Originally Posted by
hoody
i still believe that TITS and plenty of it is the only real answer
Trust me, I'm definitely Pro TITS. However, there actually is more to life than just TITS. And the OP's life only allows him a limited amount of TITS.
While real TITS are very good, if you can't have real TITS, you may have to settle for some artificial enhancement to your smaller TITS, and this is where the FTP work comes in.
By raising your FTP, you can ride faster longer. For example if the OP has an FTP of 260 watts, and he needs to ride at close to that 260 watts to get up the hills, keep an acceptable pace, or hang with the group, by definition he can only do that for an hour.
But if he raises his FTP to 300, and only has to put out 260 watts, he'll be able to go many many more miles 40 watts below threshold.
To realize that intensisty work can improve your endurance, just take a look at your local century to the group of Racers that finish the Century sub 5 hours. Lots of times many of those guys are racing mostly crits and shorter RR's and 50 miles is a long ride. Yet because of the intensity work they can easily handle a century.