thanks !!!
interesting !
i do not use trainerroad or trainer peak… i guess i am too cheap !
I just build my own plan by reading articles and blog. I am trying to follow a Polarized plan with 2 times per week of vo2 max intervals.
But now in winter I will follow some plan on swift and do some races
At 52 (67.5 - 68 kg) …eFTP = 281W, based on a short early September test. Looking for 300W by the end of October…or the end of the year. Avg ~15 hr/wk…over 17 at the moment. About to cross 600 hrs for the year. Heavy Z2 + Z3 + Vo2. Increased from 282W for 8 minutes…to 337W for 6 minutes…since February of this year.
43 y old 238w / 88 kg was my best in may. Got bad knees, very bad, dropped 210 now.
My goal is 275w next spring without injuring my knees.
I just turned 44. Im embarrassed to reveal my numbers. I’m at 2.69 w/kg (FTP 175, 65 kg 173 cms) after a year of structured training on TR and sufferfest. This is my first year of “cycling”. Progress (whatever little there has been) has been slow and painful. Ive lost about 6kgs over the last year and have been grinding through my “plan” 3-4 times a week. I train on my wahoo kickr exclusively and don’t ride outside at all. Ive been a runner for 10 years now with my best HM time of exactly 2 hours. So i’m not exactly coming in sedentary/overweight or with any injury/medical condition. I also run 3-4 times a week. Increasingly I feel I’ve hit the ceiling of my (very poor) capacity, esp so when I see FTP discussions 
All said, I still enjoy and look forward to all my workouts, indoor cycling, running or functional training. For those way back of the pack, like me, keep pedaling!!
Please don’t be embarassed. I’m at 3 W/Kg 63kg and perfecty able to ride a century at 28k/hr. I’m a bit older then you are but never have been above 3.5W/kg. I’m enjoying all my rides, solo and group rides. Just don’t join a pack of racers.
My guess though is that you are overloading your system, both in time and intensity. 6-8 workouts a week, grinding through TR/Sufferfest… It’s probably too much and when you do too much, quality is low…
Winter is coming (at least here in central Europe) so first take a full week off to recover and then try the following.
Do 3 workouts/ week per discipline, one long at low intensity, one hard at (really) high intensity and one medium at VT1 intensity. Before starting the high intensity one, you should feel well rested and capable of doing some real hard work around VO2 intensity. Stop doing anaerobic treshold work. It induces too much fatigue for the load you are doing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you make some impressive progress in 6-8 weeks of time.
After all, your aerobic fitness is probably really good after all the work you already done. It’s time to turn it into gold by training in a more clever way.
I’ll echo exactly what @MedTechCD has said and just give my 2c worth.
Take a break; to allow your l internal clock/battery to reset. I see a number of people in a similar predicament to you, where they‘ve come off a year of TR (or Zwift) and feeling it wasn’t that great. While their plans are okay, it’s not tailored to your specific needs and circumstances.
For two years I was doing 3 runs per week and 3 rides, and I lost a lot of peak cycling strength and fitness as a result. It was because the running had too much high intensity and the cycling too. My best HM was a 1h53, and I was racing Master/40+ age group in cycling, but getting dropped on 4-5% gradient climbs; so I can also relate.
Make sure you have 1 high intensity session for each of the two disciplines per week, and keep everything else long and slow. Keep the high intensity sessions at least 2-3 days apart. Do all your easy workouts (low intensity) using heart rate, and ignore the power. As a guideline, the rides should be at/below 75-80% of your maxHR (it’s an estimated level equivalent to LT1/VT1, or a pace that you can hold a solid conversation. If you have to pause taking to breathe, you’re going to hard.
A good workout for cycling in the base season is 4x8m at 90-105% of FTP. If you struggle with 4, then start at 3, and progress up to 5 sets. The intervals at >105% of FTP don’t require a long time to develop, so can be done after the base part of the season.
For the runs, if you know your L1/Z1 pace, then do most of your runs at that pace. To work it out, run on a treadmill (if you can), and run for 5 miles (8Km) and keep your heart rate at level/zone 1. The minute you go over L1, slow down. After the distance is complete the pace (mins/mile or mins/Km) is your L1/Z1 pace. For the high intensity workouts you can do Tabata-type workouts, or similar short HIIT sessions.
Thank you for your replies and advice @MedTechCD and @Gerald . Much appreciated!
Yes, I probably should back off a bit. I may have plan non-compliance anxiety. lol
Appreciate the advice on having max of 3 sessions each for run and bike and also specific advice on the intervals. Getting some rest and keeping most of the workouts in Z1 will certainly help with motivation and hopefully gaining some strength.
