How do you tell when you've recovered sufficiently from one hard workout before doing another one? I've heard it said that if you feel 100% everytime you get on a bike then maying you aren't pushing enough when you intend to go hard and the top fitness will never come. On the other hand how do you avoid pushing so hard that you end up in a downward spiral due to accumulated fatigue?

I used to monitor resting HR, but HR can be affected by so many things. At the moment, I don't have a power meter, so i don't have a way to tell how mcuh power I'm putting out to help guage over-reaching vs. over-training.

Any other ideas? I do have a coach who sends me workouts in 2 week blocks and then takes my feedback into account before sending the next set. So I am following a structured program and not going about this haphazardly. I have posed the same question to my coach...but I was interested in hearding BF peoples' experiences on what *they* use to figure this out.