Training & Nutrition - Fatiguing after a few days

Well I have done the 16 miles yesterday, the 7 mile ride in today and will do the 9 mile ride out. Mind you, weatherman says that the temp is gonna hit 98 today and 97 tomorrow... I'm carrying extra Nuun and Gatorade, will leave with a full 3L tomorrow, was considering an extra water bottle cage to carry two full Gatorade (sugary) or U Hydration (sugary Nuun) since I have points on my bike to bolt stuff to still (seat tube has a mount point for water bottle cage).

I also run up the stairs when I go between floors. They moved me down to the fourth floor instead of the fifth, so I don't run as far; but I get off the bike completely busted, go through security, then run up four levels. Also there's the trip down and back up for lunch, sometimes.

Well, at this point, my leg muscles are feeling somewhat stiff. They're not sore, though ... I mean I can beat on my legs without feeling pain. I've gone all-out before and then found that I'd black out for a tenth of a second if I swatted my leg hard (:twitchy:) after a few days of pounding.

Thing is, when I did that, I... still felt like I could bike to work for 2 more days, going all out at it, even though the muscles were so sensitive that blunt impacts produced black-out pain. And right now I feel like I could do today and tomorrow, making three days this week, without a problem. Might even pack on an extra 18-ish miles today after work to go retrieve something, in the extreme heat.

I either just can't tell when my body's failing or my body is so awesome that it can deal with it and do all the repairs and upgrades while under heavy physical stress. I'm leaning toward a mixture of both.

Still. I just can't tell where I should stop.

Stop when you fall over or puke. If you puke, only stop long enough to clean up and make sure you don't fall off.

Honestly you are describing DOMS more than anything else. Keep riding. If on the other hand you have sharp pains that is a point to stop and evaluate if you are damaged. If you can't tell the difference between doms and real pain, you need to go see a doctor before continuing to ride.

What is DOMS?

Should I just slap some Tiger Balm on it and be done with it?

DOMS - delayed onset muscle soreness.
it'll go away.

three LITERS of sports drink for a 16 mile ride?

Please tell me you are kidding.

..or at least that you are riding up the side of a mountain.
I drink 8 ounces of water for my 20 mile lunch training ride. Maybe 16 ounces if it is a 100F out.

..or at least that you are riding up the side of a mountain.
I drink 8 ounces of water for my 20 mile lunch training ride. Maybe 16 ounces if it is a 100F out.


It's up hill both ways, and only the most level parts are shielded from the sun at all. Clear skies, pumping the hills hard, with the sun shining directly on me.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Madison+and+Lafayette&daddr=39.301884,-76.695622+to:39.3051265,-76.7240267+to:National+Computer+Center&geocode=FSK7VwId2r9u-ylXgl08ugTIiTHziPpomq_t9A%3BFfyyVwIdurdt-ymT1kfbiBvIiTHVsUYlReCb5Q%3BFaa_VwIdxkht-ym_Katw-RvIiTHBM4K7cd_5xQ%3BFSLOVwIdL0tt-yGqDTXmZrcaJw&hl=en&mra=dpe&mrsp=2&sz=15&via=1,2&dirflg=b&sll=39.300034,-76.715298&sspn=0.033475,0.044246&ie=UTF8&ll=39.29648,-76.63702&spn=0.033477,0.044246&z=15&lci=bike

My return route is a bit longer, but has a flat part through mountains that I take at high speeds (around 15mph constant at around 100-120RPM). I fare better on level mud and rocks than I do on hilly streets; on actual level ground, from a standing start, I can get to 20mph faster than a typical 180hp economy car (Mazda3, Chevy Cobalt, etc) and cruise like that for ... I have no idea how long, I've never gone long enough to find out before hitting hills.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=National+Computer+Center&daddr=39.3114141,-76.7189807+to:39.309016,-76.7154901+to:39.3049931,-76.694126+to:39.3119621,-76.688411+to:39.3056368,-76.6779951+to:Madison+and+Lafayette&geocode=FSLOVwIdL0tt-yGqDTXmZrcaJw%3BFTbYVwIdfFxt-ykrVXTD7xvIiTEYU3KBrCeBNg%3BFdjOVwIdHmpt-yktxSwW8hvIiTH04CupbyKQlw%3BFSG_VwIdkr1t-ylDb-t9hBvIiTGunsFo8OgJmQ%3BFVraVwId5dNt-ynrC_QodhvIiTGARR9l2sKGqA%3BFaTBVwIdlfxt-yl3OOd5ehvIiTGcbZEzSvJRzQ%3BFSK7VwId2r9u-ylXgl08ugTIiTHziPpomq_t9A&hl=en&mra=dvme&mrsp=1&sz=16&via=1,2,3,4,5&dirflg=b&sll=39.304566,-76.715448&sspn=0.016737,0.022123&ie=UTF8&ll=39.305845,-76.706586&spn=0.033473,0.044246&z=15&lci=bike

EDIT: By the way, check out the stop sign at Ashburton and W Lafayette. Yes, it's a few meters up a long hill. Complete stop, then climb, no momentum. There's a battle of attrition for you...

