Circling back, thanks all, replies were helpful.
Since creating this thread, I took @OreoCookie advice choosing the hardest VO2Max alt for that day. This allowed me to up PL fairly rapidly, now sitting at 7.9. Last two rides, Kidstones and San Joaquin +2, felt quite good and were lots of fun. Another 1.5-2 pts in progression I’ll be flirting with high end of moderate I think.
Another helpful bit was fueling. I played with left over Halloween candies, twizzlers quartered. Those worked okay. But then I discovered that both Smarties and Pixie Stix (dextrose) are like going Super Saiyan! I feel like these provide me an extra 15-20w, and shift RPE down several points. Flipside of this, I seem to need more or better recovery.
In conclusion, VO2Max are by far my favorite workouts atm and I look forward find my limits there.
