Originally Posted by shovelhd

It really comes down to what your goals are. If it's to become a strong recreational rider, do centuries on the pointy end, and maybe a race or two. that's one kind of training. Doing lots of endurance, tempo, and hill repeat work is a fine place to start. But if you want to get your license and hit the racing circuit hard, then that's almost the opposite of what you'd want to be doing. It's easy to say that you (and I paraphrase) "just want to get stronger", but there's a right way and a wrong way to do that depending on what the end goal is.

The Cyclist's Training Bible - Joe Friel
The Time Crunched Cyclist - Doper Carmichael
Training and Racing with a Power Meter Second Edition - Allen and Coggan

Friel is very in-depth with page after page of geeky numbers and theorems. Tough to digest, but if you can understand at the 10K foot level you did well. TCC is a good overall mid-level view of training for recreational riding as well as racing. It has good information whether you are time crunched or not. A&C is my favorite reference. It is useful with or without a power meter. Before I employed a coach I used their plan as my pre-season prep.