This is my first post here and I want to say hello to everybody. I signed up because I saw there are knowledgeable people around here regarding training with a power meter.
Some background, this is my first time using power meter for training, I had a power meter on the bike last year but was more for entertainment then anything else. After a long winter when I detrained almost completely I did a 20min max test which yielded 212W a month ago. So an estimated FTP of 200W for 67kg( pretty low I guess ).
So I started doing some L2 endurance rides and up until now, I was trying to keep the avg watts in top L2 ( that is around 140W ), with occasional burst in L3 when getting over small hills. I also tried to keep the legs spinning all the times, for example my last ride was 3h total duration and time in 0-20W range was 3%.
Is this the correct way to train in L2? I am asking as the last ride was pretty tough for me, I was fatiguing after two hours and I started to experience pretty heavy cardiac dirft( from around 140bpm at the start of the ride up to 165bpm in the last minutes ).
The whole ride had a TSS of 158, so no that high, also the IF was 0.73, with a Normalized Power of 147W and avg. 143W.
Accordingly to 'Training and Racing with a Power meter' an IF < 0.75 is 'Active Recovery', but my avg. power was at top of L2 power zone? Probably there is a mistake in the book as I think that IF values should correlate with power levels directly.
Any opinions on this are welcomed.