tarmusic

Hi gang. I've cycled all my life, but never more than about 20 miles at the time. I've been riding 2-3 times per week this summer, 15-25 miles at the time. This week, I hatched a plan to do a 120 mile ride, broken into three legs of about 40 miles each, in order to "ease into" long distance touring. I did the first leg this morning, and it ended up being 51 miles. The first 40 miles went really well, but during the last 10 I was in a lot of pain, all in my thighs. I had no issues with breathing or heart rate, just the leg pain thing. After I got off the bike (my wife picked me up and shuttled me back home) the pain continued for about an hour, then I was fine. I presume that some of this was due to lactic acid buildup. Any other likely causes, and what can I do to keep that from happening on Leg # 2. I'm 56 years old, 6' tall and weigh 210, by the way. My doc says I"m the picture of health, aside from being 20 lbs heavier than he'd like (which is one of the reasons I'm riding more intentionally). Any input is welcome. Thanks!

Bacciagalupe

Lactic acid is fuel, not a caustic agent. The belief that it causes soreness is a classic error of science, where correlation was presumed to indicate causation.

No one really knows what causes cramping, so I'm sure you will hear all kinds of unsupported claims like "you dehydrated" or "you didn't get enough electrolytes."

I don't know any better than anyone else, but my impression is that it's just overuse. A very similar thing happened when I did my first long and hilly ride, and regardless of the physical reasons I think my body just wasn't used to that effort. Once your body is accustomed to the efforts, you should be able to do 40 or 50 miles on consecutive days without too much trouble.

I would dial things back, and try not to increase either your weekly total or longest ride by more than 10%.

tarmusic

Thanks, and you're definitely right about not being used to it! I ran out of water the last ten miles, but had been hydrating up to that point, so I should have been okay. It was a cloudy morning, about 75 degrees, so I wasn't losing a lot of water. I had not eaten breakfast, which may have been a mistake. Next time I'll take a couple of bananas and more water.

k7baixo

You hit it on the head already - lack of nutrition, running out of water and too much of a jump in mileage. I'm about your age, height and weight and just got back into riding this year. I can do 100 miles with no issues now but it took a gradual ramp-up over the last nine months before I attempted that kind of mileage. That includes a week of Ragbrai.

120 miles is essentially a 200-km brevet. I haven't attempted one of those yet but I will.... in five days. I hope it's something to build on too.

There's a ton o' articles online - one that comes to mind is John Hughes' articles and while it's not my favorite, Bicycling magazine always has articles on building up to centuries. None of them recommend that kind of jump in mileage.

A son of Cape Fear? Lived in Wilmington from '87 to '91....loved it there also.

unterhausen

I recommend the 60% rule of working up to longer distances: your previous longer ride should be 60% or more of the distance you are attempting. There is no point in riding 100 miles if you haven't ridden 60 without issue.

a couple of years ago I rode the local "rite of passage" ride that effectively consists of climbing 3 mountains in a little over 50 miles. I was wracked with leg pain afterwards. It wasn't typical cramping, just generalized pain. All I could do is sit in the shower and use up all the hot water. This has never happened to me again, and given that I'm much better trained, I hope it never will happen again. I started a thread on BF somewhere, didn't get any reasonable opinions about the pain. Since then, I've had a couple of rides where I got standard cramping, at least I understand that.

Machka 

Going from the occasional 25 miles to 120 miles is quite a leap! 120 miles in a day is about the amount you've been doing in 2 weeks. That's not at all what I'd call easing into long distance cycling.

There are several reasons why we recommend building up gradually (like that 10% guideline). Building up gradually allows you to ...

-- ensure that the fit of your bicycle is correct. You can get away with doing 15-25 mile rides 2-3 times a week on a bicycle that doesn't quite fit because that's not a lot of cycling. But when you start doing more cycling, fit becomes vitally important

-- ensure that you've got the right components ... saddle, handlebars of a comfortable width for long distance cycling, gearing, etc.

-- experiment with equipment. What bags work best for you, what clothing works best, what tools should you bring, etc.

-- experiment with nutrition to find out what foods sit well with you, and how much you need to eat and drink. A recommendation for a long ride like 120 miles is to eat a good breakfast with at least 500 calories, and then consume 200-300 calories per hour for the duration of the ride. As far as drinking goes, drink a tall glass of water before the ride and then drink approx. one 750 ml bottle of water and/or sports drink every 1-1.5 hours. And if it is hot or if you're sweating lots for some reason, don't forget to consume electrolytes.

-- and of course, it also allows you to build up the strength and endurance required to do a long ride.

vuduchyld5

I actually take about 4 ibuprofen before I do a long ride. That way it kicks in right about the time I might start getting those aches and pains. A counter defense on the pain I guess...I also do this on long car trips to help with soreness and it seems to help pretty well. Just a thought.

jimxyz

+1 on the mileage increase (too quickly) and on the lack of water - even if you don't get sweaty you are likely losing more water than you may think. I'd get into a routine of drinking water and consuming a gel or something similar every 20 t 30 mins on longer rides until you figure what works best for you. Also, I carry Extra Strength Excedrin they have a good combination of pain control and caffeine to get you over the real hard parts of a ride. I think hard core riders/runners call them "e candy" or "e rocks" I also wear compression pants after any really long or hard ride (for at least an hour or two right after) - i think it helps a lot with the recovery. I dont have the expertise of many of the guys on here - this is just what I have found works well for me. Good luck!

tarmusic

Thanks, ya'll, that's helpful. Point of clarification- I didn't jump from 25 miles to 120, I jumped from 25 to 51. I plan to ride a 40-mile leg this weekend and then the remaining 40 miles in the near future. One of my friends did this whole ride in one day, and I knew I couldn't do it like that... so I broke it into 3 separate segments. One leg down now, and two to go.

