Are endurance intervals really needed?

Awesome - me too. Finding it easier as the weeks progress.

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I agree. Decoupling was at 2.3%. When I get bored, sometimes I creep up the power… This effort was done at 10,200 of altitude, just for fun!

I always like when it goes negative haha

Over here there is more negative decoupling if I include the first 20-30 minutes. My heart rate always settle down after that initial bump. Usually doing 5 or 10 minute warmups.

Time on the trainer is never wasted.

Taking that chart at face value, why would you bother to do Z2 rides as it looks like Tempo is the “sweet spot” if you’ve got plenty of time to train?

I see benefits in doing both! Especially if your racing and not just want to improve FTP.

Hard stuff at the beginning and ending with Z2:
You will train your body to use more fat as an energy source. Normally in Z2 pace the body will start utilising “more fat than carbs” at about 2h in the ride. All else equal, this should “save” vital energy you need at the end of the race.

Hard stuff at the end and starting with Z2:
You accustom your body to perform when tired. How many finishing sprints are there in the first 5 minutes of a race? Exactly.

Simply because tempo also has a far higher fatigue associated with it and longer term that will build into an unsustainable level. Like all forms of training, it has its place but it should also be used carefully.
For most of us tempo work usually means a lot of time >LT1 and hence the physiological costs are potentially an issue if we do too much.

Also important to realise that fatigue from tempo will likely start to impact your ability to hit harder threshold, vo2 sessions etc, while its pretty easy to recover from z2 work and be ready to go the next day.

Great summary from Evoq in this blog, and he’s written quite a lot about tempo.

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I think it’s the opposite. By doing the glycolytic stuff first, you’re ramping up the CHO oxidation pathways (and turning down fat oxidation ones - which would continue to be attenuated during the subsequent Z2 work).

If doing the session fasted, the this would encourage more fat oxidation.

I think the right answer is simply the one that meets the goal of the workout - whether that be to add work to the intensity or to focus on doing intensity when already slightly fatigued. Both can be right.

Well, as with everything when comes to training, it´s most likely depends on duration, intensity etc etc :smiley:

I think these endurance blocks are there simply to keep the workout level relatively low while still providing some OU intervals.

I hate Z2 in erg mode and did substitute Moose’s Tooth-1 last week for my own scheduled Mono. This week, I have Starlight-2, and I am leaning toward subbing Tioga.

In both cases, that means choosing a “Stretch” workout.

My husband approaches this by choosing a 60-minute OU workout at Productive and then adds his own Z2, freeriding.

Switch out of erg mode :slight_smile:. I usually do my sweetspot/threshold/VO2 intervals on erg mode and do any extended Z2/Z3 work in standard (+/- sim mode on Zwift). Only exception is if I want to read something, in which case I prefer the set-it-and-forget-it aspect of erg.

You know, the intervals within Starlight are significantly different from those in Tioga. I’ll try this approach and report back. :slight_smile:

One of the points that has been made here but that could be stated more clearly is that adding endurance into a plan increases volume without increasing overall intensity. This allows you to get some good adaptions of the volume but without running yourself into the ground and being unable to recover.

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The long endurance endurance blocks sandwiching under/overs seem to be frequent in my current plan and whilst they can be a bit tedious they psychologically let me know I can push hard at times without blowing up completely. Or at least thats what I tell myself :wink: