Originally Posted by Gladius

Reading through the other thread about the guy who wants to be able to compete in crits made me think to ask for some advice.

During the season, I ride twice a week with two different groups, and am in the "faster B" group. The A group has mostly younger guys (I'm 48 and have never raced), some of them Cat 3s/4s. I cannot stay with them for more than a few minutes - we warm up for the first 10 minutes and then they're off, and I can only hang for a few minutes until I'm dropped. To be clear, I'm not even taking pulls, I am just trying to draft and hang on but can't their pace for more than a few minutes and I'm way over threshold.

I've ridden with these two groups for the last 3 years. The first two years I felt like I was getting faster and could stay with them longer (but eventually would fall off before the first half of the ride). Last year I really felt like I plateaued and wasn't getting any faster and not making any gains, and possibly getting slower. So my goal would be to be able to stay (or almost stay with) the A groups for most of the ride. The two rides are both around 25-30 miles, in the evenings, on Tues and Thurs. The Tuesday ride rotates through 5 routes, some with more or less climbing; while the Thursday route is the same 25 miles week in and week out, mostly flat with some rollers.

I typically also do a Saturday ride with a club (some of the same guys) but these rides will be 45-70 miles and we'll vary between flatter routes and routes with a good amount of climbing (this is all just outside of Boulder, CO). I'd call these Tempo rides. Most of the A group guys aren't on this ride, and I'd say I'm one of the stronger guys on this ride.

I'll usually try to do one other slower ride during the week, either by myself during a lunch hour (~20 miles) or on Sunday with a buddy where we may do a longer 2-3 hour ride, more of an Endurance ride. Sometimes I'll throw in another ride during the week if the stars align.

My goals are twofold: 1) Get to the point where I am able to stay with the A groups on Tuesdays/Thursdays; and 2) be able to do Ride the Rockies without being completely exhausted at the end of each day (6 consecutive ~80 mile days with a lot of climbing - I did RtR two years ago, along with the Triple Bypass, and was really tired by the end of each day).

Given that I want to continue to do the three group rides that I currently do, what's a good plan to improve my ability to stay with them?