I'm actually making the route up as I go, and riding solo. The route is actually from my house near Benson, NC to the Battleship USS North Carolina in Wilmington, via back roads. It roughly parallels I-40.

Richard Cranium

I won't make guesses about your leg pain, I'll give you exact reasons your legs hurt.

Your leg pain was the result of riding your bike beyond the abilities of you circulatory system and your leg muscles. Usually this indicates that you are a poor judge of your own physical condition, and a poor judge of optimal workout length and intensity.

The typical fix for your current condition is to realize that you don't know how to train and should be more careful in your future workouts. However, in the event this advice doesn't work - your body will "deliver" additional feedback at the end of you next long workout.

Steamer

Not trying to get preachy here, but I believe some pain is meant to be felt, and masking it can promote joint injury. And of course, essentially all drugs have have negative side effects. I would be concerned about what that does to your stomach and/or kidneys if this is even a remotely frequent use of this drug. Consider backing off on the prophylactic use and stick to treating pain when you get it (i.e. after you get it; IF you get it) with the lowest effective dose.

Chris516

My first long ride(without training) was 60mi., before I blew a tube. While it did take me ten hours since I was on a state bike trail, I was able to do it without stopping until the tube blew.

I can do a long distance with no problem.

vuduchyld5

"I believe some pain is meant to be felt, and masking it can promote joint injury."

Not preachy- actually a good point ;-)

davemd1820

Sounds preachy. Just sayin.

Sekhem

OUCH!! Bad idea! Ibuprofen (as well as most NSAIDS) don't mix well w/ endurance sports because you are likely to be dehydrated with prolonged efforts. It's a great way to end up with an acute kidney injury. Common symptoms of NSAID-induced kidney injury in an endurance event mimic Hyponatremia (water retention) which can be dangerous. Studies of marathon runners show an increase in inflammatory markers w/ use of NSAIDS during a race. And there are other studies that suggest that NSAIDS interfere w/ muscle and bone recovery in atheletes.

Learn to love the pain... or at least use it constructively

Carbonfiberboy 

Pain is good. What do "they" say? "Pain is the sensation of weakness leaving the body." You betcha it hurts. The trick is to change how you think about pain. Pain is good. You bank pain against future, harder efforts. That's how you get better and stronger. The only thing to really consider is that you don't want to do a long ride which will incapacitate you so totally that you won't be able to finish. But that's pretty hard to do. Usually a 1/2 hour rest in a coffee shop, drinking coffee and water and eating pastry will have you on the road again. I always say that if you can walk at the end of a hard ride, you could have ridden harder.

Something you can work on is pedaling only with the quads and then only with the hams. When you get good at that, you can eliminate the most painful and crampy muscles from the pedal stroke, pedaling with what's left over. Pedaling standing one minute in 10 is also helpful, at least once to get to where you can do that.

Cramps are almost always the result of overuse.

I agree about ibuprofen. Inappropriate to use with muscle pain. May be helpful with knee or back pain. However, not to be used prophylacticly, only as last resort once pain has started. However, knee or back pain is a strength or fit issue and needs to be dealt with by better fit or strength work, not chemically.

Mine is a hard core view, but then this is the hard core forum.

Big Bad G

Where can I read more about this?

Thanks

Carbonfiberboy 

No need to read. Put power to the pedal. Seriously, just do it. Have to have toe clips or clipless. One can get a feel for it by unclipping one foot and pedaling one-legged until it doesn't work anymore. Then do the other side. Repeat a couple of times. One can usually prop the lazy foot in the frame triangle. It can be important for LD cycling to be able to spread out the load among as many leg muscles as possible, thus each one does less work.

Pedaling standing uses the muscles differently and can be a good stretch.

unterhausen

That could be a long ride for me, I rode 20 miles with only my left leg last year when I had knee problems.

Rowan

<scratches head and wonders>

Ummmm....

Isn't muscle soreness a standard outcome of exercise that is more intense than the previous session? Isn't it an indicator that the muscle fibres are damaged as they normally should be after such a session? Isn't it a process of increasing strength of the muscle fibres? Aren't people here overthinking this a bit?

Possibly.

As to ibuprofen, my understanding is that it's a drug that tends to reduce inflammation, hence the issues with dehydration. I used to use it, but not nearly in the doses vuduchyld does. Reports of it having bad effects on the heart also were a factor in my reducing its use, and opting for paracetamol or acetominophin which, as I understand it, targets the nerves in reducing pain. I'll still use Vit I, but I am somewhat more judicious about it these days.

vuduchyld5

You guys make good points. Note to self- NO MORE IBUPROFEN!

Machka 

When you took FOUR (!) ibuprofen before a ride ... did you notice a strange ringing in your ears?

vuduchyld5

Hi Machka! Nah- but I would often try this to counter some bad neck soreness that I was facing on longer rides. When I first got into cycling I figured all that pain was normal. I had no idea that I was WAY too stretched out on the bike I first had and though the ibuprofen was helping, I guess I really didn't stop to think about the fact that I was only masking the real problem. Bad fit!!! Coulda hurt worse in the longrun I suppose.

Big Bad G

I'll have to give that a try as soon as my pedals get here.

Thanks