I have been doing most of the running in Z1/Z2 power zones (HR sometimes drifts in sometimes into Z3). I do find that doing a Z1 is very challenging and requires frequent walkign. Doesn’t help that I live in a hilly area and a hot country (India).
The sufferfest workouts seem well thought out and depending on the week have 1-2 hard sessions, rest being in an easy z1/2 kind of zone.
I often found myself walking, but I was told to trust the plan and see the long term results. It does work. Your L1 pace does increase as you become more aerobically fit. Zone 2 is only 4% higher than zone 1, or in my case 7bpm. As your L1 pace speeds up, so too will your pace at other levels.
And remember to keep effort easy at first, as your HR will increase over time: “cardiovascular drift”. That’s why the are called levels, and have a range from x% - y%.
Just remember that your heart rate for cycling will naturally be lower than running, so make sure to keep those two separate.
Good luck with the hills, that’s a tough place to keep the HR down, but my coach would say, do circuits in the flatter stuff.
Ive gone from eFTP 3,23 W/kg pre pandemic to 3,75 W/kg now. 43 years old and 62 kg. Until 2019 I just cycled - did whatever I felt like but when I got a power meter at the start of 2019 I got Zwift and started following their structured training plans. I think they worked in the short term but the problem was that I would get ill or lose motivation and then be back to where I started. At the start of the pandemic I decided to just do nothing other than Z1 and Z2 rides based on heart rate as I was paranoid about getting ill. I threw in the occasional ride with higher intensity but it was fairly seldom - less than once a week - and just whenever I felt like it. No plan. I was subsequently surprised to see that I was getting better anyway and the best thing was that it was sustainable. GC says CP 4 W/kg and Strava 3,9 W/kg but I dont think I could do that for a whole hour. 3-7 hours per week though usually about 5. /Andrew
The proof of the pudding…
Going slow, makes you faster!
The pro’s need far more HIT to get that top performance. Most of us can go really long with small portions of HIT before we will hit a plateau.
Very impressive !!
You can go for the tour de france !
Some solid wkg in here. I’m 41 and around 3.3. 325ish @ 97 kg.
My training consists of a weekly 45-60 Min threshold workout, a weekly 45 Min v02max, a few Z2/z3 workouts and a long outdoor ride on the weekends. Logged around 5k miles so far this year. A bit down from last year, but that was intentional as my wife started referring to herself as a bike widow.
Don’t be embarrassed at all! I honestly don’t think that measuring dicks FTP or W/kg to others is a good way to measure one’s progress. You should ever measure your progress / current abilities to yourself. FTP and W/kg is like opinion. “Everybody has one,and this is mine.” Yes,the two numbers could be decisive in very specific moments,but they are not even half of the full truth,rather about 10%. Or even less. Whatever numbers you have currently, are only data points on a long road,the important thing is,to saddle up from time to time,and enjoy yourself on the bike /in training.
I’m 57 at 67kg and have 235. Not that fussed about what it is tbh. I just focus on enjoying riding my bike, and what happens, happens.
242W according to TR Ramp Test, 71kg, (3.4W/kg).
Been cycling about 18months and currently a few weeks into my 2nd winter of Base/Polarized having blasted most rides outdoor all summer (still done lots of 1hr Z2’s indoor). Last year I made my winter plan up as i went along as a newbie, this year i’m following a TR plan.
Edit- I’m 49yrs
FTP 341, I’m 42 and 68kg
only riding 3 days- 4days a week with high intensity.
Been riding about 20 years, some racing here and there, just mostly in it for the personal gains and glory at this point!
Impressive numbers! I am 49 years old and my FTP is currently at 249w or 3,66w/kg.
Last year I put in about 12.600km on the road and plan to do about 14.000km this year. My focus this year is on Randonneuring and I plan to do a 1200km ride in August 2022 in Spain from Madrid to Gijon and back.
49yrs old and will be 50yrs later this year. Current FTP is abysmal. Granted, I’m 2wks into a broken femur comeback. I fully expect to be over 300W (+4w/kg) again before I turn 50!
Ouch! I am 50 and approaching 300w again (4.1w/kg) after getting covid end of 2021. I definitely have to do less intensity and more hours to get fit than when I was 45.
I’m not sure since it’s hard to remember my 20s or 30s, but maybe it takes a bit longer to recover from intensity 
The one thing I am sure of is that it is much harder to regain lost fitness. Without a doubt It takes longer than it used to. My solution over the years has been to stay active w/no extended breaks. Don’t want to ride, go run. Don’t want to run, go swim or hike etc… Just do something.