Wife wanted a pizza a while back and sent me to pick it up. The pizza shop is 6 miles and I said I would order it and left on the bike figuring I would order it half way there. As it was the wind was so strong it took me a hour to get there and I placed the order a mile away. Headed back with the hot pie bungeed to the back rack and did at least 20 MPH home. Came in with a steaming hot pizza and she said "How did you do that?"
I try and stay aware of the half way point when doing a local ride with wind and hills it's easy to put yourself to far from home in a hurry.
My theory is it's about "time" not "effort" with the wide gear selection I try and ride at a sustainable energy level and just understand it will take more time. What I have found the two quickest ways to kill yourself is expecting a certain time to get someplace or riding with a much stronger rider and trying to keep pace. Things like staying low in the drops of course lessen the overall energy to get from point A to point B into a wind and should be done. But my way of looking at it is if I'm in the drops into a wind and doing 7 MPH and my back is getting strained and I want to sit up for a bit drop down two gears sit up and do 5 MPH for a while. At least you are still moving in the right direction and burning the same amount of energy per unit of time.
Like you when I got back into riding (and I'm still getting back in) you remember your youth, and I remember thinking " I don’t remember wind and hills being so hard!" You also remember how fast you used to ride and going at pace is hard to do. I tried jogging a few years ago and besides the knees not having any cushion left I thought how can I be able to walk all day but cant jog 10 minutes. I try and maintain a pace on the bike that feels like I'm doing a brisk walk. I personally could ride every day with pacing myself. It might not be the best way to improve conditioning rapidly, but I'm not trying out for anything soon. Best advice I have been given on the forum so far was its ok to push a bike up a big climb and have something left to ride more that day and be able to ride the next day.
I get passed a lot by people wearing tight spandex outfits.