Alex Simmons said:OK - I know that's another question but I just wanted to be clear what you mean by long term CTL.
How long it's been up there in the clouds and not having just ascended to that level perhaps?
I suppose "long term CTL" is a bit redundant, eh?
What I meant was that in addition to moving the power-duration curve upward (well, the aerobic portion, anyway), endurance training also tends to flatten the curve (i.e., decrease the negative slope of the terminal component), and it is this latter effect that I would hypothesize is most impacted by how many miles/hours/years you have under your belt.
At the extreme, I think you can see this in the performance of young pursuiters (e.g., Tyler Phinney), who can often approach the times of the best in the world at 4 km, but lack the stamina to compete at the same level in 3 wk stage races. As such talents continue to train (and reach maturity...development undoubtly plays a role), they may (or may not) get a little faster at shorter durations, but they get a lot faster at longer durations.