Primarily because the issue of specificity is ancillary to the point I was trying to make.
Within “group 3” workouts, though, I think that the specificity is often overrated, at least/especially when it comes to duration. Rather, it’s more about the overall training load/level of aerobic fitness.
Reading between the lines, IMO it has never been about carefully regulating the intensity of individual workouts.
Let me repeat that for emphasis
IMO it has never been about carefully regulating the intensity of individual workouts. That’s why, for example, our book was titled Training and Racing With a Power Meter, and not Training and Racing By Power, (Note: this is where TR gets it woefully wrong.). Rather, with respect to “type 3” training, the benefits of using a power meter reside in 1) quantifying the overall training load (ad you mentioned), and 2) determining what is working and what isn’t (i.e., is my power over X duration going up, or not?).