I think you’d get more feedback and a more focused discussion on those challenges by starting another thread.
(Note that I’m not passive-aggressively kicking you out… just offering a hopefully-helpful thought.)
Gotcha. I think you’re pretty early on in your development so the odds are really good you need further aerobic development and are limited by VO2max. Again, guessing a little bit here, but it’s an educated one. If you are getting dropped by different categories in different ways, that generally means you just don’t have the overall fitness you need quite yet. The good news is, that’s a common thing and any coach worth their salt will be able to help you improve within the bounds of your genetic capabilities! Hope this works out for you, and keep us posted!
Okay, nice confidence builder after having to cut it on Monday. Was feeling good so I bumped it up on the last section. I quite like this style of mixed intensities for sweetspot work: the lower intensity parts make me focus on relaxing and riding easy even at a hard intensity. And the highest intensities are higher than I typically ride for sweetspot. It also breaks up the monotony, which is definitely an issue I have when staring at blue bars.
Not exactly sure yet where I’ll go for Saturday’s workout. In my plan, I was doing 4x25, but that was with the assumption I’d gotten to 90 min TiZ, which I have not.
Only thing I don’t really like with undulating efforts like that is that it makes it harder to compare heartrate of the first half with the second half of block like that.
Why not just give it a go at a moderate sweetspor effort and see where you land?
I think he explained why he liked it in this post. No harm to do what you like… “all roads lead to Rome.”
So would doing hard start sweet spot and threshold efforts be worthwhile for that as well or does it need to be pure VO2max?
Right now as its off season and I’m ~5 months away from any racing am focused on sustained power, flat intervals like Log In to TrainerRoad
But wondering if as I approach spring I should start swapping SS and Threshold workouts for hard start SS and Threshold like Log In to TrainerRoad and Log In to TrainerRoad
Hard start threshold/SST isn’t going to make a difference. I give those generally as race prep stuff. Physiologically there’s not much difference: it’s still endurance training below threshold and you need VO2 work. VO2 work is not just “ride some in zone 5”.
Okay maybe I won’t bother with them at all then as I expect they would add a fair bit to my fatigue.
What about of doing them (VO2 + Threshold) mixed, instead of a block?
Something like: 1 Vo2 + 1 Threshold progression per week, fill the rest with endurance and group rides totaling 10/12hrs (500/600TSS). Is that a good approach for, I’d say, 6 weeks prior peak?
i think a lot of us need to uncouple the idea of vo2 being associated with race prep. vo2 is something to do when it’s needed, I’m doing a vo2 block in January after finishing my sweet spot block because it’ll be the thing I need. I know guys who recently finished vo2 blocks prescribed by their coach (same coach, two different athletes), so if your needs involve raising your ftp ceiling, then a vo2 block is appropriate anytime
Which is TR approach for Sustained Power, basically.
and what would be a block, 4 weeks with 3x1 approach and 2 HIIT weekly?
I don’t think I can handle more than 2 HIIT, physically and mentally. Sometimes I just want to go outside and ride.
But how do you know at what progression to start? Do you start at something that is ‘easy’ to achieve? Or start at upper of abilities?
Because for me. I can already ride 1x80min at 92-93% with limited cardiac drift. I even can go longer (but I was at the top of Ventop so…). Is the focus on weekly TIZ at SST maybe the goal and try to increase that weekly time. Or should I focus on working towards 1x120min?
Yes, I do long granfondo’s or zwift stage races. But I think (or maybe I just have to test it) I could already do 120min at SST? 90% I am almost sure off…So maybe should I start a treshold progression? But I am the kind of tempo rider that is very good at tempo/SST but give me 10-20min at treshold or a little above I struggle 
My plan is 3 blocks of 4 weeks, 3 hard 1 recovery:
1 (started 2 weeks ago), focus in endurance and some SST/tempo, nothing too much structured.
2 tempo progression to finish in 1x60min +/-90%
3 would be 1 vo2 (5x3 > 6x3 > 5>4) and 1 Threshold (2x20 > 3x15 > 3x20)
This would end in Feb 11 (hard of the winter). From this point I’ll measure where I’m and see where I need to go (improve/specificity), TiZ, FTP, vo2, etc.
edited: I don’t have any particular race in mind, but I believe the focus would be in June a 2,5hr road race. Not mountain, but hilly.
Our group ride - well below spicy - starts when the snow melts, basically. Late April. It’s on wednesday and it ranges from 2-3 hours of regretting why am I doing this? 
If I have a goal, would be being in shape for our rides.
There’s a couple schools of thought here: 1) It’s never “too early” to improve your aerobic capacity; 2) what do you do from Feb-May?
I don’t think it’s too early. People tend to think of VO2 blocks as race prep, and I don’t see them that way. I think you could easily do a VO2 block → FTP training → race prep, with race prep featuring some over/under work and maybe some MAP intervals (just working specifically on 2-5min power not worrying about cadence, etc.) and then into anaerobic work for your crits.
The downside is that doing hard training incurs a toll, both physically and mentally, so you need to be cognizant of recovery and honor it, plan to take days away from the bike, etc., all so you don’t burn out on training in April when you should be peaking motivation for your May races.
That’s how I view it, with the caution pointed out above.
Circling back to this - hard start stuff I generally use as race prep as I view them as good proxies for breakaways and paceline work. So I’ll give hard start sustained intervals during race prep, usually sweet spot. I also like to do hard start over under with more advance athletes too. This can be like 3 min at “over” then 30s/1:30 or so over/unders - over at like 5min power, under at 85-90% or so. Bridge to a paceline breakaway.
Again, how old are you and what’s your training history?
Generally speaking I don’t mix proper VO2 with threshold. I’ll do maintenance VO2 with threshold for super masters athletes, but that’s like 8-10 min of VO2/MAP intervals, not 18-24min.
42 and I’ve been riding for +/- 10 years, FTP around 4.1/4.3w/kg.
My main focus in the past was MTB XCM, I didn’t have power meter, a couple of years with coach, a couple by myself. Another portion just riding for fun, and so on. I like to intercalate some hard years and a “just for fun” one. Ride a bike must be above all fun for me. Just hitting number and doing workouts every time isn’t something I love.
The mixed Vo2 and Threshold would be exactly to maintain, as my plan is to finish 12 weeks in mid February, from that I’ll see specificity.
Historically, I’m not very good at 5 min power, and my strength would be 2hrs. Sometimes I can do amazing climbings after 2hrs of riding, which even I don’t believe I could. Although when I’m fresh at the beginning of the ride I usually struggle with short surges. Looks like I’m slow twitch as per definition. Don’t know if I should work on my weakness or streneghness, to be honest.
I wouldn’t go this route with you then. Mixing VO2 and threshold at your level isn’t necessary to maintain and it’s going to incur a bunch of fatigue for little return.
You can maintain your VO2max with enough volume and your threshold by doing sustained sweet spot and even long tempo work. I’d focus on that until you’re ready to get to the hard work, then focus on what you need for your events - higher threshold? Do VO2. More TTE? Work that. Or specific stuff.
Doing threshold and VO2 to maintain for 12 weeks you are likely to be pretty tired of training hard by the time it comes around that you actually need to train hard.
It’s not too early IMO, because you don’t know when your gains will manifest. If you’re a slow adapter and it takes six weeks, you’ll still want to extend things a bit at threshold and that will take you into April. If you get gains and solid TTE in six to eight weeks after VO2 and you’re into late March then it’s still only six or so weeks of race prep. That’s not too much. You’re just on the higher side of what I’d do, but nothing specifically wrong with this periodization IME