Snicklefritz

I'm coming off a hard month of racing with some good performances (minus the one crit I did). This past week was supposed to be a recovery week. When I started up again, all of a sudden I'm experiencing some very puzzling things. I'm getting tired from doing things that really shouldn't make me that tired. I have no idea what this means. Anyway, here's what the past week looked like:

saturday 04/29: stage race w/crit and TT
sunday: easy 2 hour ride.
monday: 1 hour ride easy (normally I have this day off if I raced ovr the weekend)
tuesday: easy
wednesdsay: off because I had job interviews all day
thursday: off, same thing. had job interviews so I couldn't ride
friday: 1.5 hour ride with some tempo and a few hard efforts
saturday: 3 hour ride. I tried some climbing, but I was getting tired really early on. I was realy shocked because normally the kind of climbs would have felt easy. I was at altitude that weekend (between 4000 and 5000'), so I thought maybe that was it and decided to scale back. I felt ok on the flat though.

sunday (05/07): what do you call those glands at the top of your neck next to your jaw. Well anyway those were feeling kind of tight with a bit of a pin pricking sensation in them. When I rode, I felt pretty good and was surprised by the numbers I was getting from the powertap. I was really able to put the power down. In fact some of my times in the shorter efforts 1-5 min. were higher than they had been since I bought the thing about 2 weeks go.

sunday night I felt really tired. I mean I was feeling winded even and had a hard time getting to sleep. This morning I still feel a bit fatigued. According to the PT, there's not much that unusual about my workout. I can't figure out why I feel so tired ater sunday's workout. Did I take too many days off last week? The last time I felt like this was back in january after my first crit. My body wasn't used to the intensity back then. Did all these easy days last week make my body "forget" how to do intervals? I thought I had enough hard efforts thrown in just to keep it going.

Vinokurtov

If your glands keep bothering you go get checked out, especially if you're feeling fatigued. Might be nothing but the symptoms could indicate mononucleousis (I know, I've had it twice).

Fingers crossed that's not it.

El Diablo Rojo

Well swollen glands generally mean you are fighting off some sort of virus or infection. Honestly I'd take some time off or just do some zone 1 work on the trainer (30min or so). Sleep is essential to good performance and overall health. If you are not sleeping then you will get run down. Also remember you can't hold your peak forever. I just peaked and am now back into build phase to prep for my State RR Championships.

Snicklefritz

I had this earlier in the season where my glands would bother me for a day or two, then I'd take a few rest days or just do recovery rides and then a few days later I would be ok. Right now they're not bugging me as much as they did yesterday. Hopefully it will stay that way, but I guess I'll just do some easy rides today and tomorrow to see how it goes.

fly:yes/land:no

admittedly, i have no clue what is going on physiologically. i am just going to offer my opinion which may or may be not worth the time it takes to read thie post. anyway, i am in a similar boat with the past weeks workouts. i have been training regularly for about two months. last week was my exam week however, and i had to lighten up the biking-basically did a total of two training rides all week, no race on the weekend. this week, my first ride was TERRIBLE. absolutely awful. i went for 30 miles and felt like i had sludge in my legs. (fortunately, my next ride was one of the best of the season, so my confidence has shot back up). i know that i got a lot of sleep over the exam week, and it seems like i should have been rested, but i think that mental stress, wether due to exams or job interviews, can be just as fatiguing as physical stress. hence my terrible first ride. as far as week off goes, i really don't know if bodies are sensitve enough to change performance over a week. all i know is that the track coaches in high school said that everyday you miss takes two days of practice to replace. (that's probably just crap they used as motivation though). good luck with your next ride. i bet if you don't think about it too much, you'll probably ride alot better than last time.

DocRay

Get checked out by a doctor, swollen lymph glands is not normal.

Snicklefritz

Update: I managed to get an appointment in with the doc. She said that sudden onset of fatigue + slightly tender glands = most likely a mild virus. Since there were no other major symptoms she didn't think it was anything worse than that (ie strep, mono). She said it should run its course in about 10 days. If it starts to get worse than she could test for other things, but she thinks its just some basic thing apparently.

So the question now is, what should I be doing? Pushing hard with my normal routine probably wouldn't be good if I'm not feeling that great. However, if I did nothing in the next 7-10 days, I'd be worried about losing fitness. Is doing some short level 1 or level 2 efforts enogh to keep my base fitness, provided that I feel well enough to do that? I actually felt better for having gone out yesterday to do a level 1 workout. Am I going to lose a noticeable amount of power from taking it easy for a week?

timmhaan

if your body is fighting a virus, then yes, you'll see a loss of power. but that doesn't mean you won't get it back. if i were you, i'd keep doing easy rides and gauge it based on how you feel. are you on any meds?

Enthalpic

Take the rest. The aspects of fitness that you lose first (eg plasma volume) are also the same ones that come back first upon resuming training. The hard earned training adaptations are quiet resistant to detraining. Doing half assed workouts while sick wont make you any faster anyways

Train hard, Recover harder.

Snicklefritz

not on any meds. The doc. said just to rest and drink a lot of liquid and stop staying up so late.

bummer is that right before I got sick I was beginning to feel like my power was going up based on feedback from the powertap.

edzo

ride every day just to keep the legs moving for 2 hours and not much more...for a week


then go back to hammering...you'll probably have more power afterward

eat a lot of food during this week

Vinokurtov

Welcome to what happened to me before Sea Otter. The good news is you should be able to rest and recovery, and pick up where you left off in a couple of weeks. I had a nice bounce three or so weeks after.

Snicklefritz

That's good to hear that it shouldn't get me off course too badly. How did you guage when you were ready to start your normal routine again?

Smoothie104

last time I felt like this, I took 4 days off, and slept like 11 hours a night, then came back like a f'in freight train

Vinokurtov

I pretty much let my body tell me. I did three days off and did a ride the day before the race. I didn't feel weak or have any breathing issues to speak of, so I did the race. I know I wasn't 100%, but I was good enough that I wasn't going to run myself down.

I made sure that I rested A LOT around the races (no browsing through the displays at SO looking for swag).

RHR is a good indicator sometimes. If you've seen a rise recently, that's probably the infection at work.

Snicklefritz

+1 The last time I got sick. RHR was up about 15% for no apparent reason. Two days later...BAM!

It seems like this thing is a cold. Have a bit of runny nose and sneezing. I know it isn't allergies and am thankful it isn't mono or strep.

My legs actually feel pretty good, but I'm getting out of breath sooner than I normally would. So I'll rest for a few more days to see how things go. What is going on physiologically that makes people get out of breath sooner when they are sick?

Snicklefritz

UPDATE:

Hey guys, the advice really helped. I tried mixing rest days with some zone 1 rides and am feeling much better. Yesterday I did zone 1 again but threw in some efforts to look at 1' and 5' power. The numbers actually looked pretty good! I actually felt like I could have ridden harder but decided not to push it. earlier in the week I had tried some tempo, but it felt harder than normal so I figured I needed more rest.

Even though I'm not 100%, I do feel like I'm actually doing pretty well all things considered. Thanks again for the great advice!