cvcman

I began riding my hybrid about 2 months ago at 51 yrs old, ( me not the bike ) and have been doing about 25 mikes a day and have my avg speed at about 15mph that includes hills and flats.

Have lost about 20 pounds so far. I have been doing it everyday but someone said I should do it everyother day or I am not doing myself any good ??

gregf83 

25 miles isn't that much and it shouldn't be a problem riding every day. Once a week take a day off or shorten the ride and go really easy. You definitely don't need a day off every other day no matter how much you're riding.

AzTallRider

Tell that 'someone' to HTFU. Sounds like you are doing great - way to go.

chasm54

This. OP, I'm older than you and I ride about 200 miles per week. I'm not on the bike every day and as you vary the distance and intensity it will certainly make sense to have rest days after especially long or hard days; but as things stand I'd say you were doing fine.

BloomBikeShop

As others have said, it sounds like you're doing just fine.

If you are over training, your body will let you know!

dploy

THAT is the real question. I also run an avg of 25 per day and some days are really hard - others I could go for a century...what are the signs you need some time off?

Carbonfiberboy 

Wow, that's very impressive running mileage!

The easiest sign to interpret is if you find yourself grabbing a larger cog (lower gear) on a familiar hill. You're supposed to be getting stronger, not weaker. Getting weaker is a sure sign and means you've gone round the bend. Other signs involve using a heart rate monitor (HRM) and being familiar with it. You'd notice two things:

1) On familiar hills, your HR isn't coming up like it should, by 10 beats or so. So on a hard hill where you customarily do hill repeats at LT, you might normally see a HR of 165 (just for example), but after doing repeats a couple days a week for say 3 weeks, you notice your HR is only 150 at the same effort level. That means you need to take it easy until you see a 165 HR on that hill again.

2) If you are really training, you should take your morning resting HR (MRHR) every morning and log it. If you are overdoing it, you'll see it go up by over 5 beats. Of course you have to take other things into account, like did you party the night before, not get enough sleep, etc.

Other signs are being irritable, getting sick easily, and not sleeping well.

dploy

Excellent Carbobfiberboy - thanks. I can definitely look for those signs and have some already. BTW - I meant 25 miles per day as avg - not 35. My bad.

Sleeping and rest are my biggest problem. I can not sleep. Lights out is by 11pm everyday and I fall quickly but wake up every night between 3 - 5am w/alot of energy and usually can not get back to sleep. I am usually riding at sunrise promptly. I do not have a lot of stress and I have a pretty easy-going life/personality. Docs want to give me ambien but I try to avoid all drugs...I take none right now. But I worry this is not good for the amount of energy I use on the runs. I average 17mph and feel like I ran from Godzilla every time I'm done...how do you not sleep well after that!?

Crack Monkey

Perhaps you don't need any more sleep? If you get up at 5am...
- do feel tired throughout the day?
- does your riding suffer?
- are you getting frequent colds or other minor bugs?

I've found the harder I workout, the sounder I sleep. But that actual total hours in bed don't change much. I'm an 8-hour sleeper; it's just higher quality sleep when I work out.

dploy

No - none of those issue effect me...guess I only need 5 hours.

Pat

I ride 6 days in a row routinely. If you go out and really hammer each and every day, then all your are doing is beating yourself up. One can train and ride everyday if you vary the work out intensity. Just go easy after a hard day.

Also, from the sounds of it, you are riding to primarily to burn calories. Do you eat every day? Well then ride every day.

DataJunkie

You basically run a marathon each day of the week?