Thanks for being the (sole) reply!
A few things from a roadie (mid-50s, male, ~300 km/week usually as 5 rides with 4 of them around 120 minutes and 1 of them at 180-240 minutes, 11-12 hours of ride time):
(0) There is nothing wrong at all with the numbers you give, however you are focusing on short rides (I’m taking the liberty of averaging 100 miles/4 rides here, which might not be correct) and need to get your longer rides north of 3 hours and preferably closer to 4;
You are right, most of my rides are short. Weekdays I can manage 1 - 1.5 hours per ride at best on Zwift (comfort and time constraints, one reason why I no longer tri). I am building up my endurance (“Z2”) Saturday ride and am close to 2.5 hours, which was 34 miles (I said my pace was glacial) and plan to continue increasing this throughout the summer. My Sunday ride is a social one that’s usually a little short but I can add miles before the ride to a degree.
(1) It appears you are letting Garmin determine your HR zones. You might benefit from a coaching session to get those dialed-in more. Many coaches offer packages for exactly what you (likely) need, namely a small number of sessions targeting the goal you are setting out to achieve (be it a race, a trip, and so on) - this is money well-spent;
Good point. If anyone knows of a coach who offers such a service I’m all ears. I’m in the SF East Bay.
(2) You don’t mention power, and that is a useful thing to have because Z2(HR) is pretty different than Z2(P): do you have a power meter, and if not, I suggest you look into it especially given the investment you’ve made for the cycling trip;
Unfortunately no power meter. I have done the ramp tests in Zwift to determine my FTP on there; no idea how accurate that is.
(3) What’s your cadence like? Do you do cadence drills? You can “pedal with your heart” at a higher cadence and “pedal with your legs” at a lower one;
I’m most comfortable around an 80/85 rpm cadence. I do cadence drills in Zwift; not as much outdoors.
(4) Walking is great, but you’re going on a cycling trip in Italy, so spend more time in the saddle and while you shouldn’t discount walking it’s not a substitute for riding;
Agreed. I figured it counted for something as far as HR cardio conditioning though.
(5) Are your Zwift rides structured? They should be to optimize since logging long hours on Zwift is neither representative of road riding (fewer degrees of freedom and other things) nor is it overly useful unless you are using it for structured parts of your plans (in my opinion and experience, and I use Zwift a lot and have benefited greatly from it as a training tool and for racing-to-fitness); and
I pick workouts to do for the most part. I went though the Spring Training series, for example, and have been picking out the workouts geared to endurance/grand fondo rides there.
(6) You don’t provide info (and that’s okay) about your hydration levels and the temperature/humidity where you are. Both affect your physiological state and you should incorporate consideration into your training. Again, a coach who is aligned with getting you into shape for the terrain, altitude, temperatures, and mileage by September is a very good investment, as is a power meter if you don’t have one.
Living in the Bay Area means pretty kind climate for cycling. Coolish (so far) and not humid.
Thanks for the advice. Would I be better off adding another day of easy riding or going harder on one of my current 4 days?