ol geezer

On the weekends, I can do a long, hard ride in the morning, take a nap mid-afternoon, and sleep well that night. My weekend rides are typically in the 35-45 mile range.

I work from home three days a week and commute 50+ miles one-way to an office the other two days. On my commuting days, I reach my office by driving through some of the Washington, DC, metro area so to avoid traffic I wake at 4 a.m., leave home at 5 a.m., and get to the office at 6 a.m. During the time of year when there's enough daylight, I ride after work those two days - usually between 25-35 miles. I leave my office by 4-4:30 and am on the bike by 5:00-5:15, depending on where I decide to ride. I ride pretty hard (for my age) and finish a 25-35 mile ride in 1.5-2 hours. So ... I'm off the bike and in the car by maybe 7:00-ish and home (after that 50+ mile drive) by 8:00 or so. I eat dinner then hit the sack by 10:00.

On the weekdays I ride in the afternoon, I find I don't sleep well at all. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow but then, after a few hours, I find myself tossing and turning. I don't have any aches or pains. I don't have sleep apnea or restless legs. My bed is very comfortable. This is bothering me since I've already had a long day (4 a.m. to 10 p.m.) and a long ride and I'm tired and don't sleep well. I wake up really tired.

Does anyone else have this issue and/or can anyone suggest what might be causing this and how to alleviate it? I don't find much about it elsewhere on the forum.

Machka 

Some people have trouble sleeping when they exercise later in the day. In fact, books and articles will often tell you not to exercise after a certain time because they figure you'll have trouble sleeping.

Other people (like me) can workout late in the day, and actually prefer to do so. And one of the reasons is that when my head hits the pillow I am out like a light for the duration. I'm so deeply asleep they could probably perform surgery on me.

On days when I don't exercise, that's when I have trouble sleeping.


But you might try things between 8 pm and 10 pm such as ... drinking a soothing tea, ensuring that the lights in the house are not bright, sitting and relaxing, perhaps reading a book, listening to soft music. Those sorts of things might calm everything down and put you in the sleep mode.

Another option might be to stay up to 11 pm and see if that works better.

John Redcorn

Do you drink before bed? If you go to bed with alcohol in you, somehow your body needs that alcohol to stay asleep and once its used up you wake up.

Northwestrider

If possible, try experimenting with the ride time, or even pick a day and not ride at all ( rest day ) and see if sleep improves

ol geezer

Nope. No alcohol before bed. In fact, rarely any alcohol mid-week anyway.

ol geezer

I only ride 3-4 days a week as it is. On the days I ride in the morning (once or twice a week) I seem to sleep okay. It seems to be those late afternoon/early evening rides that are causing the problem.

I like the earlier post suggesting "pushing away" from everything and just letting myself ease into the end of the day. I watch very little TV so that's not "stimulating" me up until bedtime. And the sugegstion to go to bed at 11 instead of 10 is also a good one. On my work-at-home days, I normally get up at 6:30 but getting up at 7:00 or even 7:30 shouldn't cause any work problems. I'm almost always the first one online in the morning anyway.

mrodgers

I don't have much to add but.... Dang! I only live 20 miles from work and figure it would take me at least 2.5 hours if not 3 to ride to work. You're doing 50 in an hour!

I have had trouble sleeping for years because of restless legs. As soon as I started riding, which was after work for 1-1.5 hours anywhere from 3 pm to 6 or 7 pm depending whether I go directly after work or home first, this problem went away completely for me. I was to the point with the restless legs as well as bad knees that my wife had to massage them and dig her fingertips into my kneecap for half an hour before I could fall asleep. Both the restless legs and the knee problems went away when I started riding. Now it's come back a bit since with overtime and the rainy summer has limited my riding after work.

fietsbob

Me too. particularly with out black out curtains, and sun rise is so early.

Lone

dehydration or low blood sugar. get a camelbak or drink more water bottles. also, eat cream of wheat with honey after rides for the carbohydrates. i don't know of another alternative that is as satisfying. you could drink a soda, but it won't sit and warm up your stomach like cream of wheat.
my guess from my experince is that waking up after after a few hours is that you are hungry or thirsty, but are ignoring it.