Yes, I did see you. Sorry about your neck and shoulder, it was such a hard course ,and you might have got away with it on a " normal" endurance course!
I managed to squeeze in a last lap having to ride a bit faster, and finished with 3 minutes spare!!
I struggled with the eating and drinking, and felt like what i put in just stayed in my stomach, so with 3 hours to go , I only drank 1 bottle and ate nothing. I felt better doing that. I don’t know if its guys, but i’m shocked and amused! at the amount of food the trainer road gang seem to get through. Nate particularly is and eating machine 
Hi, yes , and wow 15 hours! bikepacking stuff. It was hard mentally and physically. Lots packed or had to stop early/have breaks.
The course was a XC course, not an endurance course. No complaints, Gorrick did a great job putting on the event, in the circumstances.
I felt very unmotivated to start with and then after a couple of laps got into it and enjoyed it until started to get a bit tired with 2.5 hours to go, and had a bit of nausea so stopped food+drink.Didn’t look at the time, just bagged the laps . Then with 2 hours to go planned to do 4 laps to get me inside the 8 hr cut off, which I did with 3 minutes to spare 
Yes it is. I was referring more to getting older. But, yeah, more z2 is good for durability/matches, etc…
For all you LSDers, what % of your ride do you actually spend in z2? I feel like when I try to do a long z2 ride, my zone distribution still ends up being too much z1 (40%ish on a recent 3.5 hr ride), some z2 (25-30%) and the rest z3+ (I live in an area with a lot of rolling hills). Obviously this seems like too much z1, but what % should I be realistically aiming for?
I was referring to power, but I’ve also read that it can be more beneficial to guide z2 rides by HR…would be interested to hear thoughts on that as well
By power my breakdown is something like this of late; ~20% in z1, ~75% in z2, then rest tends to be under z6 due to terrain and gearing. It’d be nice to see 10% or less in z1 but I haven’t consistently done that yet.
My rides are like that too. I think to really stay in z2, you need somewhere pretty flat. If you have rolling hills, you need to ride up them really slow, and go really hard on the downhills. For anything over a -3% gradient (descent), I find it hard to keep power even in z2 (and not go too fast for the corners).
I like to follow the guideline that @brendanhousler put in one of his blog posts about endurance rides. That is to aim for <10% of the time under Z2. So contant pedaling and constant shifting to keep the pressure on the pedals. Depending on the interruptions on the route I am usually able to get close but any stop light or slow down really makes the 10% difficult. When you first start doing it you really do feel like you are going nowhere on the uphills of the rolling hills but you get used to it and it gets easier.
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It isn’t so much “hard”, as “fast”…your power should remain in Z2, so you aren’t pushing that much harder…but even that Z2 power means you go faster than you normally would downhill (when most people coast or recover).
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Yeah maybe not “very hard”, but it does take effort - my memory is a bit blurred because I’ve recently tried doing sweetspot intervals on my “flat ride”.
I find it relatively easy to hold Z2, on my Z2 specific rides I always manage at least 90% of the time in zone
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KUDOS MAN!! yessir, less than 10% is really hard!!! (if you live in a mountainous area, don’t kill yourself, and aim for 15% or so depending on the duration of the down hills).
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Agree, it would be difficult in a mountainous area. You can also just ride the hills at low to mid tempo and try to keep the np for the entire ride in L2. Not really much different adaptations…
I used to train with a friend who was a pretty decent pro a long time ago before power meters and when I first met him he goes, “you’re going to think I go slow on all the hills, steady even pace on all the flats and hard on the downhills, but really I’m just trying to even out the effort over the ride the best I can”. FWIW, I didn’t think he went slow on the hills 
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In order to keep the power in the correct zones during climbs and descents I recently saw one really strong guy on my strava post his bike and he’s running a 56-36 with an 11-42. It looks so silly with the giant dinner plates on front and back but it works for the long adventure endurance rides he likes to do in the blue ridge mountains.
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I tell inexperienced riders this all the time when we go out for training rides.
The difference between me and the pro though is I actually am slow lol.
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@Jonathan made the same point awhile ago on the pod…was talking about riding with Sofia Gomez (at least I think it was her). Felt easy going up hill but was crazy going down…but the power was more even.
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I think it was on one of Payson Mcelveen’s Podcasts with Justin Williams where Justin basically said “Don’t ride with me if you’re going to jam it up the hill and then coast down the other side” haha
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I thought LSD was referring to drugs 
I have been doing some Z2 rides and know the benefits, but have not done a whole lot. This has resulted in me doing more solo rides because if I ride with a group, it becomes a Z1-Z6 ride. This thread has encouraged me mix in more Z2 rides with my indoor VO2 and SS/threshold training.
I agree with Greg Lamond when he said…it doesn’t get easier, you just get faster. Boy was he right.
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Timothy Leary’s dead.
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