You know what would be better?
Work part time and train more than normal for about 8-9 months, then go back to FT work for 2-3 months maybe even 4 months with light training then go back to part time work for 8-9 months. If you didn’t see huge improvements you should just go back to FT work.
The problem is people give themselves 6mo off from work for sabbatical or whatever. They spend the first week decompressing and playing fortnight for 5h/day. then 2 weeks of high hours fo training then realize shit I’m tired, so they back off for a week then ramp back up and repeat this cycle.
Now they are 1.5-2 months in and sure they are more fit and aren’t slowing down as much in races on the back half but they aren’t really faster necessarily. Yes I realize not slowing down over the last 20k of the bike and last 10k of the run is faster but it’s not as if they’ve stepped up to a new level. They can just go at their old level for longer.
About the time they roll into 4-5 months, if they aren’t fried and actually stuck at it bc training 80-85hr/month for 6 months is way harder physically & mentally than inserting a 22hr training week here and there, they will actually start to get faster then it’s off to work again.