Neil_B

Am I attempting too much too soon in the 2008 riding season? This is the second week in a row I've felt like a wrung-out rag at the end of a long ride. Here's the weekly mileages I've logged for the past four months:

# April 13 - 92.79 so far
# April 6 - 62.2
# March 30 - 29
# March 23 - 22
# March 16 - 25
# March 9 - 6
# March 2- 25
# February 24 - 15
# February 17 - 72
# February 10- 8
# February 3 - 3
# January 27 - 0
# January 20 - 41
# January 13 -71
# January 6 - 63

The longest ride I'd taken in the past six months was last Saturday, 62 miles. Second longest was today, 54. Next up was a 41 mile ride with Neil F. in January. After that were back to back 36 and 30 mile rides in February.

I realize overtraining can hurt you, but I don't know if I'm pushing myself too hard, or just pushing myself. Unfortunately, I have no background of athleticism or cycling to draw from to form an opinion. I know early season riding can be tough. But am I pushing myself too much?

Tom Stormcrowe

Seems reasonable. Are you having problems with recovery? Legs feel like lead for more than the next day?

Neil_B

Last week, yes. I don't know about this week yet, since I just got in a few hours ago from my latest tortu-, err, ride.

Rides this week:

Tuesday: 5.24 miles
Wednesday: 16.84
Friday: 16.27
Saturday: 54.48

Tom Stormcrowe

You might bump your B vitamins a bit. Use a sublingual liquid, and it stimulates Red Blood Cell production somewhat. They're water soluble, so any excess just passes through the kidneys and they help a lot with recovery. Drink some chocolate milk right after a ride as well.....it's a better recovery drink than any powdered supplement as long as you aren't lactose intolerant. If you are, Soymilk is nearly as good for recovery as cows milk.

The best though is Goats milk. Nearly identical in composition to human breast milk (assuming you can stand the taste :yuck:

CKey_Cal

My .02 is that your last two weeks were too much. If I tried to double my average weekly mileage in one week and then increase by 30% the week after that I would be toast. Age has something to do with it. I'm 43. How old are you ?

jaxgtr

I don't see anything that would cause you issues. You have consistent mileage, but you have gone from 6 weeks of sub 30 to 62 and 92. I think once you do that several weeks in a row, you wont even feel it.

Neil_B

I am 42. When I am on a bike I act like I'm 12, however.

CKey_Cal

Better to act like 12 on than off My biggest constraint to increasing mileage is recovery time. In my late 30s I started to notice it was taking more than 24 hours to fully recover after a medium/hard workout. Everyone's different though. Obviously, the other variables are terrain pace etc.. But I'm not surprised after looking at your numbers you're layed out after your recent long ride. Just remember that Far Side cartoon: "Yeah I hurt, but its a good kind of hurt"

Halthane

My Thoughts exactly.

Take an easier week, say a short ride every other day next week. Then repeat the cycle, two big weeks, one easy week.

My tri training is built in 4 week blocks, 3 weeks of serious training followed by a rest week. By the end of the three training weeks I'm always ready for rest. I still train during the rest week, just at a much lower volume/intensity. The last few workout of the rest week are testing workouts to assess improvement over the course of the previous 3 weeks.

If my memory serves this is known as the theory of overcompensation. You break your body down little by little over a period of time, and then give it time to rest and recover and it will rebuild itself to a level greater than it was before the overload began. Everything I have read on the subject indicates that there is a great deal of science AND art involved in finding the balance of overload and recovery.