Why are you thinking about those things? or what are you thinking about those things as you ride?
Or did I miss the sarcasm?
And you are correct IMO for following this line of thinking. As @WindWarrior points out (and I tried to humorously point out above), it doesn’t necessarily cleanly line up with Coggan/TR zones. That’s definitely one of the things to consider. 
Many have “treated”/“looked at” this intensity more like tempo. IOW, there is STILL an “easy riding” endurance type intensity (that is lower). Think “.65 IF”. Something like that. But they throw in rides several times a week at “high zone 2”. Or do “high zone2” in an otherwise “regular” zone 2 ride. For me, that is not .75 IF. It’s higher.
I find it best to not try to reconcile Coggan zones with ISM zones.
This isn’t day-to-day “easy”, “all day” endurance riding. It’s a step up. And you would be ill-advised IMO to make this your endurance riding. IOW, ISM model also has a Zone 1. 
I mean that I get in my own head on all the training stuff, almost exactly as I said. Too much thinking (and not in a positive way) and it’s interfering with the enjoyment ( we are supposed to like doing this, I think?) of the ride.
I like to read all the stuff here and there’s lots of smart people with interesting things to say. But I struggle to turn it off a lot of the time. I don’t think I’m actually smart enough to coalesce it all in a way that makes sense in my head. It’s a bit swirley in there.
They don’t seem to change much of their training around for the different distance. But aren’t they well above 20 hours, with their endurance/base pace as < 1 mmol? The Norwegians to me are perfect examples of following strict guidelines for their intensity distribution. I’m not sure how much zone 2 work they do regularly which is why i asked if you had tallied their training before.
Now that Gustav isn’t sharing power data though, that might be moot since he said he was doing it because they were trying something new. I saw he posted some running intervals at 1 mmol, which for him is probably zone 2 since threshold for those guys are in the low 3’s, and baseline < 1.
Then my near-term advise would be to take a break from the forum. Most of us aren’t going pro and are doing this, in theory, for fun. If its not fun then make a change to make it fun. I’d rather have sub-optimal training (and I have) but continue to enjoy cycling and ride another 17 years than ‘optimize’ the fun out of it and stop.
Sure, but most people here are not physiologists. I think this forum is a good source of information and discussion but most people here, including myself, are not specifically trained in this area. We’re going to get conflicting information, information presented incorrectly, etc. and have to sort it out ourselves. There are also discussions about one-off studies and ‘optimizing’ your training that I think don’t matter in the long run / big picture. I mean, Attia talks about using 2 (?!?) lactate meters so he can make sure he’s in the right power zone, {sarcasm} because, obviously, one isn’t good enough. {sarcasm}, and only doing it indoors because he doesn’t want to accidentally get out of zone. I get he’s not cycling for the same reasons I am, but still, talk about sapping the fun out of endurance riding
Probably wrong there…
But this appears to be the result of frequency and not so much of duration. This was my main point.
Yes, i had mentioned that before that balancing 3 sports means it gets hard to go big in any one of them. Of course Blu just did a 100 mile ride backed up with 2 hour run yesterday.
I’m also noticing that seiler is changing his stance about the importance of going long, now preaching consistency.
There’s one thing I don’t understand still.
Not sure why, or from where, but my impression was that you could(should) ride zone 2 for a long time on low heart rate. At some point, you start to fatigue your slow twitch muscles, and the heart rate starts to drift. When you get to this point you’re “done” with the workout, and as you get stronger, it will take longer and longer.
I expect if I do raise power every 15 min, until hitting my 80% of HR max, then I’ll be “deep” in Z3, and probably will still see HR drifting slowly upwards. Should you then decrease power again every 15 min? To me it sounds like what he’s describing is simply tempo workouts. Which I would much rather do then Z2 anyways 
This is common, general coaching advise, so yeah, lots of places you could have heard that. Most likely an old Friel article. The “increased fast twitch recruitment, fatigue slow twitch” as an explanation of that happening is also common (I believe even Seiler posited that on one of his pod appearances), but not necessarily universally accepted. Usually because “it’s more complex than that, but yes that part of it”. So agreeing, but acknowledging it’s not that simple.
