Thoughts on FTP vs VO2 and my deficiencies

Not sure how to start this, but - last five years spent doing tri’s and time trialing. Got sick last summer (not Covid, but respiratory), then immediately afterwards crashed and broke four ribs in back and dislocated in front. For essentially 8 weeks, couldn’t do much of anything. Began structured in October, bumped watts back up to, likely, pre-disaster time. In February, I was able to hold 92% of FTP for 60 minutes (did it, not guessing at that). Now that nicer weather is around, spending more time outdoors and non-structured. I push climbs to replicate longer threshold intervals, have set some PR’s on stuff, so all good. Problem is that I’m having difficulty on some group rides - not handling accelerations like I should, thinking more VO2 Max work would be beneficial, including the group rides/races. A bit disappointed with it, because there was nice improvement over winter - up to 3.8 w/kg. Going to re-test this week and look maybe at low volume indoors and mix in with outdoors. Just not sure which way to go. Anyone experience similar???

A lot of Z2, SST 90% with 30s bursts to 120%, vo2 max work. I would think in this order. I am more a steady state rider and my anaerobic capacity is non existent, but those helped me A LOT in this year, especially a lot more Z2 was a real game changer. SST with bursts helped also a lot for this higher power surges.

If the surges are short but require a lot of power - 15/15 or 30/15 will help. But I would leave them to sprinkle on top of other things.

You could also mix in some capacitative efforts, such as a 45sec seated sprint every 10min for however much time you have. Inbetween the efforts is Z2 endurance.

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Yeah, doing some of this, need to extend the experimentation on it. TY