Soreness and rest days
 

I've been on the bike for the last 5 days, and I'm starting to feel it. My left rear calf and outer knee are sore, but it feels more like muscle soreness than anything. I have to go on a ride with my wife tonight, but I wanted to do a metric tommorow. Am I wearing myself down too much or should I just shrug it off and keep riding?

Will the ride tonight be more of a recovery ride? I'd go easy, and take tomorrow off and make sure to eat and drink enough. If you're starting to feel sore and tired, don't push it too much. Summer's not even here yet. Do some stretching as well.

Skip the metric. Overtraining and getting hurt will suck way more than missing one or two days of riding. Like Guitarwizard said... It's not even Summer yet. Don't burn yourself up. Rest days are just as important as riding days. I've ridden 4 of the last 5 days and now I'm going to take tomorrow night off. I'm not really sore, but I now I'll ride 40 or 50 miles with my club Saturday and I don't want to be hurting then. "Rest is a weapon grasshopper!" ha ha:)

'Rolling recovery' my friend. Do a nice light easy day tomorrow, light in the peddles the whole time, coast when you can, stretch, tons of water-- you'll come back stronger.

my coach's signature line is "train like a pro, rest like a pro"

I wouldn't mess around with sore knees. You never know when a seemingly innocent little thing could turn into big trouble. Knee problems scare the heck out of me. I'd skip the metric. Do some easy recovery miles instead.

Think about it: Is it better to do a lackluster 60 miles tomorrow and get so tired that you need to take 2 days off, or is it better to do 20 or so easy miles for a couple days and be fresh for 60 after that? In the 2nd scenerio you'd end up with more miles and a more useful 60 mile ride.

It took me a long time to realize that recovery rides work, and it took me even longer to get the discipline to ride slow and short enough.

In one of Carmichael's books, he describes some of Armstrong's recovery rides between a couple of one-day races. Armstrong's max heart rate is 201, and these recovery rides, on 2 consecutive days were 75mins and 60mins, with an average heart rate of 118bpm

MMMHMMM!! my HR on recovery rides is about the same, usualy no more then 130 watts, if my knee's feel soar like they did today after yesterday's anaerobic workout i'm just taking the day off, let my knee's relax, i'll do a recovery ride tomorow morning, lots of pasta tomorow night, and group ride saturday, and roubaix group ride sunday , then recovery on monday, Hard workout Tues, recovery wed, off thursday, maybe light recovery on friday, recovery saturday, race sunday :) Maybe i just burn out easy though