Do you feel the same at the end of the second interval of 2 × 20 at FTP as you do at the end of the final interval of 5×5 max effort power high cadence VO2 Max workout?
Me neither.
If a threshold interval gets to a 9 or 10 you should probably already have pulled the plug.
The varying opinions above is why we use power, and zones.
How about the TR over-under workouts that are classed as threshold? They can easily push you into 9-10 RPE.
RPE of 9-10 should not be overall feeling but per peak. For example, description from McAdie +2 (95% U / 105% O)
I.e. RPE is moment-to-moment feeling, just like power.
Only the stupidly stupid ones doing dumb stuff like 98%/115% 
I tend to do o/u at 90%/110% and even pushing those out to, say, 3 × 18 I’ve never really got near a 9.
And if I did I’d pull the plug because the stimulus to fatigue ratio is too low at that point.
I think it is. There seems to be a lot of people that think threshold is harder than it is for as little as less than 10 minutes (that is a long, long away from 40-70 minutes.)
I was thinking more 100% for substantually longer, otherwise its not maximum sustainable power, it its short unsustainable power.
Only for Supra-threshold or vo2max then okay it might be a 8 - 9 - 10
In reality it’s gotta be both, right?
Otherwise we have no way to qualitatively assess how hard anything is.
Right, that’s what makes RPE unreliable – it brings in unrelated axis “how long has interval been going on”. I mean, 2h vs 8h Z2 ride power should be in certain range, but not sure many people can say same for RPE for each hour.
Hard agree. And, of course, everyone’s RPE scale is different - either subtly or wildly.
I’m glad I have actual metrics, because I think I’m pretty lousy at assigning a number to how I’m feeling. Sometimes I can get in touch with the feeling OK, but to then label that as a “6” or a “7”? Not so much.
Yeah, I have pretty tuned feeling for Z2 and SS but Z4 gets somewhat hazy, O/U is simply undescribable due my personal weakness (lactate shuttling) and VO2max is suddenly clear feeling again.
Totally with you here. Then throw in that on one day a workout might feel easy and on another day the same workout might feel hard. The post-ride RPE system (or Body Battery or readiness or whatever AI you prefer) is really hard to rely on when it comes to AI assigning a probability to your ability to complete a workout on any given day.
Things can go down hill pretty quicky over threshold, quicker still the lower your FRC.
Over-under are different than steady state threshold intervals for this reason (amongst others.) I can see why rpe might be higher for these intervals. Some over unders are Supra-threshold overs as well… depends where they are being done.
