Hi everyone,
I have been on intervals for a while now and use it to track my fitness. I am not an expert, trying to ride as much as I can and do structured workouts (especially during the colder months). I am 51 (almost 52), 78 kilos and have been riding on the road consistently for the 4th year. (Before that not riding consistently on MTB, maybe a couple hundred kms per year). I am trying to keep up with the others in our group rides (I believe I am the oldest) but it is getting hard. I did manage to improve my ftp from 208 to 240 this year but I just do not seem to be able to keep up with the progress of the others over the last few years. I have ridden 7600 kms this year (grab those rides whenever i can) so I do not think volume is that much of an issue.
Any tips on what to focus on? Or tips? Should I hire a coach? Are there other options?
Thanks for any feedback!
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Rule 1: never compare yourself to others.
You say you are making progress with your FTP. In your situation I would just regularly check if some of my own metrics, i.e. FTP, keep going up over time. I would not worry unless they stagnate, and then think about what to do.
Practically speaking, for my own training I separate volume increase from interval work. Either the one or the other. And then I have a bunch of weekly plans that I know and like, and I rotate them as I see fit. This also means since they are always structurally the same (the numbers change of course) it is easy to compare over time.
You can gamify filling out your power duration curve. I.e. spot any areas where the model deviates a lot from the real mean max values and target them for time trials. This is only for gamification, not necessarily the most efficient approach.
Read up on your energy systems and compare them to when you feel weak during group rides. Is it on sprints? Hills? Long duration cruises? If you figure that out you can target specific intervals at those.
In theory a good coach would be most efficient, time-wise but frankly you don’t seem to have extracted all you can from self study and self coaching. 
But really up to you, if you feel you like to go that route, sure!
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Thank you for some direction! really appreciate it! I know Rule 1 but when you struggle to keep up sometimes it is frustrating.
A few tips that worked for me:
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Careful with overtraining, pay attention to trading load metrics, allow time for recovery and be intentional about it. Quality sleep is paramount. Balancing training with work routine is not always easy and many times skipping training or opting for an unscheduled easy ride is better than just bulldozing your way through a hard scheduled interval session if your body is not ready for it. You won’t get the benefits of the training and will likely compromise your next day session if you’re not well recovered. I wasted a lot of time making little progress until I’ve really leaned this lesson. Listen to your body.
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This may be polemical, but for me, not using ERG mode on smart trainer led to much better results. I got much better at managing the effort myself, a very useful skill in “real life” rides. All of my interval training sessions are performed with fixed trainer load while power output is managed through gears and cadence. This has the added bonus of making the indoor sessions less boring.
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Heat rate based training! Power meters are great, but focus on HR based training has allowed me to improve efficiency, or maybe to just become more aware of it, who knows, anyway seeing power output increase while HR decreases is pretty cool. Power output and FTP will also vary depending on bike, fit, weather conditions, etc. HR works better when using different bikes, fit, etc.
Fwiw, I’m 47yo, started riding around 4 years ago, and structured training around 1 year. My weekly routine is usually threshold interval, Z2, vo2 max interval, active recovery, strong free ride (race simulation. It’s the fun day, this is when I can see very clearly the progress I’m making), long Z2, rest day. With 1 week of recovery rides after 3 interval weeks.
Again, I’m no expert or anything, but FTP seems to not be everything, for a while I’ve seen little to no increase in FTP number but sustained improvement on how long I could sustain close to FTP power output and how fast I could recovery from high efforts like sprints or strong hill attacks.
Personally, I use the FTP more like an output metric than a rigid guidance for planned workouts. Of course I use the FTP to define target range but I’m fine with power output oscilating within range, and once I start to feel too comfortable and power output starts to float around the upper bound of the target range, I know it’s time to take a new FTP test or just bump it a little bit.
Don’t get too obsessed with metrics, they’re great to track progress but gets boring really quick. My Saturday “free rides” provides me with much more interesting and fun progress feedback.
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Well I am WAY older than you but I took my first vo2max lab test a year ago and got a detailed report , had a dialogue with the guy and he gave me some pointers to my weakness and how to fix them.
With the result in hand and 8 years of exercise data I contacted a dietitian and got a plan for my
training and rest days.
After appr. 3 months I was able to increase my training with some 50 % without feeling any form of fatigue. What stopped me from progressing any further was because of my arthritis.
Not a problem anymore.
The diet is simply , on a rest day the diet is concentrated on carbs in the form of vegetables and lean meat, after training its more on protein ( but still based on vegetables ).
So today my FTP and vo2max is slooowly increasing instead of decreasing as one could expect
from someone of my age
I agree with FelipeA on heart rate training. I try to keep my HR well below my VT2 (I am a MTB’er so my HR is only in z2 during a short warmup
There are plenty of options, and to an extent it will depend on how much time/effort you want to spend gaining the knowledge/skills to coach yourself, or give that responsibility to someone else (like me - shameless plug!) Even coaches will have coaches.
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If you’re keen to learn a little bit more about cycling training, physiology etc. Then a combination of good podcasts (e.g. Time Crunched Cyclist, The Real Science of Sport, TrainingPeaks Coach Cast) and some exercise physiology books (e.g. The Physiology of Training - Greg Whyte, Physiology of Sport and Exercise - Kenney et al.,). These would then lead nicely onto the FAFO (F**k around and find out) phase of your training.
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Hire a coach - have someone else take on the load of helping to plan and prescribe, use their knowledge and skills whilst learning along the way.
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“AI” training platforms such as TrainerRoad or the multitude of others that are around at the moment. They cost less, but lack the personal interaction you may get with a coach (which you may or may not be high up on your priority list).