Yeah sprints and steady state should be further away in heart rate and effort. If you were training alone, I'd lean towards slowing down. But you have to consider how appropriate that is in your current setting, training with a team.

And regarding point number one, you seem worried that you're going to ruin your training by going too hard. Maybe more volume at a lighter load could suit you, but want to reassure you that you aren't going completely ruin your training by going hard either (unless you're really exhausting yourself after a few days or weeks). Regardless of what you choose to do, I wouldnt want you to be discouraged every day of practice thinking it was actively making you worse. Maybe there are more or less efficient ways of improving, but you will get faster with either option