Body shutting down?

[jslopez]

Brief backgrounder. Had lots fo base early in the year, been doing intervals for the last month and a half.

I'm in my 3rd week of this cycle and this week I had 3x max effort (to see how long I could keep it) and Thursday I didn't have enought time so I was basically doing speed drills on the commute home (10 secs sprint , 15 seconds at LT 5x only 1 set) I didn't feel that this was a particualrly hard week. I'm sleeping great my legs are not sore at all, appetite is there, weight is steady. Today's ride though was soemthing a bit rough, 8 K feel of climbing, about 80% of that in the first 40 of what turned out to be a 95 mile ride. We have been preparing for the mullholland challenge so the Saturday rides of the last month have been climbfests. A rough gauge I have is two cycling buddies (who were on this ride) who used to kick my ass but now I'm managed to keep up with and in the last few weeks I've actually ridden stronger dropping them on a few occasions (last instance was last Sunday).

So anyway, todays ride seemed to start fine. My HR was around 165-170 (I've pegged my LT at 175) and I thought I was doing well, suddenly I was dropping back. Slowly at first then it was a complete, can't see them on the above switchbacks dropfest. What's curious was that my legs didn't feel like it was in pain and my lungs were fine as well. For some odd reason though my effort seem to just settle at 150-160 and I could not push beyond this. I had lots of powerbar endurance drinks, cliff bars and gus during the ride and this happened at the start so it defintiely was not bonking. This pretty much continued for the rest of the ride and now I'm concerned that maybe one of the below items may be messing me up and the challenge is in two weeks I had planned to start taking it easy but I want to figure out what was wrong with me
1) I took two (recommended dosage) of this vitamin the night before supernutrion men's blend (http://supernutritionusa.com/mens.blend.html) . I have been taking it over the past 2-3 weeks and I've noticed that I have little to know pain since I've used this vitamin but have never taken it a night before the ride. I'm wondering if an ingredient has some adverse effect on performance and if so when would one recommend I use this?
2) The interval (even though I thought they were mild) did me in. If so should I jsut do intervals once a week before big rides?
3) I had mixed an extra powerbar recovery drink and not wanting it to go to waste, drank it last night (not sure if this has any merit but like I said I'mm jsut listing stuff out of the ordinary)

The HR deal and resulting effort does have me concerned. Thoughts appreciated.

[C_Heath]

sounds like its time for a 48 break out of the saddle. In your shape, doesnt sound like a total body shutdown, then again, Im not an expert.

Take 2 off. Good luck

[Tom Stormcrowe]

Sounds to me like a break neede as well, 24-48 hrs total recovery time. As to the vitamins, all you really need is the dosage in One-A-Day® for example. You might increase your B-12, B-1 and B-6 as well as C. These are all water soluble and important for both energy and cognitive function. As to the rest, stay with recommended dosage, as toxicity issues can come up, especially involving symptoms like muscle pain and weakness, lack of stamina, and other symptoms. I'm NOT saying you have vitamin toxicity issue, which are lipid soluble (D,K,E, etc) because you haven't really been taking this supplement long enough, unless you've been MEGAdosing it. If so, immediately stop megadosing, there's no benefit to it! Too much Iron(Fe) is also not a good thing. I still lean toward a saddle break for a couple of days for recovery is what you need!

[kuan]

Seems to me like you need rest, but your Saturday rides don't seem like training rides at all. They sound more like races to me the way you describe it. I dunno, you may want to replace it with a true training ride of either easy/long or hard/short.

[jslopez]

While I wouldn't compare myself to racers, my friends and I definitely put more of an effort than your typical weekend warrior. Tuesday Thursday, intervals, Monday Wednesday - Yoga and pilates, Saturday, climbing ride (40-80 miles) Sunday LSD of 2 hours. Saturday rides though do have breaks of 5-10 mins at major turns or to refuel.

The question now is if the Saturday rides are going to be hard ones like the mulholland challenge should I back off on the intervals or wil the body adap to the load (if increased incrementally).

