Im my experience, when you do a bunch of long rides your FTP actually creeps up a bit over time. Not as efficiently as say doing a bunch of 20 min at FTP repeats or more 5 or 8 minute repeats at 125% or 115% of FTP. More importantly, riding a lot of long rides will allow you to access a higher % of your FTP comfortably, which is important if you want to run a marathon after the 112 miles.
For example: my FTP a month ago was 265 watts and is 270 watts right now. Over the last month I have done 4 long rides (one was 90 and the other 3 over 100 miles:
the oldest was at 162 watts or about 61% of 265 watts
Next was 165 watts or about 62%
Last week was 174 watts or about 64% of my higher FTP of 270
Yesterday was 185 watts or about 69% of 270
I'm building for Kona and basically following the same plan I used in 2010 and 2012 for Kona. I have 72 days until the race and expect to do 7-8 more long rides. By the time Oct 11th roles around I would expect my FTP to be around 280 watts and I would also expect to have 2-3 rides where I was comfortable at 195-200 watts (70-72%), which is what I would plan to target for Kona.
I weigh about 77 kilograms right now so my power to rate ratio is 3.5. By October, I expect to race at 163 pounds and would have a P/W ratio of 3.8. I'm 57. In 2010, when I was 53 I had a P/W ratio of 4.0, which is the highest I've ever measured.
Randy Christofferson(
http://www.rcmioga.blogspot.com Insert Doubt. Erase Hope. Crush Dreams.