recovery riding?

I'm sure this has been posted many many times before, but can someone give me the basics on how a recovery ride improves performance? Any articles on what a recovery ride actually is? Can I ride 6 days a week if I plug in a recovery ride once a week? Is it unreasonable or unhealthy to ride 5-6 days a week so early into my riding experience?

My work commute it only a bit under 11 1/2 miles each way, so it's about 50 mins of riding time, work all day and then about 50 mins home (I always ride easy on the way home, but I wouldn't call them recovery rides because I'm hot/tired and traffic is worse). I do that just about twice a week (although depending on the feedback to this question, I wouldn't mind getting in 3 days a week, and probably more as winter comes because it will be my only chance to ride in winter).

I've also been rding just about one night a week plus one weekend day. I'm trying out racing, which adds one very short but intense ride on Mondays through the end of August.

So, I'd like to ride 5-6 days a week. But of course my weekend ride (usually Saturdays) leaves my legs a bit wet pasta-ish. So I was thinking of doing this:

Monday, racing (I might wait until next season, depending on how I do this Mon)
Tues, rest day
Weds, ride after work
Thurs, commute day
Friday, commute day
Sat, Big Ride Day
Sunday, recovery ride

(After August, Monday would be a commute day).

I'd like some feedback on that. I've been able to ride on regular basis since about February, so I'm getting close to about 7 mos of experience.

I know these types of questions really depend on the person and understand none of you have ever ridden with me, so just speaking in general terms is fine for me. Thanks!!

I actually looked up recovery rides this morning for myself and this is what I found that was straight to the point. I usually do one the day after a very hard ride. I'm very new to riding but thought since I had this bookmarked I would share.

Description: Recovery rides should be between 30-120 minutes in length on flat to rolling terrain. Keep your pedal speed around normal, staying in a light gear to keep resistance low. Heart rate must also remain low even if you hit any hills, just slow down and use your gears to keep the resistance low. The key to recovery rides is to ride just enough to engage the active recovery process but not long or intense enough to induce a training stress upon yourself.

Purpose: To speed the recovery process by riding at an easy pace at low resistance on flat terrain. Benefits include increasing blood flow to the muscles to help remove muscle soreness, reducing free radical and lactic acid buildup that causes muscle stress and damage. Studies have shown that active recovery at an appropriate pace leads to faster recovery than complete rest.

Here is the link I quoted from...
http://www.t2r.org/train/workout_definitions.htm

If you don't use a heart rate monitor, keep your recovery rides to almost a painfully boring pace. Become a tourist, go sightseeing, don't get sucked into riding someone else's pace. Bubba and I were just talking about how we would do well to do one ride a week on the least efficient bikes we own and just touring the bike paths in town, checking out areas we've never seen, stopping for a soda or whatever.

Also, I think trying to race only 2 days after your big ride day is going to be very hard on your legs. You may have to add intensity to a ride earlier in the week and cut back on your Saturday ride. But see how it goes. You may find that you recover well if you're extra honest about recovery on Sunday, put your legs up Sat night, or find something that helps refresh your legs.

Basically you never should have two hard riding days in a row... So if you do intervals on one day, the next you should be riding very slow (with a beginning friend for example!!!) or not at all. So for example your commute should be as relaxing as possible on days after a ride.

I have a a few Bicycling Magazine books (mostly edited by Ed Pavelka I think) that cover this topic. I think they are must-have for beginning cyclists!