That’s pretty much exactly what I’m trying at the moment Dylan. Seeing my IF rise from about .68 to around .74 over just a few weeks.
What do you do if/when you get cardiac drift? When your HR drifts up to, say, 140 - do you bail, or just dial down the intensity to get your HR back down?
Most coaches if not all define volume as comprising two factors; time and intensity. I’m guessing you’re thinking just time?
I did a season of 9-13hrs z2 cycling 1-2hrs running and 1-2hrs swimming, it was good for a beginner season but structured training working all the systems made a big difference to performance, on less hours.
Comparison across the years on this individual, I’m afraid it’s consistent hard work has shown significant results. Easier volume or less consistency stagnates quickly.
I am typically conservative when it comes to increasing my intensity. I generally only increase if I am not at my intended hr floor at/around 30 minutes. Then I go up a couple% (based on my rpe) and see what happens. I rarely end up drifting above my ceiling but if I did, I would first back off the added intensity and see if my hr recovers. If it doesn’t (this has never happened) I would probably do an extended cool down or bail altogether. This has only happened on days that I later found out I was getting sick.
If I am consistently raising the intensity over a week I note the power number and re-do the workout to ride at that intensity. I usually do this on a weekly basis. This is what leads to my progressive incremental overload. Then I reset the workout after an ftp test back to the original number (70%)
I now do 2 of these high zone 2 rides per week, 2 regular 60%ish zone 2, 1 threshold, and one day I do either high 2, regular 2, and 1 “dealers choice” workout.
These are all on 90 minute rides for my high zone 2. the percentages would be lowered on a longer ride.
I’m 56. I’ll clarify. I did 125bpm ISM / aerobic threshold Z2. I never missed a beat between stopping riding outside in Sept/Oct through the winter which was 90% on the trainer.
I ride about 8+ hours per week so my 1 hour per day (sometimes more, sometimes less) was right in line with my usual volume.
I did a Z2 overload week between Xmas and New Years because I was going to be short of 5,000 miles for the year and wanted to hit the mark. I might have hit 13 hours and my legs needed a few days off after that.
I’m not saying this was the best training plan for me but it was what I wanted/needed to do at the time. Just binge watch some tv show and peg intensity level at 125bpm.
These rides did fatigue me. They weren’t Z1/low Z2 recovery. After 6-7-8-9 days my legs would feel heavy and I’d need a day off.
Maybe one or two days a week of SIT or HIIT would have brought me into build 10 watts higher? I don’t know. I still hit my best numbers ever in the spring.
Why 125 bpm, is this talk test determined, LT1 determined, something else?
There is a study which showed that including some intensity during your base was a key differentia to how high the athletes peak was the following year. Those who dropped intensity entirely for a period never made up the difference to those who kept some intensity.
There will be exceptions but including a weekly VO2 max session during base will benefit most. Base does not mean no intensity.
Talk test and corroborated with DFA A1 and prior experience.
@GoLongThenGoHome FWIW there isn’t agreement on the talk test.
My HR is well within Z2 and I would struggle with the talk test
Linking back to the Group Ride thread, in Dylan’s video, he notes some paper that seemed to validate the “talk test”…
but anecdotally, I have a hard time passing the talk test, even when I am firmly in Z2. 
Mmmm. What does this even mean?. Z2 has 37 definitions.
I don’t know which talk test to use, so I don’t use it!
The good thing about FTP is that in 30-60 mins you can be disabused from your inflated number.
The problem with z2 is that everybody can just ride a bit harder and it takes them longer to find out the truth.
Y’all can laugh or poke holes in my “all day HR” protocol to come up with my personal HR zones:
But it has stood the test of time. For me it’s basically Friel zone2-HR.
The great thing about my protocol is you get to climb mountains for 8+ hours.
I do wish ISM, or Attila, or Seiler, or whoever is the big advocate for the “Talk Test” would put something concrete(ish) out there.
Is it, say the alphabet out loud and if you make it passed ‘j’ before needing a breath? Or count and out loud and if you have to breath below every six.
I get what you mean that the talk test isn’t clear. I have played around with the “hard enough that you can have a conversation, but the other person knows you’re working out” thing, and with that and HR I think I’ve got a reasonable handle on LT1. Much like FTP/MLSS/LT2 though, how I interpret could still be different from the next person which makes comparison hard.
My personal belief is the choices are:
No talk test above.
This is the best way to find out. 20h min, depending on rider
I can hold power between 65-75% FTP with HR around 70% of MHR for 4 hours with no drift. I can talk but it takes effort. And in the last hour I’m definitely more focused on getting to the end than in the first hour.
since I’m not going to do 20 hour weeks, here is the lower bound from a double century:
My Friel z2 is 129-143bpm, and I’m going to claim that I was riding pretty chill on that very hot ride. It all kinda checks out, I set a 1-min power PR four days before the event, and 4 days after the ride almost same power delivered a 50-sec Strava KOM. Both stand today although I recently tied the 1-min power PR. Clearly I wasn’t smoked after the double century, kept right on training.