That sounds like a decent plan. Maybe take Friday off so you are fresh for Saturday.
Just remember that the gains will top out when you’ve become accustomed to this stimulus.
Usually people do base → build in the off season and then some kind of rest / taper before their event or season. If you are doing a whole season of group rides, events or races, then you try to maintain the fitness as long as you can. It’s hard to build and perform on Saturday.
If performance goes backwards, you are probably tired and need a rest.
If you are still seeing gains each block of base you are doing and you are happy with your progress then why not?
I’ve been doing base for past 4 months. With my A event in August there’s been no rush to jump into a build phase. I plan to enter build next week.
My base has been outdoor zone 2 volume. Starting around 4 hours a week, progressing up to 10 hours a week average, with a 16 hour week last week.
At the 3 month mark my power at a steady Z2 all day heart rate was up 28 watts. I’ll be retesting next week to see where I’m at after 4 months. Then it’s a FTP test and high intensity returns into my training.
Z2 should form a major part of your consistent weekly training throughout the year. As others says you’ll see some gains in months but further gains may take years. The gains are often slow and so take time to become apparent.
Then your FTP isn’t 230 W. Relative to 230 W, 200 W = 87 % FTP would almost be at the low end of sweet spot. So no. Based on your claim that you can sustain 190–200 W all day, 280–300 W seems more likely to me.
Or his “all day” pace is less than 190-200W. It doesn’t really matter though as long as the numbers he’s using are working for his training.
I do think it’s good to point out though because otherwise it might give the implication that achieving 87% as your endurance pace is normal. I also agree that in most definitions of FTP, other than as a proxy for MLSS and “hour power” it’s more likely it’s higher.
TTE ≠ FTP and FTP ≠ hour power
Without special training you can’t hold your FTP for that long.
My computation is quite simple: I took “can hold 190–200 W all day” to mean that this is @Irideveryslowly’s endurance pace. The estimate of 280–300 W now comes from dividing 190 W and 200 W by 68 % and then rounding the numbers generously. We could argue whether 68 % is the right number, it probably isn’t, but I think it is a reasonable way to get a ballpark figure without any further information.
The only thing that seems clear is that 230 W is significantly below the actual lactate threshold. (For context AFAIK world-class triathletes can hold 85ish % of FTP for a long at, but that’s their all-out race pace.)
Bit of a side topic but top of Coggan Z2 is 75% which would make FTP around 266w for top of Z2 200w
Personally mid to end of summer I can ride at 210 - 215w (NP in the 220s) for 4 to 5 hrs off an FTP of 270, I’m not saying it is easy but is very do-able.
That’s the whole point of my and others’ posts: the 230 W are not@Irideveryslowly’s FTP, the number is too low.
200 W of 230 W is relatively speaking race pace of a supremely gifted rider specializing in things like triathlons. It is very unlikely at @Irideveryslowly can hold this high of a relative effort “easily”. So yeah, I think it is much more likely he is basing his zones off of too low an FTP.
I don’t think I have discounted the test result, I’m saying that because TTE ≠ FTP the 230 W does not mean what @Irideveryslowly thinks it means.
Now you are right, if “190–200 W easy” is in actuality “barely hanging in there after 2 hours, well, sure, then you have a point. But I think a consistent interpretation is that he misunderstood the test result of his TTE to be his FTP, and his lactate threshold is quite a bit higher. How much higher? Who knows, only a proper FTP test can settle this.
And if @Irideveryslowly trains with power zones set with respect to 230 W rather than a higher, correct FTP, they will be off and e. g. supposed threshold sessions might barely be sweet spot in actuality. Over-unders will be under-unders, and so forth.
That’s a fair point. I was going more for mid-Z2 not the top end of Z2 in my estimates. 75 % is already kinda tempo-y, and in my experience the difference between 65ish % (where you can rely much more on fat burning) and 75 % (proper fueling with carbs is a must) is stark for me at least.
Sounds reasonable. For me it depends on how many pit stops I make (e. g. to refill bottles and grab a bite to eat).
The phrase all day could mean something different to how we are interpreting it.
all day could mean hanging in on a group ride for 5-6hrs in which case maintaining around 85% of a nominal FTP may well be possible.
If on the other hand it means riding solo for 12-16hrs then something is wrong.
On my recent long rides, between five and ten hours, I’ve been going on RPE because I’ve no power meter on the MTB and my HRM keeps dropping out with that particular head unit. Typically the back calculation for an RPE of five is around 68% of FTP and RPE=6 is around 75%, I can tell the difference! While I can do the latter it’s very much at the limit for those durations and I wouldn’t be able to head out the following day (in fact I didn’t ride for three days) whereas at 68% it was almost “did I just go for a ride?” That ties in pretty well with @OreoCookie’s observation above.
Those “feelings” do match up with rides done with a power meter. I’ve an FTP of 297W and can ride at NP of 200W, i.e. circa 67%, for a long time. So long as I hydrate and fuel correctly it’s usually just soreness from being on the bike that long that’s the limit.
I have friends who post 5-6 hour rides at an average pace 2-3 mph faster than me. They’ll claim it’s their all day easy pace. Then when we do rides of 200 miles or more their average pace has dropped 3-4 mph, where as mine is the same as what I was doing on 5-6 hour rides. It’s quite interesting to see their pace drop. Demonstrating they were faster over 5-6 hours not because they are “fitter”, just that they were working much harder than I was.
Isn’t this the general concept for most pro’s training? I.e., high volume, loads of base etc. to stimulate improvements.
The FastTalk episode on two-a-days (Effective Two-A-Day Workout Strategies, with Neal Henderson - Fast Talk Laboratories) gave a good overview of the metabolic pathways involved in cycling - I can’t remember the scientific names but there are basically two, one which is more robust and is stimulated by lots of base and the other which is more fragile and stimulated by shorter, high intensity work. So because pros have essentially unlimited time to train, they are able to target the second pathway more effectively than your typical time-crunched TR user. Although of course pros still do high intensity training.
Isn’t the idea to do loads of Z2 until your Z2 is where you want it, effectively the same thing?
I do not believe you raise your zone 2 power by raising your FTP. That’s the equivalent of pulling from the top instead of pushing from the bottom.
I am a “sprinter”. My Lactate buffering/shuttling is terrible. Any time spent near my lactate threshold is painful. Anything below is “easy” From my understanding, this is caused by three things
High Lactate production with poor clearing abilities.
Low Fractional Utilisation relative to aerobic capacity.
Conservative FTP test interpretation.
Could I use a higher number as my FTP? Probably.
As KM said, an FTP TTE test should be " Not breathing too hard, should be labored but not getting too ragged. LEGS HURTING, pretty hard but sustainable. "
My VT1 was tested in a lab. The result was 210W. All-day pace is relative to the rider. I do not spend 6 hours on my bike when I ride outdoors.2-4 hours with constant pressure on the pedals is the norm. I only stop because I am bored, not because I am tired.
With that said, replying to op, can you build base until z2 is 200W?
Yes you can. You have to find your limiter for this performance. What currently happens when you ride at 200W?