I never thought I'd be asking this after my second year back in the saddle and my first year back on a road bike, but here goes.

Because of work, I generally have to limit my rides during the week to one hour a day. That usually consists of a 16 mile loop with about 1100 feet of climbing.

The trouble is that once I'm done, I feel like I haven't done anything. When I have the time, I've been working on getting my time on a different 30 mile loop down to two hours or less but I still have a lot in the tank at the end and I don't feel like I've done much of anything.

This weekend was the first time I've felt like I've had a decent workout since skiing season ended, but it took 3:22, 45 miles , 2257 feet of climbing and the reason why it took longer than 3 hours was because like a dummy, I keep forgetting to eat every hour or so.

My average cadence is back up to 87-92 rpm and after looking at the data from my Garmin, I see that I'm operating at zone 4 for about 85-90% of the time.

I don't always have 3-4 hours available for what I consider a decent ride/workout.

I'm not planning on doing any racing, I just like getting back into shape and I'd like to increase my endurance for longer rides.

There are plenty of nasty little hills just in the neighbourhood with 10-15% grades. Is it time to do some reps on those ?

I'm welcome to any ideas.