knobster

I have a century coming up on Saturday. I did a century about a month ago but haven't done much riding since. I've been lazy... Very lazy. It seems that ever since the century, I have lost my motivation to ride much anymore. Is this common? Also, am I going to have a difficult ride because of my inactivity? The loops are timed and close at a certain time so I can't go too slow. Supported ride of course.

Extort

I sometimes take up to a month off in between rides, but the following ride does become more difficult. If you take one or two weeks off, then you should be fine, but a month off the bike will impact your overall fitness levels.

knobster

Thanks for the feedback. This is one of those MS rides and I've raised a lot of money for it. I just want to be able to actually ride it the whole way.

Extort

The MS rides have tons of great support, and you already know that you can handle a century so the mental part is behind you.

Think of it as five 20 mile rides..... stop at the rest stops for longer periods of time if necessary.

knobster

This whole year my wife and I have really been pounding out the miles leading up to this century that we did a few weeks ago. Since then, I have made every excuse to not get on the bike. People here have that kind of thing happen to them? Worries me that I've spent all this money on a hobbie/lifestyle that I'm burned out on..

ericgu

You will start to detrain a bit after a couple of weeks, so if you've taken a full four weeks off, you will see some loss of performance. Of course, neither will you be sore from working out too hard.

My guess is that you won't feel quite as sharp as you have in the past, but you'll be able to finish it.

Waxbytes

Knobster it is quite common to feel a little 'flat' after working towards a goal and then achieveing it.
You may even be a bit overtrained for your base fitness. Don't worry about the enthusiasm returning, it will. Just don't feel guilty for not riding as that can lead into turning a fun activity like cycling into a self imposed purgatory. Sometimes I lose my interest in cycling for a period of time, usually a few weeks.
I just figure that my body is smarter than me and knows it needs a break. I usually end up going back on the bike a little detrained, but a lot more enthused, which more than covers the retraining needed.

scotton

I'm having the opposite issue. I fought through the excuse phase and got back into riding everyday mode. Then today I had a flamboyant TDF type lay down in the middle of an intersection. Now I can barely walk, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to ride again, and if I will have to skip my first century attempt at the end of the month.

Crashing kind of sucks.

truman

I saw a guy dump it in an intersection on South Cooper in Arlington this morning, a red Ford pickup almost ran over him - you?

ggusta

I have gone through a phase this season where riding stopped being fun and I felt like you. You can get it back, it will take a little effort but the 1st thing is to start enjoying riding again.

Knobster, I think we went on the same ride together last month, Bikefest. I also had been in the midst of a deep funk even the weeks leading up to and after Bikefest, matter of fact, I went from planning to do the century at bikefest to the metric cent and then wimping out totally down to the 31 mile ride. And my decline didn't stop there.

By the time I pulled out of my dive, it was 3 weeks + of very sparse and low effort rides.

I was in a Depression. No energy for anything.

Huge decline in fitness and legs felt like jelly going up even modest hills at 8 mph.

After the depression lifted 1st thing I did was ditch the heart rate monitor and computer. The only relevant data the cycle computer told me was the correct time so I knew how much longer I could ride. I rode slow, really slow. Distance and speed were not relevant, just get out there and ride and enjoy the ride. Really enjoy it, stop a lot, enjoy the scenery, stop at a coffee shop for as long as I want. Smell the roses. Whatever! Also, to accelerate the regaining of strength I went to the gym and did leg work and ab work, presses, extensions, etc.

2 weeks of that and I showed up at a group ride and went out with the front group and stayed with them as long as I possibly could (about 18 miles) and then limped home on my own from there. Huge fun. I averaged about 18.2 for the 18 miles to the rest stop, by the time I got home I wanted to take on the world.

Don't give up. If you are in a depression like i was, words like don't give up are flat useless until it passes, but it always goes away. It only took about 2 weeks to get it back. The most important thing for me is to enjoy life. Without that, I can't get anything done. Life ebbs and flows, don't take it as the end of your love of cycling, if it gets boring, change it up a little bit. You'd probably regret the hell out of it if you stopped.

FMP

knobster

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, Bike Fest was fun after the first 40 miles of misery. I froze my butt off! The wife is apparently tougher than I... She didn't have an issue with the cold and rain. Fun ride though. I'm doing the Tour to Tanglewood on this Saturday. You? Doing the century option.

I did my first ride today. Commuted to work. 16 miles one way. Averaged 15 mph. Took it slow and looked at the horses and enjoyed being on the bike again. I think you were right about the depression. Not sure what brought it on or why... We're going to do the century a little slower than the Bike Fest one. Only one person on our 40 person team are doing the century other than us.

Bought some training videos from cyclo-core so hopefully this will give me some added motivation to get back on the bike and improve my riding.

Wish me luck!!

TomM

Ain't that the truth and it's one reason I hate achieving a major goal.

scotton

Nope, I was in Midlothian and it was a black Dodge pickup that tried to run me over.