What do any of those questions have to do with overtraining? It's not like I've done that this year or something. I did that as a 21 year old college student, though I was already a cat 1 at that point and had been training and racing for a few years.

I completely agree with the hours. Actually, now I get far better results at 8-10 hours of training, though I focus more on crits. But 14-16 hours a week probably would have been the sweet spot at that point, especially for racing in Europe.

But yes, you really have to push through over and over again to reach a point of overtraining, and then you have to keep going. Not a good experience.

Generally, I am training for racing 4 to 5 times per week. There are at least 2 hard days however, all I do are intervals meaning that all workouts have a given duration and intensity.

With respect to recovery time, my training has been about the same for the last 10 years. Recently, I read Mathew Walkers Book - Why We Sleep. I have increased my sleep about 2,5 hours per week in addition to naps. That change has had a dramatic effect on my cycling power and recovery. I eat back to back hard days like candy where prior to adding sleep, they were more difficult.

In addition to cycling, I spend a lot of time in the gym strength training. I focus on the muscles that cycling does not work. Sometimes I work on leg strength but not before competitions. I think strength is a key metric in reducing fatigue and increasing performance and aids recovery.

I'll have to check out that sleep info Hermes, something I've been shorting for a long time. I've been training and racing for roughly 40 years, starting in my 20's and now 62, at a Cat 2 level.

The only area where I think I'm more vulnerable now is when I add in very intense work. As an example something like micro-intervals. I definitely need a bit more recovery after that type of session than in the past. Same for race efforts. If I don't it ends up being a wash, no real gains. I lean more towards days completely off the bike now rather than "recovery rides", but that is partly an other things in life decision.

Long Z2 stuff doesn't feel that much different if I don't let the ride creep into my 30 yo Z2, eat & hydrate . Power zones are much different now of course. I'm down to somewhere around 8 hrs/week from 12-14, most of that due to demanding job and running a single parent home.

Can you share how your power zones have changed? You are still a Cat 2 at 62 y.o.
Thanks

And from what I understand, your body gives you -numerous- warnings along the way that you'd have to entirely ignore in order to overtrain yourself. I think older cyclists are much more likely to injure themselves from not allowing enough recovery time, and injuring oneself is not the same as overtraining. I use TrainingPeaks and their PMC (Performance Management Chart) to judge my training status. The first step I notice when when my ATL (Acute Training Load) is getting a little high is that I'll wake up one morning and just not be very enthusiastic about riding that day.

I've learned to mostly ignore that when I'm trying to move that stubborn CTL. I watch for more direct physical symptoms. I even ignore muscle soreness for the most part. I find it way too easy to fool myself into not doing hard work. If my 3 minute morning standing HR come up 10 beats, or my training HR drops the same, I pay attention to that. Over time, I've found that most things like sore muscles and tendon twinges heal themselves if I work them, and don't if I don't. YMMV. The days when doctors prescribed rest for sore back syndrome are long past.

My license says I am, although performance wise not really close. I can't give a direct comparison. I've only been training with power the last 3 years or so and never really thought about it all that much.

I'll try a rough estimate, HR Z2 for me has been similar to Power Z2. At 35 I did a lot of Z2, roughly 42x16 or 15 on the flats, so somewhere around 20-21 mph (210-220W roughly). That would put my FTP back then at best 290W & at 150 lbs just a tick over 4 W/kg. Nothing earth shattering, about what you would expect for a field fodder 2.

240W FTP is the best I've tested recently so down 16% in raw watts. Most of what I've read says around .5% per year so I'm tracking pretty close to that, although it has not felt like a steady decline. My current Z2 target is 160-180.

Respectable numbers...thanks.

Yeah, sure. Weight gain, restless sleep, unresponsive heart rate, general malaise. All sorts of stuff.

I don't put much stock in the PMC. I use it only as conversation points and comparisons because lots of other people use it, but it doesn't influence my training much at all. In fact, I podiumed a crit last month with a +36 TSB and a CTL 40 points lower than it's ever been during race season.

Just so much more to training than those numbers (which can also be easily manipulated through specific workouts if one were inclined).

I am curious about your reference to Z2 training when you were 35...you mentioned you made the transition to training exclusively with power about 3 years ago. You were 35 y.o. about 27 years ago and I can only assume you trained to HR back then because this predated power meters.
At some point did you correlate your HR zones to Power zones? Or...do you do a basic interpolation about wattage based upon speed? e.g. 20-21 = 210-220w
I am wondering if you based your speed to wattage estimate upon what you now know based upon riding with a power meter? You mention you are 150 lbs and I presume you punch a pretty small hole in the air and why your watts are so low for 20-21 mph and you arrived at this correlation based upon watts displayed on the bike compared with mph computer reading and could make this backward extrapolation to zones you rode to when you were 35?

