Touring - Just hit a wall on my tour

I left last week to depart on the southern tier. San Diego to atleast El Paso (further east until the money runs out).

Basically I completed the hardest part of the ride, getting over the mountains outside of SD, and crossing the dunes/desert of eastern CA. Just before I got to Pheonix I got very sick from something I ate, throwing up etc etc. So I took 2 days off and replentished all of my fluids.

Ever since I got sick I just cant seem to get back to riding 65+ miles a day. I dont even have energy to ride more than 30 miles a day. My body feels fine and I am not sick anymore so I think it is all mental.

Any tips for breaking through the wall?

Thanks in advance.

Well, congrats on getting the hardest bit over. I would say to lower your expectations each day. If you have been very sick, it's not realistic to expect long distances so soon after being sick.

You may associate cycling far with being sick. Or, you may be depleted in a way that doesn't register. How are your electrolytes, for example?

I would say just take it really easy.

I would say just take it really easy.

+1

If you let go of ideas about a wall and breaking through, it might help in relaxing and speeding your recovery.

Illnesses sometimes have mysterious aspects that we do not fully understand. It may take more time to recover fully than assumed or imagined. One can let go of the idea or expectation of immediate or very quick recovery.

If you clear you mind of all these ideas and expectations, it will be easier to listen to your body in a more objective way, rather than imposing the brain's own ideas and preconceptions on it.

The body's healing mechanisms are complex. I say leave them alone and let it do its healing with minimal interference. Let it do what it has to do.

Eat well; relax; get good sleep; let go of mileage expectations; enjoy what you can do, rather than fret over what you cannot do. Stop when the body is ready to stop.

Can't add anything here, the previous posters did a good job! Just ride easy and recover and all will be well with the world.

I "hit the wall" on a trip a few years ago. After several days of climbing at high altitudes, I could not deliver power via my legs. I needed granny gears to pedal the flat parts, and walked up just about every hill. So I took off for two days, rested and ate well. When I resumed my trip, I still had trouble pedaling. So I booked myself into a hotel, slept ten or 12 hours per day, read books and newspapers, went for walks, hopped on a train to visit a friend who lived in a nearby city for the weekend, took the train back to my hotel... and six days after I began my self-imposed break, I resumed my trip. My legs were fine.

My advise: Give it time. And in the meantime, live a little!

Maybe you could stop at a doctors office and get some antibodics. It may help.

My guess would be you are still not well. I doubt you are in a funk, it could be, but that would seem a lot less likely that that you rushed back into the saddle.

Right now out of the 5 of us in my house, two kids and mom have gone down with some stomach thing. and I'm iffy, the baby is fine. The ones who got sick are 1 person who never gets sick went 5 full years without anything. 2 who are really fast healers. My wife has virtually never been sick more than a day in 20 years. This thing is comparatively mild but everyone who gets it is out of it for 3 days. It doesn't prove anything about your situation, but the kind of stuff you are doing hits the imune system for a loop just for starters.

My rule number one is that while touring I maintian a comfortable pace and eal with all pains fully as they manifest. In practice I can be stupid, but I try to stay comfortable so I never get too far ahead of myself.

Thank you everybody for the advice. Just like ancantor my problems were getting the stregnth out of my thighs and calfs to get up the climps. I just couldnt climb at all, it was so frustrating.

So I went very slowly. Stopped more frequently and if I got tired of climbing I walked. I also stayed in motels and got more sleep.

After a 4 days of really easy riding I am back to normal. I am in El Paso now and on my way to Del Rio and then Austin Texas.

The only downside of taking so many days off (7 days only covering 200 miles or so) is that my budget took a big hit. You spend a lot more money when you arent riding. Looks like I will get to Austin and have to call home and beg for money to finish the trip!

Wish me luck, and thanks again!

You should also know that for every week off, it takes about 2 weeks to regain your lost fitness, especially if you have been ill. Thus, the suggestions to go slowly for a while are right on the money.

All the best! Glad to hear you are feeling better.

You should also know that for every week off, it takes about 2 weeks to regain your lost fitness, especially if you have been ill. Thus, the suggestions to go slowly for a while are right on the money.
I have never found that to be the case, at least not when illness was not involved. I don't find I lose much, if any, performance for a week off and hardly any after two weeks off.

I have your solution!!!!

On my cross country I ate something bad and got really sick. I got over the major symptoms in a couple days, but still felt lousy. I stayed at the Bike Oasis in Kansas and the owner there gave me charcoal capsules, within 6-8 hours I felt great, appetite was back, I was cured. Charcoal is available at most drug stores, in with the herbs and vitamins. If it does not cure you, it can not hurt you. I now take them with me on every tour.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1gci&page_id=12603&v=5l

Charcoal is available at most drug stores, in with the herbs and vitamins. If it does not cure you, it can not hurt you.


Although activated charcoal is fairly benign as drugs go, one should not assume that it cannot hurt to take it. From the Mayo Clinic's web site:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/drug-information/DR602267

I have your solution!!!!

On my cross country I ate something bad and got really sick. I got over the major symptoms in a couple days, but still felt lousy. I stayed at the Bike Oasis in Kansas and the owner there gave me charcoal capsules, within 6-8 hours I felt great, appetite was back, I was cured. Charcoal is available at most drug stores, in with the herbs and vitamins. If it does not cure you, it can not hurt you. I now take them with me on every tour.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1gci&page_id=12603&v=5l
It buffers stomach acid.

It's Voodoo medicine and it cleared up the remaining symptoms of my food poisoning. The Mayo clinic is scared but I'm not. (also read their review of any other supplement that is not an FDA approved drug, CYA) Though it is probably not good idea to take medical advise from some anonymous guy on a discussion forum, now there is my CYA.:) ;) :D

This sounds like overtraining to me. I know someone who overtrained on my team last year, and he had to take a month off because he felt sick and couldn't ride his bike anymore.