MikeyLikesIt

I started commuting again early this spring when all the local trails closed due to severe flooding. I'd been trail riding three or four times a week with my longest ride being about 4 hours. My commute is 6.5 miles one way, takes me about 25-30 mins., and includes several hills.
Even though I ride every day now, my rides are shorter. I've ridden the trails a few times in the past two weeks and I find I'm out of gas after about an hour and a half...even more so than the four hour rides before.
Moral of the story...I need to work in some long rides if I want to maintain. I don't want to quit commuting, but, I may commute one less day and work in at least one long ride.

Anyone else experience this?

Mikey

Artkansas 

What you need is a longer commute!

tjspiel

Yeah. Or just do what I do and take the long way home a couple of times a week.

hairnet

Do you push yourself on your commute? I always try to go my fastest because sometimes it will my only exercise for day.

pityr

I has this problem too. I just started to do a longer ride once a week. 40+ miles.

huhenio

Eat more

MikeyLikesIt

I do have a longer route home that I take on occasion...I guess I need to do it more often, or find an even longer one.

Yep, but not every day. I find I can still 'hammer' the trails...just not for as long as I could before.

I need to do this...either on the trails or I need to dust off the road bike and just go hammer. My problem is my weekends have been pretty busy lately and I havn't had as much time as I'd like (as if anyone does) I have Friday afternoons off but at 100+ degrees I've talked myself out of some longer rides. I'll be honest...I'm a wuss

LOL, I've been trying to drop at least 10 more pounds off my gut...could stand to lose 20. Maybe I should eat more...and drink less beer...........NOT!


I think my problem is one of motivation. After riding to work and back in the heat, I find it hard to make myself go the extra mile. But, now that the trails are open again I think I'll get back what I lost pretty soon.

Thanks for the replies everyone,
Mikey

pityr

I started to take a high intensity whole body work out at the gym during one of my lunch breaks. Its a nice way to mix it up and I work pretty hard for the whole hour. Its a nice way to get something different in since my body is pretty used to my commute.

CACycling

I suppliment my riding with commuting not the other way around. My 10 miles a day commute gives me some riding time on days when I can't take a real ride.

froze

Thats weird, I too commute, but I find that it helps me; but then I only ride directly to work about 5 miles, but after work I detour home somewhere between 12 to 30 miles (Wednesday I just go straight home). Maybe you should try some after work training rides instead of going straight home.

lil brown bat

For a 6.5 mile commute? Unless OP is on the Anorexic Supermodel Diet now, that's probably not necessary.

Luddite

Commuting by bike allows me to get some cycling in when I wouldn't really have time to cycle anywhere else.

MikeyLikesIt

In my younger years I did mix it up pretty good...as I've gotten older my joints, especially my shoulders, have started to rebel. I do, almost every day, ride a 4 mile loop at lunch time. I also do an eight mile loop at least once a week on my lunch break.

This was my original intention. However, I enjoy commuting so much that I now commute every day, and it has become too easy to talk myself out of loading up and heading for the trails...maybe my motivation will improve when the temps again drop below 100 before 9:00 pm

Agree.

LOL... Anorexic...that's a good one. However, it's not the 6.5 mile commute...I can do that just fine. It's the longer trail rides where I've suffered. Anything over an hour and a half.

Mikey

Joe_Mo

rest more

MikeyLikesIt

I have given some thought to this one...that is why I don't 'hammer' every day. Earlier this year I had a two week period where I was unable to ride at all. The next ride I thought I would have lost something...just the opposite...turned out to be one of my best rides this year. I felt strong and made few mistakes on the trail. But then I see these guys that do the Tour De France...100+ hard miles a day.

I guess the bottom line is, I'm probably gonna have to compromise somewhere. Longer/faster/harder rides = fewer commutes, or commute every day = fewer longer/faster/harder rides. NAH...I'll just ride more and get stronger! I'll work on my motivation. I know I can do better.

Mikey

lil brown bat

So, what happened? Did your diet change since you stopped doing frequent longer rides? Or did something else change?

When you hear hoofbeats, look for horses...

MikeyLikesIt

The only change has been the frequency and length of my longer rides and that is why my endurance has suffered. I'm still in great shape...I just run out of gas sooner than before I started commuting. The past two weeks I've made an effort to do longer rides more often and I am seeing my endurance come back up. If I can continue to commute daily AND do my usual longer rides then I should get even better than before...and perhaps lose another pound or two.

Mikey

imi

do you do any stretching before/after riding?... it seems many bicyclists ignore something this basic which many (most) other athletes see as a natural part of their training/exercise... a 5-10 minute basic leg stretching programme after every ride can do wonders imo

froze

I'm still befuddled by all of this.

Are you drinking enough water? What color is your urine? If it's bright (presense of vitamins being wasted) or dark yellow then your not drinking enough, it should be a very pale yellow-almost clear.

You say your need to lose some weight, how tall are you and how much do you weigh, and how old are you?

Are you riding hard every day? If so you may be over doing it, take a day off in the middle of the week, and ride fun easy ride once week the day after the longest hardest ride of the week like on Monday since most people ride their longest hardest rides on Sunday.

