rhythms is what is important. A bit hard to put into words.

I have had to change my stroke to have a lot more hip contribution and roll to be able to hold pace better

 Are we talking a 3, 5, or 7 zone system, generally?

your about to get a 100 different ways to get faster but that's not coaching or will it more your speed doing x pace at x HR for x time. Go get proper coaching.

Riding a bike is a skill and you have not improved your skill just engrained the skill you have for longer so far which got you used to the skill but not faster hence a bit longer rides at the same pace.

you don't lift light wts to get stronger and you don't do low watts to get faster, but how you create those short term watts means everything to go faster "for longer".

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
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I just do my own thing with swimming but don’t really think in terms of a zone system. I think more in terms of paces (probably 2-3 seconds ). Almost all my training is in a 15 second band per 100 of difference , there are some exceptions but that is generally true

What I think people don't realize it the difference between riding low Z2 say 165w and high Z2 say 180w is pretty tiny in terms of overall fitness gain.

The fatigue extra fatigued acquired will be > fitness gains acquired from that, especially as they start to creep out to 3-4-5-6h.

People always think "oh the be faster I need to be riding at the top of each zone." What they should be thinking what am I doing today and what's the least amount of effort I can apply to get the maximal gains that today's workout is suppose to target.

I know pro cyclists that go ride for 5h endurance rides and don't even care what their power is bc they know the act of riding 5h is a very good stimulus in itself.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
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Thanks for the timely reminder.

It does, thank you

I always understood that it really doesn’t matter +/- 20w (or +-/5-10bpm) - but assumed that there was some marginal benefit of riding harder (say z2 vs low z1)

Thank you

My aerobic work got a lot better following some recommendations from the empirical cycling podcast. First, I don't call it z2 work, it's endurance work. Second, endurance pace is an RPE, it's not a power number or a heart rate. There's no "zone" I should be staying in. It's the RPE that I can maintain for 2 hours or 6 hours without wiping myself out.

Maybe not low zone 1, but z1, z2, z3 all have virtually the same stimulus per unit of time, just that the fatigue is significantly greater as you push harder