Lots of Z2, it’s most beneficial by doing rides 4+ hours long nonstop, the longer you go, the more the benefit.
That is incredibly unfair.
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First of all you need to flatten your power graph - minimise the peaks above your target average power, then look at minimising your below target power riding. All this should be done outdoors.
Indoors have a look at the long course triathlon and century plans.
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To wrap things into some perspective and translate it into the workout you want to achieve this: Pendleton
That is one hard workout 
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Say that again: in May, three successful completions; in April, two.
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IME and IMO separately. No question.
That’s not to say people can’t do them in the same workout. I’m sure they do. But, for me, the low rpm high torque stuff is too taxing to do after a SST workout and if done before it takes a bit of duration off the SST…I’m not gifted though. You can and should try different methods to determine what works for you.
I tried Wright Peak +1 last month, called it a day with fifteen minutes to go.
I normally do low cadence (40-60rpm) work with tempo target power on the flats. Or naturally on climbing rides. Did some low cadence work recently during sweet spot and it went ok.
Tempo and low cadence when I don’t have time for a 5-7 hour long z2 ride on the weekend.
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Path 1: start riding your bike a lot. A lot. Work up to 20 hour weeks. Do a pair of 4 hour+ rides a week. Do long tempo and sub-threshold efforts. Give up the rest of your life.
Path 2: start making two long tempo or sub-threshold days (“hey, I’ll just ride for two hours at 90%”) the cornerstones of your training. Forget sprinting or VO2 efforts. Become the diesel who is really good at riding sort of fast for 2-3 hours but gets popped on 3-4 minute hills. Give up everything but muscular endurance.
Path 3: just follow the TR plan you’ve chosen and develop as an all-around cyclist.
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Easier to have a higher IF if you’re pausing the workout and taking breaks. Even 4mins makes a big difference to be able to stop pedaling and recover for a bit.
Unless water break is necessary to refill at gas station, I don’t stop and leave the wahoo running without auto-pause or anything at stoplights.
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Overthinking it IMHO, you are neglecting the surges. I’ve gotten faster riding outside than super targeted work inside, but perhaps that is due to my physiology. No auto-pause even when training inside. I just know what’s made me faster and stronger, not sure why. 
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I’m just pointing out that a 3hr ride with an IF of 0.82 with pauses in it is not the same as a 3hr unpaused ride at 0.82 IF. They’re both hard, but if I’m not mistaken the IF will skew up if you pause at stoplights, pause for a water refill, pause to regroup, pause to stop at the top of a climb and take a picture.
Not saying you do that. But could be a factor for the OPs buddies.
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Yeah I’ve done long z2 rides inside and longer ones outside. I can’t go long enough inside - 2.75 hours is my max so far. A couple weeks ago it took 5 hours of z2 to hit the wall. So for me, that’s not possible (mentally) to do inside. Outside for the win, stops and all.
I’m just here to lend proof to the fact that hard rides can be done:
Thats an average of 78% of total Ftp but IF was higher because traffic lights.
Just keep riding hard and you adjust
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Great ride! You should do Pendleton and see how you do. I’ve got it on the calendar too. In fact all of us posting in the thread should do it and post our results. That would be interesting to analyze.
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I did whitesite +2 a few months ago:
pendleton at my current FTP though would definitely be a feat
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I was in a similar situation. For me I just needed to HTFU and start doing longer higher intensity intervals. I stopped using TR plans and focused on pushing out the time on just a single interval. My FTP is was just over 300 before and now I’m around that number for 100+ minutes with no rest/stops.
I progressed Weekly from 2x20, 2x30, 2x40, 2x50, 1x60, 1x70, etc… at around 90%. I started to notice my starting sweet spot was feeing like tempo so I just raised the watts. My muscular endurance is getting much better.
About a month and half ago I did about 4hrs non stop around 80ish%
And recently
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This would be a classic case where if I were coaching you I would have you retest. You did the entire last 3 intervals at or above target while taking no rest and you did the final interval at or above your FTP. If you look the thread above, this is exactly what I’m speaking to. IF will be artificially high when FTP is incorrectly established. I could ride that whole workout with my FTP set to your FTP and my IF would be insane but not relevant because my FTP is much higher than yours. So I could post an entire month of me doing 3 hour workouts at your FTP with insane IF’s and it will really impress people in this thread but it is not statistically relevant.
I appreciate what you are saying and you are clearly a strong rider, but I would take one look at that workout and immediately ask you to retest so that you are getting the intended benefit from the workouts you are doing.
You bumped your FTP 20+ watts between April and May and 25 watts between January and February. There is a lot of information there to be considered. Somewhere between the beginning of January and your next test in February your FTP rose 25 watts. So all workouts done near the end will have artificially high IF’s if your FTP went up 25 watts in 35 ish days. Make sense?
Conversely, you did an FTP test on April 19th and you tested at 305. On April 25th you then posted a workout for 6.75 hours with an average power of 192 where you had your FTP set at 295 (6 days after your FTP test). You also took breaks of roughly 7 and 35 minutes during that ride. Then the IF comes in at .81 for an almost 7 hour ride but if I’m putting a confidence interval on the quality of that data it’s going to be really low. Do you see why?
I am sure others will pile on with counterclaim evidence but to me that workout really says it all.
Forgive me above if for some reason it was conveyed that my intent was to say it isn’t possible to do long hard rides at high IF’s. Not what I am saying at all. I’m saying if you dig into the data it may not happen as often as it appears if accuracy is of value because it is hard to do and for most you will need a lot of commitment to get there.
I got the little message from the forum that says I’ve posted too much in this thread so I will say good luck and hopefully this is helpful in getting you to where you want to go. There is a lot of great info here to consider and there is no doubt with some diligence sustaining a greater percentage of FTP on longer rides is very accomplishable.
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So I have a bit of a habit of gutting myself but for an example, but the ftp reduction from 305 was because an attempt to replicate with the Kolie Moore test immediately showed me that 305 was definitely too high. I’m prone to overtesting
However it’s very possible to keep power up for hours
The only rests here were forced on me. And I could have gone for longer