what to do on recovery weeks

I'm no expert, but my take on recovery weeks is that overall volume should be reduced but some intensity should remain.

So I would still do your 5-6 sessions...just make them shorter.  And keep a few of them with some intensity.

The point of recovery weeks is to allow your body to let the training adaptations "take" from the last 3 - 6 week training block.  So as mentioned, you would typically want to maintain the same sort of workouts you were doing, just with reduction in overall volume (frequency/duration/intensity).  This does not mean do all "recovery" paced workouts for the week, just cut back in what you had been doing the previous ones.

This of course assumes that you have been progressively building up each week and have a specific training adaptation you are working toward in that period.

If you are following a specific training plan, then just go by what they have listed.  If you are not, then it is a little harder to recommend any specific recovery phase as we don not have enough information about your training load leading up to that point.  If you are doing the same thing week in and week out and just cut back a week and call it "recovery" then you are really not even necessarily needing to do it as you will not have been any specific adaptation work and other than giving your body a break it may not benefit you as much.  Basically, if you repeat the same schedule over and over your body becomes so efficient at doing it that you start to become "immune" to the work and get to the point where you will not make that much more noticeable gains.

thanks for the replies.. i guess i was way off !!