only time for 20 minutes (not that I'm complaining!)

Only time for a 1x20 this morning. Working late tonight and too many things to do.
Felt rather unwell yesterday and haven't been on my bike since Friday's session.
Felt a bit better this morning so thought I'd try and fit in a 1x20.
My idea was that since I've had some kind of virus and also that I seem to fade on the 2nd 20, I'd try and tone down the 1st 20. Keep it at say 285 watts. Not go mental.
Anyway, jumped on the damn torture machine and warmed up for 5 mins. Then off I went. Started of in the low 270w but I felt stronger than I thought I would, so I pushed on. Nearly all the time I was well over 300w and my pulse was low 170's, although my breathing felt hard, for some reason.
Thankfully my computer behaved ok this time and I came in the a 301w average and a 168bpm pulse average. Not too bad really, but once again ,my planned session of keeping it easy failed to materialise. One day I'll learn some discipline with this cycling lark.

I think one of the things I'm learning is that I feel stronger the more time I give myself to recover. I've had 3 days off the bike and I felt noticeably stronger today. I think we've all read on various Internet forums and coaches web sites that recovery is the key to improvement. I've heard that most amateurs do too much and never reach their potential since they are hammering it all the time. This is ever more true for guys like me who are....ahhhemm....more mature. We need even more time to recover. I think I'll try and stick to a maximum of two 2x20's a week . There we go...that concept of discipline again!