[ericgu]

It sounds to me like you're underrecovered, and a little more focused rest time would help. It's easy to push yourself a little too hard when you're feeling good.

You need to be careful with herbal supplements. Not only are there contamination problems in some brands, there is little or no research data on safety of the supplements, alone or in combination.

[kuan]

While I wouldn't compare myself to racers, my friends and I definitely put more of an effort than your typical weekend warrior. Tuesday Thursday, intervals, Monday Wednesday - Yoga and pilates, Saturday, climbing ride (40-80 miles) Sunday LSD of 2 hours. Saturday rides though do have breaks of 5-10 mins at major turns or to refuel.

The question now is if the Saturday rides are going to be hard ones like the mulholland challenge should I back off on the intervals or wil the body adap to the load (if increased incrementally).

That sounds like one heckuva schedule. It looks like you have 3.5 hard sessions each week. For me, over the last year I've figured out that one interval and one overdistance workout each week is more than enough for me. Max interval sessions are 1 hr. but my overdistance on a bike is 4 hours or 2 hours max. running. tI think the longer your distance on the bike the less it counts as quality time. I figure since I can never run four hours straight and I can bike four hours that LSD on a bike is much easier than on my feet... so, it might be that your LSD is not L enough.

[edzo]

can't get hr up while trying is a sure sign of

sick

or

overtraining

stay off bike or just ride 5 mph for 3 days.

[jslopez]

Well bike is in the shop for some well deserved TLC.

Rest days here I come :)

[DannoXYZ]

Sounds like your cardio system needs some rest. Muscular strength is easy to build and all that intensity with intervals and sprints the past couple months really built it up. You can easily overwhelm your cardio system now.

Have you plotted your macrocycles? You can have one graph line for distance, one for time above LT, one for time at LT and one for time below LT. There are opposing criss-crosses as well, when distance is high, time above LT should be low and vice-versa. This will help you pinpoint periods when you've been doing too much of everything... an entire week of rest is sometimes needed.

[RiPHRaPH]

you need one day of being a tourist on the bike. look at the trees, etc. you are missing a recovery ride. kids should pass you.

your present schedule doesn't look to be too much. You've got another 21-22 hours in your day to recover, etc. what are you doing with this time?

I'd ease back on the intervals as the season heats up. You will get interval training on the weekend hammerfests. You don't need it but once during the week as well.

You are lacking an easy day (on the bike)

[jslopez]

you need one day of being a tourist on the bike. look at the trees, etc. you are missing a recovery ride. kids should pass you.

your present schedule doesn't look to be too much. You've got another 21-22 hours in your day to recover, etc. what are you doing with this time?

I'd ease back on the intervals as the season heats up. You will get interval training on the weekend hammerfests. You don't need it but once during the week as well.

You are lacking an easy day (on the bike)


Well MWF are easy days but I do see your point. I do think I need to take it easy for the next few as my symptoms are probably the cumalitive effect of my riding over the last few weeks. I'd just want to be able to identify this prior to a big ride rather than during.

[jslopez]

Sounds like your cardio system needs some rest. Muscular strength is easy to build and all that intensity with intervals and sprints the past couple months really built it up. You can easily overwhelm your cardio system now.

Have you plotted your macrocycles? You can have one graph line for distance, one for time above LT, one for time at LT and one for time below LT. There are opposing criss-crosses as well, when distance is high, time above LT should be low and vice-versa. This will help you pinpoint periods when you've been doing too much of everything... an entire week of rest is sometimes needed.


Cool idea, unfortunately polar online stuff gets buggy showing all my data (to much info I guess). Curiosly during saturday rides I really don't spend too much time above LT (maybe 3-5 mins in a 3-5 hour ride). Not that I'm slacking off mind you but becuase I try to ride smart.

If the Saturday ride is heavy duty, the logic of scaling the intervals to once a week seems reasonable, correct?