I got off on a tangent and asked some of these ?s in a different thread, but I figure if I ask here I'll get more answers.

What exactly IS a recovery ride? Is it a really slow ride? Are you supposed to get your HR up and breathe hard still? Are you supposed to feel much burn? How should your body feel on a recovery ride? I've been trying to do recovery rides but any time I'm on my road bike and I'm not breathing hard, I feel guilty. Today I got the idea to get out my beach cruiser and take the dog on a ride. The dog and the slow bike forced me not to go too fast. Does 5 slow miles on a beach cruiser even count as a recovery ride, or is that more like a day off?

If I ride 5 days a week - doing 2 long rides, 1-2 short fast rides, and 1-2 recovery rides depending on how I feel, is that going to be too many days off & recovery rides?

How are you supposed to do intervals? I've been riding as hard as I can for like 10-15 rotations, until my legs burn quite a bit, then I slow down. After I slow down my heart says "hey wait a minute! What happened there?" then it remembers to start beating faster and I breathe hard for like 4 breaths and then do it again. For the rest of the ride I stay right on the line where I can get out 3 words at a time or so, but no more, and my legs alternate between burning and not burning for the whole ride.

Am I training hard enough to keep getting better? Too hard? How do I know?