That looks gorgeous. *drool*

That looks gorgeous. *drool*

Yeah, very low traffic, but damn the hills are of the "ungodly steep and painful" variety or the "moderate but extremely long" variety.

The Google pics for the route are old, though. The house right after the aforementioned stop sign, on the corner on the right, has nice, fresh cut grass; that grass hasn't been cut in ages, in fact I've never seen it in that condition, and it is a jungle of strange plants and likely full of rats' nests. I have no idea who to call--probably not the police--but I'm trying to get somebody to bang on their crack house and tell them to cut their damn lawn. It's already gone back to nature.

The only probable contact I can find for that is this guy (http://www.baltimorecitycouncil.com/District11/default.htm).

Well at any rate I have put tiger balm on my legs. I will remember next time to not go so high, or get some cycling shorts. Because my spatial awareness check failed and there is tiger balm on bits that are not intended to be tiger balmed, and now I am not walking straight.

Nice commute! To get elevation gain, I ran your route through bikely.com. Bikely says about 800' one way and 1000' the other. Bikely exaggerates the climbing a bit, but that's still a lot in 8 or 9 miles. Even so, it's probably only an hour's ride. So take a 24 oz. bottle with plain water, and refill it at work. Lighter is better. When one is starting to do a hard commute, it's best IMO to use a recovery drink. Either take a bottle of Ensure and drink half of it as soon as you get to work and the other half when you get home, or use a powder like Recoverite or Endurox. Once you get stronger, this won't be so important because your body will become more efficient at using and storing water, electrolytes, and nutrients. See DJ's post.

If you commute 5 days/week, that adds up to about 9000' of climbing, nothing to sneeze at. In general, if your legs hurt while you are riding, you need to rest a day or so. If you find yourself using smaller gears than usual, the same. If you are using the same or larger gears, nothing to worry about. If your legs only hurt off the bike, nothing to worry about.

So what happened with the heart? HRM transmitter problem?

You can check elevation on stuff? Does that show the total vertical climb or the difference from point A to point B?

Today I'm wasted. I can barely stay awake. My brain is awake, but my body is sore and I keep going from full alertness to passed out.

If you are not an endurance athlete, you should not be consuming all of those sports drinks as water is sufficient for those short distances you are riding. I agree with the DOMS. You are moving faster than your body can take and fatiguing your muscles, especially during high temperatures. Take a day off, slow your roll and stop overdoing it.

If you are not an endurance athlete, you should not be consuming all of those sports drinks as water is sufficient for those short distances you are riding.

He thinks water is lethal.

You can check elevation on stuff? Does that show the total vertical climb or the difference from point A to point B?

Today I'm wasted. I can barely stay awake. My brain is awake, but my body is sore and I keep going from full alertness to passed out.It shows the total vertical elevation gain. If you use the "follow the road" option, it puts in somewhat random points along the route and measures the elevation change between those points. If you uncheck "follow the road," it only measures the elevation change between the points you enter manually. You can save your routes in your own library, and also search its database for routes entered by others in their public database sections. I imagine there are a lot of routes to be found in the Baltimore area. Might expand your cycling horizons.

Go easier. You shouldn't hurt like that. Never beat on your legs or attempt to give yourself a deep massage. Leave that to the licensed. When you get home, take your shorts off and lie on the bed with your legs up the wall and lightly massage them toward the heart, while you sip your recovery drink.

A thing I've been doing for many, many years is to take my morning resting heart rates. I lie still and get my resting heart rate. Then I stand and observe the highest heart rate reached, then the heart rate after I have been standing for exactly 2 minutes. I keep a chart of all three of these. The graph is very interesting. If your 2-minute standing HR goes up by 10 or more beats from normal, you are in danger of overtraining, and need rest. If your resting HR goes up by 6-8 beats, same. Obviously you need a good period of time of doing this daily to establish your norms.