Figure out where your pulse rate is at various times during excercise and resting, Here's a guide what your looking for: https://www.iit.edu/~smile/bi8813.html If your series of self test on this pulse rate business shows something that's not too good, go see a doctor and get a series of professional tests done; but make sure you explain what is going on with how you feel (like you told us) and what your self tests turned up. Doctors can't diagnose properly if you don't reveal all your information and why your there.

If alls good in the heart area then try following a training schedule instead of just whatever whenever, like this: https://www.cyclewyoming.org/training.htm And follow it exactly the way it is given, don't push it because you think your in better shape then the first few weeks will allow you to go; your attitude about just pushing harder because you know you can do better will hurt you not help you. The surprise here is that once you follow this chart EXACTLY you will be doing a 100 mile trip at the end. If your ticker is good and you follow this chart exactly your performance will increase. Obviously after long rides your going to be tired and that's normal, but your ability to perform for longer periods without tiring out soon will increase.

Do follow up and let me/us know what you discovered. This will probably be a long term thing unless the pulse rates turn up something odd. Just save this thread and reply to it again (this way we can go back and read what was suggested to remember what your doing) after you do the chart, or even half way through the chart to let us know how it's going. I bet you if you follow the chart, drink more water you will surprise yourself and will come back with a glowing report on your progress.

Remember, if you decide to do the century training chart to follow it exactly...this is very important.

lil brown bat

So, like I said, when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses. You cut your riding time; the level of your aerobic conditioning dropped as a result. It'll come back if you go about it the right way, as long as you're doing other things right.

lil brown bat

Why? It's not complicated.

froze

Why it must be somewhat complicated because you haven't said anything important about what he might need to do; lets review your comments:

In response to "eat more",
you said: "For a 6.5 mile commute? Unless OP is on the Anorexic Supermodel Diet now, that's probably not necessary."

In response to: "LOL... Anorexic...that's a good one. However, it's not the 6.5 mile commute...I can do that just fine. It's the longer trail rides where I've suffered. Anything over an hour and a half."
You said: "So, what happened? Did your diet change since you stopped doing frequent longer rides? Or did something else change? When you hear hoofbeats, look for horses..."

In response to: "The only change has been the frequency and length of my longer rides and that is why my endurance has suffered. I'm still in great shape...I just run out of gas sooner than before I started commuting. The past two weeks I've made an effort to do longer rides more often and I am seeing my endurance come back up. If I can continue to commute daily AND do my usual longer rides then I
You said: "So, like I said, when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses. You cut your riding time; the level of your aerobic conditioning dropped as a result. It'll come back if you go about it the right way, as long as you're doing other things right."

You didn't offer any real help for such an uncomplicated problem, except the last statement about cutting riding time may have reduced conditioning, no duh! But how do we get him back in a orderly fashion? I liked the horse response, that was cute. But you didn't touch on why a 6 mile commute would make him so tired, even if he had cut back riding time a 6 mile commute is nothing for someone who was in as good of shape as he was.

znomit

Yeah, when I commute I get on the bike 4 times a day. About 10miles total.
After that I don't really feel like riding again in the evenings.
Total miles go down.

I eat more too. Short rides are fueled by blood sugar, long rides fat.

tarwheel 

Put in a long ride every weekend and everything will be cool. That's what you are missing. Long rides will help your fitness and endurance more than anything. However, your daily commute will really prepare you for the long rides as long as you are consistent about riding long every weekend.

lil brown bat

I think we probably have a fundamental disagreement about what "anything important" means. The way I see it, there's a difference between "anything important" and "anything dramatic". The problem seems quite simple: a person who used to have X level of aerobic activity, goes to having a much lower level of aerobic activity. Some time after that, he ups his level of aerobic activity again and finds that his level of aerobic fitness is not what it used to be, back when he was doing longer rides on a regular basis. This is like dropping a glass of water and then finding that the floor is wet: it's a simple and direct cause and effect. Making it into something more than that seems like searching for a problem that doesn't exist.

Yup, that's what I said, and I stand by it. A 6.5 mile commute is light exercise, and unless OP's nutrition was seriously deficient to begin with, additional calories shouldn't be necessary. Furthermore, the automatic addition of more calories, without a close look at what's going on, seems unwise. I guess an "important" suggestion would have been calling for the introduction of 3000 calories a day of protein shakes and lean meat, but I don't think that's sensible.

Right. So what's your beef?

Right. So what's your beef?

"We" are not his personal trainer, and it's not for "us" to create a program for him. In fact, if you read his original post carefully (and based on your statement below, I'm thinking you didn't), you'll see that he's already pretty much set on what's going on -- he's just figuring out logistics. Good recommendations are best based on a good understanding of the problem to be solved.

You need to read more carefully. He didn't say that the 6 mile commute made him tired. He said that now that his principal form of riding is a 6.5 mile commute, he finds that longer rides (of an hour and a half plus duration) make him much more tired than they used to, when he was doing them more frequently.