Seal, I am in a similar kind of position you are in. I just started riding a bike recently. One difference is that I am younger than you. But i struggle with the speed and skills and endurance nonetheless. I've never done anything so purely endurance based. I think that the advice you are receiving is really good. One thing I would say is that the type of training chicagogal is talking about is a lot easier if you have a heartrate monitor (and even better if you have a bike computer, too).

One thing i just started using... since my bf already had it is something called PCCoach. I thinks its about $70? It takes into consideration your age, max heart rate, goals, level of activity, bicycling experience, and some other things to make a training program for you. You can choose your long ride days and rest days as well. It then starts you out SUPER EASY and builds your endurance and strength and speed from there.

For example, This week I have short rides of 50 min and "longer" rides of 1hr 5 minutes at a certain heart rate. I also have 35 min of crosstraining at a certain heart rate. In the next couple of weeks I will start to add intervals, time, and whatnot. However, the intervals don't start at 20 min... or even 3 min, they start at like.... 1 minute. depending on the type of interval training i'm doing.

It also has days where you do muscle tension intervals up hills, standing start intervals, and low-rpm intervals that build leg strength but not really leg speed. So you can push harder gears.

These plan all depends on what you answer on the first questions and what your goal is. Since i'm such a newbie, My stuff is really easy and short right now. My bf's starting week is more like what my workout will be in a month.

Its hard to explain the plans since they make sense in the entire scope of the specific plan, i guess.

I don't know if anyone else uses this program or what they think about it. But I just like being told what I'm going to do, and not trying to figure out what I'm going to do on my own.

Good luck on figuring out what works for you! I think it just takes time to build that speed and endurance.