[PuffinBlue]

You may have tried it/added it in, but a single point of anecdata if I may - try adding in rowing. It's basically squatting a lot if you think about the form used.

You describe almost exactly what I face in training and I've seen substantial improvements in conditioning by adding rowing to my workouts. I actually do 45 minutes at around 19 strokes per minute at a 500m split of (average) 1:45. More recently I've moved to doing 1000 strokes per workout. That's at about 275-325 watts per stroke. I use an adjustable water rower with heart rate around 150-170 average. I get around 15-16km per workout.

The action is essentially resistive aerobic training, not unlike squatting as I mentioned. I can't say it'll work for you but I can say it's helped me find a form of aerobic exercise that maintains strength and conditioning.

Your height will give you a mechanical advantage but a water rower will give a non-linear resistive load so you can adjust it to give you the desired heart rate/wattage to sustain difficult training throughout the workout period.

Rowers are considered to be the absolute top of the pyramid amongst athletes in terms of balancing power/vo2 max/aerobic capacity etc etc.

[bitL]

Thanks for the idea! I've tried rowing very rarely as a rowing machine wasn't a standard piece in gyms I usually went to; I'll try to find one that has it and then try it for ~3 months following your advice!