Depends on the coach. Some ppl do this, some don’t. Gets into discussion about strain as opposed to load or stress.
This is true and is a decent indicator of increased fitness.
All of the above is about general endurance/Coggan Zone 2/“all-day” pace type of riding. The reason it gets tricky is that often we focus on how hard (intensity) and not how long (duration). With ISM Zone 2 type riding, you would manipulate intensity, duration, and frequency in a way that is more analogous to how someone manipulates tempo (Coggan Z3, mid or low…think .75-.80 IF), not how they would use .65 IF endurance riding. Too many ppl have skimmed this ISM Zone 2 material and thought: “oh now I’ll do my long ride at .75 IF and all other training stays the same”, or some such.
At the bottom of this article (and I believe in podcasts as well), ISM has given recommendations
If you look at those, he is not saying “this is your weekly long ride”, or any other subjective cue that would relate it back to Coggan Zone 2. The confusion stems from the name: “Zone 2”. In fact, Jonathan Vaughters was discussing on a pod a while ago (pros and cons) and he referred to it as “high Zone 2”.
That article came out a long time ago and I would be willing to bet that prior to Pog winning the TdF and ISM enjoying a renewed interest in his ideas, most riders would have read that article and though “oh this guy is telling me to do long slow distance zone 2 type riding…well, I’m not a pro, sounds nice but I don’t have 20 hrs”. It’s not long slow distance riding.
I would too.
I agree.
Thank you for taking the time replying! For me then, this begs the question on how I should do these rides.
I am in my mid 30s, have no pipedreams of becoming a great cyclist. But I am a nerd, and I do like to get the most “bang for my sweat equity”, and train about 3 times a week + a fun ride. With that in mind, it seems I am better off with this ISM/Attia approach of 1-2hr sessions of whatever power percentage happens to correspond to my 80% of HR max. Rather than doing 1-2 hours of 75% of FTP, that just feels very easy. Is this a fair conclusion?
Join the club! 
I’m going to let others more directly experienced with this style of riding weigh in. Discourse forum software bot is yelling at me that I’m replying too much. I get the hint. LOL
Depends. 
That’s my impression as well. I reach top of z2 at 125 bpm on the bike, so 139 bpm (80% of max) is basically sweet spot.
My coach puts 66-79% FTP range on my endurance workouts. He rarely comments on those workouts, and I adjust intensity for various reasons but mostly end up around .72-.74 IF on relatively flat / rolling routes. I’m nearly twice your age and recovery is increasingly a real consideration.
A local triathlon age grouper has competed at the world championships in Kona. She recently decided to focus on cycling. Her coach has done lactate testing and gas exchange testing. Yesterday she did a 3 hour endurance ride, it looked like this:
and
FTP updated recently. She is about ten years younger. I’ve ended up with rides looking like that, except six months into my season they are 2-2.5 hours on Tuesday and as much as I can put down with other stuff on the other 4 days.
FWIW for ME and my physiology, aerobic decoupling hasn’t been of much use (little decoupling up to ftp) except for the first few weeks after a real off-season. Or during a sudden heat wave (sweat response) or getting behind on hydration. But others see more variation in decoupling and continue to use. It really depends on you.
Thanks again!
I’ve put together an Attia inspired workout in the workout creator. It basically starts at 70% of FTP and then ramps up 5% every 15 minutes until 80% and stays at 80% thereafter. Excited to test it out and see how it goes!
For how long?
For as much time as I have. Tonight I have limited time, so total duration is only 1 hr (but that was on par with what ISM & Attia talked about anyway, 1 to 1.5hr 4-6 times a week)
Polarised enables time travel?
Lol suppose to be 2019
Do you expect to get something different of the custom workout vs say 2x20 @80% or some other more ‘traditional’ tempo or upper endurance workout?