Reason I ask the above and am interested in your numbers as we are close to the same age and you reference your training zones have changed. I am trying to get a sense of how you determined this based upon change to training with power later in life versus what I presume was training to HR earlier.
Thanks
PS: I find I recover slower based upon sustained higher efforts than years past which comports with the article I referenced. Body doesn't recover as fast with age perhaps in addition to training to zone targets moving as well. If you think about it, adhering to your 35 y.o. Z2 training at age 62 is going to tax your body more and hence promote a greater need for rest. Or, conversely as you note, you train to lower power zones now. Only conclusion to draw from that and please correct me if you disagree is...if you train to lower zone power, you are going to have less net fitness which of course agrees with the fact that with age we decline on some level in terms of our ability to sustain high power over time. This is why we see no 45 y.o.'s in the TdF independent of how hard they train. They just can't recover with that level of high exertion. So it stands to reason that training to lower zones will make the historic A ride more challenging for the aging amateur.. I have this discussion with older riders participating in the A group ride. Older riders tend to be more collectively 'wiped out' by the exertion level of that ride even though they can keep up and therefore take longer to recover as compared to years past.

I know I take more recovery time now. Whether it is physical/aging (61yo) or mental (bc I am no longer on 24hr call/duties) is a toss up...some days my head tells me I'm still 35---those are the times I am extra careful. If I am training on a schedule (usually Mar-Jul), I make sure to schedule rest/recovery. That said, I try to do something physical everyday, but I don't ride back to back days (and certainly not high effort back to back days) very often.

I want to clarify that the OP does not mean to include recovery during rides in between hard efforts? Certainly that gets longer with age, but that's more a function of fitness.

And is most noticeable in very young riders, who often have the ability to do a full-on sprint, take only a few seconds to recover, and can go again just as hard.

Yes, I trained with HR. The power was a SWAG, back then I didn't even look at speed on longer rides. Only time and HR. Numbers from now are actuals. I use WKO4 to crunch them (that's also where I looked at the comparison between my current HR Zones & Power Zones). The only non-SWAG comparison I can make is back then Z2 on flat ground was roughly 42x15, now it's 52x21.

Getting back to the OP. The point I was trying to make was that I don't notice a big difference in recovery from Z2 rides, IF I stick to the zone. You can't really do that on a group ride. I do feel like I need more rest after intervals at higher intensities for them to be adaptive.

How much of that is simple carb deficit, I wonder?

In bold, my counterpoint in response to your last post was...you lowered your Z2 with age. If you lowered your Z2 then it stands to reason your recovery wouldn't change.
And of course if you train to lower Z2 now that you are older, then you won't have the fitness of a more rigorous zone training and so aggressive group rides will be more taxing and require more recovery.
My thoughts..do you agree?

Do slow "recovery rides" help at all? What happens if you do one while you're still not fully recovered from your last ride?

Makes sense. That's the general consensus of older riders I know. The A group that I ride with from time to time meets 3 x's a week with recovery ride on Sat where the mph cap is ~19mph or so on Saturday. The weekly ride can get intense when Cat racers infiltrate the group which they do. Some of the older riders that used to ride the A group when there was just one group...have now chosen the slower group. The guys now in the B group...it is really more of an A- group...sometimes doesn't finish much behind the A guys but it just doesn't have the intensity and the sprint part of the ride has been suspended. When I ride each group I notice a difference in my exhaustion level after the ride and my recovery.

While technically true...that's missing the point a bit. Gains are produced as a response to overtaxing your bodies physiological systems. Sure, gains come after youre done training and are resting, but the way you word it makes it sound like just resting 24 hrs a day will produce maximum gains.
this is probably getting too pedantic lol
Gains are a response to training, not resting. You rest to maximize the gains that are triggered by training.

Instead of giving you a respectable for the numbers, I would say fantastic.

I suggest that with the numbers you provided, you could go on a periodized program starting with strength and adaption throwing in some races and build those numbers up, IMO, it is the goal that you set for yourself that matters and then believing in yourself and the goal. Take age out of the equation.

The problem I have with studies that quote a .5% degradation per year in performance is setting bar in the wrong direction.

Not to argue, but I know that zones are derived on FTP. So basically your FTP has decreased with age just like your zone power has. Result in the same thing is my point which is what we agree about in your last sentence. At 62, you are riding at a higher % of threshold compared to when you were 35 for the same high exertion ride.. Your threshold isn't as high as an older rider. If you think about it, it is somewhat self fulfilling in spite of rinse and repeat. You just aren't going to rinse and repeat and elevate your FTP and related zones back to where they were when you 35...or...you were undertraining at 35. That is what the aging process does. It robs us of our ability to have as high a FTP as we had when we were young...or we did not train adequately when we were young.

We agree on your last comment in bold and why I believe more recovery is required after a high intensity group ride for an older rider.

Hermes, I don't really think about age as a limiter. Matter of fact my TT goal for next season would require a bump of over 20W @ 20m. I have seen indications that it's not unreasonable (some really good 5 min work recently). I do a pretty good job of monitoring training/rest, having some structure and I love to ride with a purpose. I do a terrible job of periodizing. Some of that has been other life stuff getting in the way, that has improved. Most of it is my own curiosity & tendency to take my training off on tangents. I'm considering going back to being coached for the upcoming season to eliminate the latter