Gege-Bubu

I don't know what OP is talking about.
All training starts with goals. Did I miss a goal the OP stated?

For example, my goal is to ride a century in 5hrs, I am working on it since the beginning of the season, but not there yet. I have improved somewhat, but there is a lot work to do. I would not make any or very little progress, if not the pm and structured plan.

If OP will state his goal, then the process he described as "training" will tell if he is getting it.

ph0rk

These statements don't make sense together. First you claim not to believe claims about structured training, then you say you shouldn't have to train to ride a bike. I don't think anyone would fought on the second point.

99Klein 

Good conjecture here. You really have NO idea how hard you're riding until you can measure it. First thing I noticed when I got my power meter was that I had no perceived exertion scale at all.

DrIsotope

I will heartily second that.

Perceived effort ≠ actual effort.

My climbs this morning, I felt like a big bag of crap. "Why am I so slow up these hills today? What's wrong?" Get home, upload the ride, PRs everywhere. Felt slow and tired, but somehow faster than I've ever been up those roads.

corrado33

Exactly. Most people don't know how much they can actually give. They run a race and say "man, I'm SO tired" or "I gave it all I had" when in reality they were barely at half effort. Part of training to be a collegiate or professional athlete is not just getting in really good shape, but also learning how far you can actually push your body. A HUGE part of collegiate/professional races is mental, NOT physical. You have to believe you can run/bike a certain speed before you'll actually do it.

In every collegiate/professional's career they reach a point where they stagnate. For me it was a 1:50 800m run. (And similarly a 3:50 1500) I simply could not break that time, even though I hit it toward the beginning of the season. I trained super hard, I knew I should be able to run faster, but every race I simply couldn't do it, no matter how "hard" I ran. Well, about 2/3rds of the way through the season I was running a 4x800, our team was in 4th place and I was the anchor. We knew we should have done better, but no one was on their game that day. So I thought, "Well, **** it." I got the baton I went out faster than I should have, passed 3rd place in the first 200m, caught 2nd and 1st right at the start of the back stretch on the 2nd lap. Normally I would have tucked in behind them to pass them on the home stretch, but today I was in a different mindset. I didn't just want to win, I wanted to show my coach that I WAS a good runner. (He was disappointed with my stagnation.) So I kept going, I didn't even slow down past 2nd and 1st. I remember making the decision to pass them and the words "Man, I feel really good" passed through my mind. I put a good 30 m between them and me by the time we finished. I ended up running a 1:48.7 split. And I didn't even feel like I gave it my all. My body was capable of running that fast for a long time, but my mind wasn't.

chinarider

While I was never anywhere near the caliber of runner that you were, many moons ago when in my 30s, I was decent age group road runner, ie mid 30s 10k, ~3:00:00 marathon, sub 1 hour 10 mile (probably my best race ever). The question of what is the limiting factor always intrigued me. Why can't I just run faster? Mental or physical? I'd guess it's a combination, but part is definitely mental. Believing you can and being willing to accept the pain. "Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it."--Steve Prefontaine.