At 57, my "pushing it" is what used to be my loafing, but relatively speaking no I don't think about backing off from trying to improve. BUT, I recognize that going hard, or even briskly, all the time is not the optimal way to go about it.

Plateaus are hard to overcome and I think that they get even harder when doubt starts to creep in, doubts about our limits, our age, whether something might break down and so on. I try to monitor things more closely and just keep going.