Originally Posted by
ericm979
It might be the stress from work. I find that a certain amount of riding helps with work stress, but too much riding makes it worse.
You've probably hit the nail on the head here.
Originally Posted by
ericm979
Too much stress can wreak havoc with your hormonal system. If your doctors have not checked that, then they should.
I don't know, exactly. My doc said that overdoing it can really do a number on your immune system. Last year I got shingles, case in point.
Originally Posted by
ericm979
Training by riding as hard as you can every ride is not only overly stressful, it's not effective training.
Yeah, I eventually came to realize that. I thought I was watching that this past year, but obviously I didn't do a good job. I'm starting to wonder if I did such a number on myself last summer and now, that I need a serious plan of very light exercise for a whole year or more. At least, my preliminary reading on overtraining suggests that more serious cases can result in setbacks of many months.
Originally Posted by
ericm979
...a rest week every 3-4 weeks.
Define rest week.
Originally Posted by
ericm979
A heart rate monitor is useful for keeping the recovery in recovery rides.
What about waking up and checking your heart rate to see if you're in danger of overtraining? Or something? Also, at this stage there's absolutely no way I can go all out to try figure out my maximum heartrate, as I've gleaned some people do, so I wonder if it's still useful?