Originally Posted by chasm54

In the meantime, work on perceived effort. Tuesday, ride the hour at tempo - that is the speed you think you can maintain for the hour so that when you finish you don't think you could have gone much faster. With a bit of practice you will get the feel of how to make this a consistent effort. Wednesday, one hour at an eay, recovery, pace. Thursday, another hour at tempo. Saturday, a nice steady ride, not hard enough to get out of breath but hard enough to know you're working. Sunday, similar to Saturday but incorporate a decent amount of climbing and push yourself in the hills.

That should be OK with Monday and Friday as rest days. And it should enable you to see plenty of improvement while you're working out your LTHR etc.