Because that milestone is coming and I want to earn it, I looked at what the longer (60+ min) rides are like. They're all Powerzone rides. I was kind of hoping there'd be something to ease someone into the longer rides, maybe with the occasional break with a guided stretch. Oh well.
I know "Power Zone" sounds like it's some special advanced thing... But it's not. Basically the idea is that every workout is indexed to your own fitness level, so two people can both take the same class, work equally as hard, but end up with different outputs because they're at different levels of fitness. Denis once said on a PZ ride that it's great for everyone, whether you're a ballerina at the NYC Ballet or a lineman for the NY Giants.
Power Zone Endurance, specifically are actually designed to be LESS strenuous than other classes, because you're working purely cardio endurance. So you stay in your zones 2 and 3, which are aerobic zones. All of the rides of 75 minutes or longer are PZE. Power Zone (PZ), and Power Zone Max (PZM), where you hit the higher/harder zones, are a maximum of 60 minutes.
The hardest thing about PZ riding without a bike where you can't do the FTP test and without an actual power output number is that it requires that you estimate your zones based upon perceived exertion rather than actually knowing your output. I.e. for me, the Peloton has an output number, and based on my FTP test I know that the middle of Zone 2 is about 200W, and the middle of my Zone 3 is about 255W, so when I'm on a PZE ride and they call out a zone, I just need to keep my number there. Without that, you'll be having to estimate.
That said, IMHO the best instructor for learning to estimate is Denis. Try
this 60-minute PZE ride. The warmup is a flat road for one song, then spin-ups, and then a build where he describes how Zone 2 and Zone 3 should feel. Generally Zone 2 is going to be the maximum of what you could do while keeping your mouth closed and breathing entirely through your nose. Zone 3 is going to be (on Peloton) probably 4-5 points of resistance higher than that at a given cadence, and is going to be where you pretty much immediately have to open your mouth to breathe, but you're not getting ragged or feeling like you're going to run out of steam. As long as you can manage to stay in the right perceived exertion ranges, PZE is nothing "advanced" or that you need to ease into.
This spring I was chasing a consecutive day achievement, this fall I need to convince myself that just because I miss a some days doesn't mean I should give up on the week/month.
Yeah, that's kinda my accountability system. I know I'm the type that if I start skipping one day during a week, it's going to be two days a week, and then three days a week, etc. I'm not disciplined enough to, say, take one rest day per week and still know I'm going to make working out a priority on the other 6.
But yesterday I just wasn't feeling it. I did the 120-minute ride Monday and didn't want to ride again Tuesday, and I knew it was the last day of the month and I'd already gotten gold in the strength challenge for the month so I figured I'd put off starting strength to today so it counts for November. So all I did was a 10 minute stretch, which maintained my daily streak but didn't require much effort.
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