I was complaining about sore quads (because of so much mileage) to one of my bicycle mentors the other day (in preparation for the Tour of Colorado) and he said, "Rest as hard as you train, and I don't mean laying off for a day, I mean a few days".
Since I've been doing that, I do feel significantly stronger.
Yesterday I hammered a very difficult 30 mile mountain bike ride and today I am hunkered down indoors while it's drizzling outside WITH NO GUILT! As I age (64) I get concerned with how fast one's conditioning "falls off" if exercise stops.....I guess that's a whole different thing from allowing your body to regenerate!

That fitness does fall off very quickly as you age- or at least it has for me. But the advantage is that I can still beat the neighbours (Except one) on a 30 mile ride. They nearest they get to any fitness training is walking to the pub (About 1 mile) on a saturday night.

And that 30 mile ride with the neighbours doesn't happen (Except one) as they will not attempt it.

Some of my riding friends take no days off except for weather. If there are 7 straight rideable days, they will ride them all. I try to take off 2 days a week and I think my riding benefits from it. THere's nothing like the feeling of fresh legs. But I also try not to take off more than 2 days in a row. Then I feel like I lose something.

I have another 5 days of good riding, and then travel will interfere for much of the following 2 1/2 weeks. Rats - just when I was beginning to feel like I had gained some strength. I'll lose conditioning for sure. I'm hoping to rent a bike for a few of those travel days (in Western Massachusetts).

I can relate! I've done hilly centuries the last 6 weekends and felt tired this week. I started another one yesterday and after only 30 miles and 2 long climbs I called it quits. Just tired and lack of motivation. I drove a total of 4 hrs to only ride 2 hrs!

If you're doing BTC I'll see you there!

Cool! I'm Doyle Smith and will be in the Shuttleguy tent section and with a grey/red Pinerello.

Lions sleep 20 hours a day. Sheep barely sleep at all.

I'll look you up. I'll be in the general tent section. I'm doing RtR the week before so I'm hoping I can survive the 2nd week! I'll be on my Trek 5900-leaving my Pinarello Prince safe at home!

Oh my goodness, you are ambitious! I'm told that Shuttleguy has a table with names and tent locations. CU there.

Rest is a well-known way to build strength and avoid overtraining syndrome. One of the real issues with people who come late to cycling is that they believe they can ride all the time with no ill effect. Not so.

When exercising beyond warm-up, the muscles fibres are damaged. The increase in strength comes when those muscle fibres repair and that generally happens when you are sleeping or resting.

Overtraining syndrome is identified by a heightened heart rate when waking in the morning, and failure to get it above normal levels for a given zone of exercise. It's quite possible for a HR in a zone to be 30bpm below what it should be, and it won't go any higher.

Rest is severely underestimated in any sort of physical activity. And a person engaging in a training program should ensure that there are adequate rest days, especially after strenuous workouts, whether with intervals, hillclimbing or weights.

Personally, I love rest...

Rest, it is what a hammock is for. I will admit to being startled when I doze off in the hammock and our dog decides it is time to play catch... I generally find one hard day needs two days of rest to recover. At my age, I am just trying to maintain myself in good condition - not win any races.

If you are working on increasing your fitness level, doing efforts that push your limits then you must rest to get the benefit.
See this: https://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/s...ndRecovery.htm

Good point.

Well, in the face of how important rest is....I just walked in the door from a century! Boy it'll be easy to justify a couple of rest days after that.....I hooked up with about 10 "young stud riders" and joined their paceline (when I was at mile 60 already and they were at mile 15!). OK, the next part of the story is for old guys only.....we all started up this 7-11% long grade and everyone broke apart and became independants. I just stood on it and hammered. Soon young guys were dropping back! That made me feel stronger so I kept it up and finished third at the top. The first guy (amazing and about 155 lbs) as I rode up said,"who the hell are you? You are an animal!" OK I feel comfortable bragging here....it was so fun for an old guy to dust most of the so called big dogs. Suddenly I was accepted by the "homeboys". Anyways, I'm at home now and dying! Raydog

i'm back on the bike in a serious manner after about 12 years off. just finished my first century of the year on sunday. no question for me of taking a couple of days off. in fact, the weather forecast has wind gusts to 45 tomorrow, so i may take 3. if i do go out, it will be in the woods on the mtn bike. i have been averaging 4 days a week. at 65 i just can't do the endless every day riding i used to handle just fine. but with rest i've been able to average about 125 miles a week pretty comfortably. i resisted the urge to join a couple of groups on the ride sunday that were too fast for me, most awkwardly from 4 guys who were my age or older. but going my pace i finished right at 7 hours. rest is key!

You are being smart.....BUT.....don't blame being 65! It just takes longer to achieve the levels that satisfy you. That is both actual performance AND, as this thread addresses, restoration time. It used to be at 50, people sat on rocking chairs on porches, now look at us! I have invested the last 2 years averaging 140 miles weekly (among other things) and couldn't be happier about my performance at 64. I weigh 215 so now my goal is making myself 190, there is always something to shoot for. Keep it up, 125 miles weekly is formidable! Raydog

I fonud the one hard day, one easy day, and one day off method to work well. And do not forget those recovert rides.

Lions hunting do more like a 100 yard dash than a 100 mile ride. The sheep will kick their butts when endurance is needed.

But of course rest is required. My weeks are generally some variation of this:

Monday: Easy commutes (~2 hours total)
Tuesday: Hard Intervals in morning (~75 minutes); recovery in PM (30-60 minutes)
Wednesday: Easy commutes (~2 hours total)
Thursday: Hard Intervals in morning (~75 minutes); recovery in PM (30-60 minutes)
Friday: Recovery Day - no riding
Saturday: Group ride or solo training (3-5 hours)
Sunday: Recovery Day - no riding or easy recovery ride

Every month or so, I do a recovery week where there are no hard intervals, and the total hours/mileage is lower.

"Rest as hard as you train."

Lately, my training could be considered resting.