Planning to prioritize squats this F/W - should I modify my TR plan?

Training
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Been on a LV climbing road race plan since January 1. Until mid-summer, I completed every workout on this plan. I started skipping the easier workouts for outdoor rides this summer, while trying to do every v02 max workout. I stopped squatting in spring to take the load off my legs as spring-early summer featured what seemed like all v02 max workouts.

I’m planning to prioritize lifting again this F/W, especially squats. It’s my weakest compound lift and I’m aiming to get to a 1RM of 300, just because. Ultimate goal is 3 plates. My previous max was 280. Anyhow, I started squatting again a few weeks ago, increased the weight this week, and today’s v02 max workout was too hard. Although It wasn’t just the legs, for whatever reason, it was very taxing aerobically, more than normal, and this was the first time I failed a workout.

I don’t race and don’t plan to. My only goal on TR was to “get faster” outside, measured by whatever average speed I record on my normal training routes that I ride over and over. That and climbing better. I’m already dialing back outdoor rides. I don’t want to lose too much cycling fitness, but as I get back into prioritizing lifting, I just want to maintain my cycling fitness as much as possible. I was pleased with my progress on TR this year. Could I do this by transitioning to a higher volume but lower intensity plan? Like a lot of Z2 rides, or sweet spot, but nothing more intense? The v02 max workouts seem like really good bang for the buck so I’m a bit reluctant to drop it completely, but then it just seems too hard to do those while I’m going hard on my lifting as well, especially squats.

my current lifting program has me doing squats 3xweek, 3 week blocks with progressive overload.

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If it was me I’d probably just do one REALLY HARD workout a week. VO2 Max one week, Threshold the next.

Easy Z2 and fun rides the rest of the week.

Keep that hard workout as far from lifting as possible. So if you lift M/W/F evenings, do your hard ride on Sunday evening or Monday morning.

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If you are lifting heavy and increasing volume in the gym, I would focus on that and ride base miles on the bike. I don’t see any reason to be drilling vo2 max year round just because.

Maybe a potential pitfall of using your training ride speeds as your metric for success is the temptation to be fast all of the time. Once you get through the first coupe years of newbie gains, it gets hard to be fast all of the time.

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I do Kettlebells twice a week. I do heavy bells for upper body, and usually do a lighter bell for swings, squats, etc during hard weeks. During my recovery week I’ll go heavier on leg workouts. I only do Kettlebells the day before low intensity efforts, and make sure to give a full 24 hours in between weights and any following ride. Once deep winter sets in, I’ll drop to a LV base plan and ad an additional kettlebell workout into my split.

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I’m also focusing more in the gym now 2-3x a week of full body workouts.
I still like to do one hard bike session per week. it doesn’t have to be all out, VO2max or over-unders. I find I can maintain most of my top end fitness that way.