Not so hard that you couldn’t manage to extend the third interval though 
Whilst you machines are off doing your 3×20s & 3×30s, 
after three rounds of Traditional Base 1 MV + strength training to get me through summer, I’m finally getting back into real intervals. (I think Pine Mountain on Monday didn’t really count.) TB2 had prescribed Goddard today, but I swapped it out for Tray Mountain -1, to complete the experiment: to see if the study covered in AACC podcast 503 applied to me, if doing strict Z2 + strength training in the offseason was enough to maintain or improve short-duration power PRs. November & December weren’t intentionally an off-season, but those months had become one: I was “just riding” a lot, & doing intervals once a fortnight just for maintenance, & not particularly enjoying the experience nor feeling fulfilled by them. I’d also slacked off in the gym.
I’d been ignoring AI-FTP since the start of the year to keep the absolute watts the same, so gingerly pressed the button last week: FTP had dropped (as expected), so in order to chase about the same watts today I boosted the workout intensity. PLs had also dropped right back as a result of doing nothing but Z2 for the last quarter. I thought, if someone looked at the PLs out of context, they’d see me doing a breakthrough workout, boosted to 105%, & probably think I’d lost my mind. 
Well, I performed better today, for lower RPE, than I did on December 30 before doing all this Z2.
Before & after:
(It’s the bottom three intervals. The reason one says 13:22 is because the app lost connection with all sensors for 1½ minutes before I noticed: I was watching the head unit.)
Regarding the RPE score on the first one, TR lumps stress & motivation together in the one survey response, but shows it as stress. I was definitely unmotivated that day. By contrast, today was much anticipated & I was absolutely chomping at the bit to give this one a floggin’. I got through at least.
Cadence was a bit healthier today, out of necessity. Whenever cadence dropped below about 90rpm it felt like I was bogging down so I had to keep spinning. Couldn’t rely on grinding it out. (Like someone had switched my V8 out for a rotary.) I’d put it down to all the Z2 training, & I’ve had this happen before.
There were confounding factors for & against (most significantly that it was about 6°C cooler today than on Dec 30). I’d say my consistency for the first two blocks was very good (my calendar looked very colorful 
), but life & a cyclone got in the way during the third block, so I may have left some gains on the table. And Tray Mountain -1 certainly wasn’t an exhaustive test, but the result itself is positive. I’d say that with the combination of Z2 + strength I’d at least maintained what I was capable of beforehand. So would I recommend the protocol? Yes absolutely, if one needs a break from the three-weeks-on,-one-week-off cycle of interval training, enjoys proper Z2, & has the time to train: a few extra hours per week on top of what cycling is happening already, & at least two hours for the strength training. In the very least, I’d call it an effective damage control.
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Nice work 
great to see good progress being made 
My commute with heavy laptop was slow at first, until I realised I forgot to connect my head unit to the radar then I decided to go left at traffic signals (the US equivalent of going right at signals) which took me to a local village. Then I realised I might catch their chain gang start so I went faster again. Lol, there’s often 3 or 4 groups of 10or more out but there was only 1 rider tonight. He was eager for me to drop my laptop off and join him but I politely insisted I had a session to do and it would take too long. Anyway it set me up well for it. It was only a 30min session but pretty high intensity.
I found out why he was the only rider as it apparently turned torrential again not that I knew as I was too busy 
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Ah, were you using the PC app to record this on an outdoor ride too? Headphones to hear the tones?
An Indoor ride on resistance mode. The Suito is often too aggressive and flaky on ERG, particularly on short sprints so I switch it off for them. Touch wood, I never get injured in resistance mode, but I can get a niggly left knee for a few days after an ERG session too and I wanted to avoid that.
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I’ve got my workouts set up as Mon (Z3), Wed (SS), Thu (Z3), Sat (Z2), so that every second Saturday I can sub out the endurance ride for an audax.
Monday I’d missed the longer tempo intervals, so Tuesday evening I loaded up Wednesday’s sweetspot: “Hanging”.
Given I was capable of 3×15’ last week, I filled in some recoveries by continuing at SS. Initially I was a little worried about the sprints but they didn’t give me much trouble. Power profile was a bit rough for my liking. I’m blaming it on increased cognitive load: it was after sunset & I needed to concentrate more than usual on avoiding hazards on the track.
This morning (Thursday) was the planned Eyre +2, which I did as part of a commute. I used the cycleway for the first work period, reached the track in the workout’s 33rd minute (midway through the first long interval with the dropout & spike). After that I’d have needed to go on road with loads of traffic lights so I instead decided to finish out the intervals on the track. As with last week I cut 10 minutes from the recovery but tacked it on the end where I was on road.
Found it hard, yes perhaps cutting the recovery contributed to that, but I think more likely is the 50km sightseeing tour with two reasonable hills that I took a friend on yesterday. Plus going through the process of moving out of & cleaning a house.
Interesting that for both of these workouts I’ve been favoring higher cadence. Some triple-figure interval averages. It seems beneficial. I think I’ll push that out for as long as I can.
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