The VV infographic is a good call. Nice find.
That misses a few rides off but gets the general gist. Was a good year - holding 5 w/kg back end of the summer, plenty of long rides, some dissapointing race results but overall went pretty good.
Need to include the XC ski in there now 
Well, I was 55 a year ago, 56 now. If you’re relying on a modeled VO2max provided by Garmin, I’d take it with a grain of salt. It is probably useful for tracking your own fitness, but YMMV in terms of how close it is to the actual VO2max result you would get in a lab test hooked up to a metabolic cart (these tests can be pretty cheap if you have a university nearby). If you do get a lab test, do it on a bike, not a treadmill, assuming cycling is your main sport (running typically gives a higher VO2max than cycling, because you’re using more of your body’s musculature, but if you mainly bike, you would probably get a higher VO2max on the bike).
I am guessing that when Garmin tells you that your score is in the top 5% for males your age, they mean top 5% compared to their own dataset for others with a “Garmin VO2max.” Obviously Garmin users are typically athletes and are going to be in better shape than the population average. In comparison to the general population of 55 year old males, a 52 relative VO2max would put you well into the 99th percentile, based on a study done in Germany with 10,000 subjects, lab-tested using a cycle ergometer.
I would think a large percentage of serious cyclists are in the 99th percentile of VO2max. The issue then is, where are you in the top 1%? It is easy to learn that top athletes can have VO2max values in the 80s or even 90s. But by the time we age into our mid-50s and VO2max has come down for everybody quite a bit, what is the ceiling? I haven’t been able to find good data for this in published studies. It might very well be that the best datasets are held by private companies (Garmin, Apple, Fitbit, TP) based on modeled VO2max values.
The authors of the abovementioned German study have provided a convenient online tool for checking your VO2max percentile value based on your age and cycle ergometer relative VO2max, compared to their dataset.
I have an actual number from a test carried out during a lung function research study from 2018. The Garmin and HRV4Training numbers are in the ball park, though clearly I won’t know my actual current VO2 max without testing. Agree the general trend is only of personal interest.
I also know my lung capacity and other parameters (speed and strength of nerve signals from brain to diaphragm for example) from the study which is far more interesting than just VO2.
Very slow start; very little riding in the first quarter, got in a bunch of running base miles, got the mountain bike bug again in the spring, another long break from riding throughout most of the summer. Put a race on the calendar for November and started a training plan in August. Race went pretty poorly and I’ve honestly not ridden since then. These last two years have been the lowest in terms of motivation for training.
I’ve come to terms with the return on investment as far as the amount of training volume I can afford and the w/Kg it gets me. As I see most local races are mostly a contest of who rides the most it’s been tough to train when I know I’ll always typically be mid-pack. Thinking of new ideas to inspire me back on the bike this year:
Cheers!
Had a year on-par with past years:
To misquote a 20th century writer
“We do not stop exercising because we grow old, we grow old because we stop exercising”.
And I thought seven was excessive. You must have a local series available?
Would be curious to hear what you mean by “hard intervals” in this context?
Does it change by time of year? For instance, are “hard” intervals 3x30 SS during base season? And then 5x5 Vo2 during build? Or are you doing 1x/week Vo2 all year?
Great recap 
Broadly speaking, by ‘hard intervals’ I mean a session that feels pretty challenging, say a 8-9/10 effort, where 10/10 would be a true max, and where most sessions in the week would be a 3-4/10. My current ‘hard’ turbo session is 75 minutes gradually building from 0.85IF to 0.95IF (with no breaks); on the road, that’s ‘go and ride a roughly 40k fairly flat course at 8-9/10 RPE’.
And yes, I (or more accurately, my coach and I, through consultation) tend to cycle it; perhaps 6-8 weeks of SS, then a block of VO2. Basically, run one type of interval until you feel you start to stagnate/ get thoroughly bored/start to feel other areas are getting weak (or an event is coming up that will need a different type of ability).
