Originally Posted by
shoota
Ok so I have a new theory. I'm thinking it's the early morning rides that are causing my fatigue. This past week I've been off work and so most of rides have been during the day and I've been feeling pretty great. Very little fatigue if any. Then.. yesterday morning I go out at 5:40am to get a little spin in before taking two days off (mini-vacation). I go out and besides being sleepy and chilly my legs and body feel pretty good. I do a moderate ride, both in terms of power and HR, no intervals, no sprints, no climbs, just a steady effort for 33mi and I felt fine. Well I get home and shower and eat and that's when I feel the fatigue start to set in. Fast forward to today and my legs are still fatigued. There's no way on God's green earth I should be this fatigued from that easy of a ride. Especially considering how good I felt last week. I'm thinking the early morning rides are to blame. So what should I do? I have to ride then or I don't get to ride. Normally I don't eat much because the rides are always under two hours. I drink water during the ride. I try to get a little caffeine before but that doesn't always happen (and it doesn't seem to matter anyway). I'm not sure what to do here.
Quite simply, I think you are putting too much stress on your system too quickly without giving it enough good recovery and carrying fatigue from one week to the next.
33 miles at a moderate pace (probably a two hour ride?) is still pulling stress from your body and fatiguing you, and you probably aren't recovered enough from the previous week. A 33 mile ride is just not a recovery ride.
In your op I think you rode too much and too hard within three consecutive days. 103 miles and then 45 miles of hills, which not knowing how hard you pushed yourself on the century (but I'm thinking not a leisurely touring pace), and then riding 45 miles of hills is basically doing two to three hours of intervals. You did a pretty stressful hill ride without giving yourself enough recovery from the century and even with the three days of doing nothing you weren't sufficiently recovered (it actually may have been better for your legs to get on a trainer and spin lightly for 30 minutes each of those days just to flush the legs out). In other words, my bet is that if you graphed your rides on trainingpeaks.com your fatigue would be high and it would be making your form low.