Originally Posted by AlgarveCycling

Interesting reading this Thread!

I'm in the process of getting back to fitness and lowering my weight following a bad few months since last September. I had the 'flu back then, time off the bike, then just maintained with a strategy to begin training again in January - but had an accident in December, 55km/h sprint crash. 5 weeks off but lucky, all things considered.

This last week (6 days) has been fatiguing for me, rest day tomorrow. I have a Coach who trains with me and use Training Peaks. My week has been 672km, 5318m, 1543TSS but a relatively low 7750kj since I was aiming for mostly Z2. 132CTL, 217ATL. Longest ride of the week was yesterday, 204km, 1700m. I'm also still around 3kg heavier than I was and this year want to take myself down further, to 62kg ultimately as that will be a good racing weight for me. (I'm 68kg now, was 58kg when I raced in the 80's/90's).

As a 53 year old (next month), I'm finding recovery takes longer and I only re-started cycling 3 years ago following 17 years of doing nothing! I'm reasonably pleased with my 'comeback' since then but the drop in fitness recently has been annoying. FTP was around 286 (at 65kg) last September and last week I did 6x15s sprints the best of which had a 1091w 5s sprint, holding 1013w for 10s which I'm ok with so long as I still have that when I go down to 62kg - which I should. I'm not going to do another FTP until I'm back at 65kg.

My first race this season will be in April so plenty of time to get back in shape and my competition is other 50-59 year olds. Interval training proper will resume for the first time this year on Tuesday.