Thanks for all the advice guys. So my thinking “if it doesn’t kill me it’ll make me stronger” may be up for re-evaluation… I’ll definately do some thinking about that. Since I have been making steady progress in all my training, getting a tiny bit stronger week after week, except in said workout, would it be a good idea to keep my other sessions as they are (described higher up in this thread), and only fettling this workout to make it more doable? (Less intervals, longer rest periods). I am only asking because, although I understand the concern about too much intensity, I do feel I am making good progress overall, recovering well and haven’t noticed anything that could point to digging myself in a hole.
If you are struggling with VO2Max you may actually be doing VO2max properly. Many riders don’t.
VO2Max is not about FTP, its about oxygen, breathing, surviving! I use FTP to help me get up to VO2Max quickly, but once there it is irrelevant. To explain:
With a 3 min VO2Max session, I want to get to VO2Max quickly, ie, about 60-90seconds, so I use 130%FTP to push myself towards that level of exertion. What I’m observing in myself is changes in my breathing, for me that begins with noticeably harder and faster breathing, I reach a point where, my breathing seems to become a double breath and a strong exhale, shortly beyond that it switches to outright panting, gasping for breath, now I’m at Vo2Max level, from here cadence, FTP, etc, are irrelevant, they will drop it doesn’t matter, I now want to hold that level of exertion, ie, gasping breathing for as many seconds as I can. Interval 1, 2 are fine, 3 gets harder, 4 I can’t last the full 3 min, 5 usually pointless. But cumulatively I have maybe done 4-5 minutes at VO2max. In my case, recovery between each interval needs to increase from 3, 4, and 5mins.
Physically, I need a decent cool down, emotionally, I’m wrecked, I want to crawl into a ball and sleep!
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This looks like a recipe for disaster to me 
First of all 30 min vo2 max is about 10 min too much. It would be way better to reduce the intervals and up the intensity. Second - mixing vo2 max, threshold and anaerobic workout would kill my legs and body for sure. Take into consideration that anaerobic workouts require quite a lot of recovery.
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Just my own opinion here, but, it seems there is some room of improvement (not that it all wrong or anything). E.g. when I do 3x9x40/20 that`s 18min in total work, out of which 15-16min is normally in the 90-95% vo2max zone. However I need to both start high and also have the first interval longer (around 60s) in order to get my HR up to the ”correct” zones quickly.
So please dont get me wrong here. Youre doing a good job. However when it comes to vo2max work, you could modify your intervals in order to get more time at, or close to, vo2max.
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