Your alertness problem could be blood sugar. When you aren't riding, try to eat slow-to-digest foods like veggies, complex carbs, and protein. Not much carbs at the distances you are riding.

This will all get easier fairly quickly.

Yeah, and the crazy HR?

Ah. I've been wanting Google to do this for a while, but couldn't think of a way to show it meaningfully (highlighting hills in red/green went through my head, but actually showing a separate graph didn't). Maybe I'll suggest that later.

Also, what do you mean, "About an hour"? I've barely managed it in 45 minutes (not easy) and I'm still trying to cut down on my time; it's obvious that I'm slow, since I spend a lot of time traveling at like 8-10mph up those hills. I need to get more speed... if I could maintain 20mph I could get to work in 20 minutes. So far I can only do that on level ground or better.. I come out of work going 21-23mph, the road is flat right to Security.

As for water consumption, I consume very little straight water. If I'm desperately dehydrated and have an 8 ounce glass of cold water in front of me, I'll sip half an ounce every 15-20 seconds. If I gulp down half the glass I puke. If I drink slow, eventually I get sick anyway.

When I'm taking down electrolyte drinks from my CamelBak, though, sometimes I'll drain a liter or two out of the pack on the way. I found out about a week after I got the CamelBak that just drinking when I'm pretty far gone brings me right back out of it. I was moving along around 15mph through the woods and run down pretty badly, bit down on the bite valve and suddenly felt freaking awesome; water is important.

I sweat that much out. I'm soaked. I've hung up my compression shirt when I got to work and 8 and a half hours later it was still wet. Not damp, wet. I've got to work and bought extra Gatorade, and wound up desperately guzzling down like 3 bottles of some kind of fruity sugar water because they have 50 types of "Natural Fruit Juice" that are all pear or apple juice with dyes and flavoring because this world sucks so bad they can't get you real fruit juice (probably not the best thing to drink anyway but eh).

The more I bike, the less I seem to sweat, and the less water and food and even air I seem to need... even though it doesn't seem to be getting any easier. Still, some days it's 70 degrees and I'm soaked and guzzling every drop out of my pack; other days it's 101 and I get to work with 2.5 liters left and I'm fine.

Also whoever said "keep going until you puke," I thought you were kidding! I almost did on the way home yesterday o_o Today I feel a little sick, not sure if that's related or what... I don't feel like eating anything.

Lose the compression shirt. Just a short sleeve summer jersey, shorts, sweatband (Halo work well), gloves, and helmet. You have to lose the heat to get your body temperature down. It's like you have a 200w bulb running in your chest. Gotta get rid of the heat. You don't need to do it faster right now. You just need to do it. Volume over intensity for your first year. Calm down. Zen. No ego. Back straight, head up, you float up the hills. Auuuuoooooom.

Lose the compression shirt. Just a short sleeve summer jersey, shorts, sweatband (Halo work well), gloves, and helmet. You have to lose the heat to get your body temperature down. It's like you have a 200w bulb running in your chest. Gotta get rid of the heat. You don't need to do it faster right now. You just need to do it. Volume over intensity for your first year. Calm down. Zen. No ego. Back straight, head up, you float up the hills. Auuuuoooooom.

I like the compression shirt. Water evaporates off better. A light t-shirt (I've worn one) becomes all sticky and nasty feeling, and it gets muggy under there; something that clings to my body feels way better and cools me off better. Well, it does if I'm actually moving.

Also the Yogic chant you are searching for is spelled "OM" and pronounced "Aoum," not "Auom." I've always found chanting to be distracting to meditation, though; which is odd, I guess. If you manage to get it right, the entire world seems to fade away, resonating with one frequency that doesn't even sound like words so much as an all-consuming hum. Still, some do find a more deeply rooted experience in meditation on only the sound of their own breath and the motion of the air through their body.

You sound like compulsive exerciser.

no ego, go at your pace for sure and volume. Steadily increasing effort on what you can handle.
Started with barely able to handle 15mph at 3 miles each way on relatively flat... kept increasing it and now doing 30-37 miles round trip a day with combined 2100ft incline a day without much issues (and it only has been a year).
Also, do let your body get some rest. Here is how I usually do. Monday moderate riding, Tuesday slow, Wed some interval, Thursday slow, Friday - either slow or tempo depending on how I feel that day...
I haven't really been riding on weekends and dedicate those 2 days for recovery... if I do ride, it is with family for recovery and fun (very slow going... 5-9mph). I actually find having that 1 hour going 5 miles with frequent stop over tend to make DOMS disappear better than just straight rest.