Thank you. I've always thought that saying was idiotic.

Testosterone levels can be low at any age. Inadequate nutrition and sleep can contribute to that. The chances of it being your primary problem at your age are very slim. Get some rest and nutrition, recover, then go get a checkup if you haven't had one for a while. To put your mind at rest, your physician can order a testosterone level check (make sure he/she includes free testosterone levels) as part of your lab work. As TrojanHorse said, don't become a hypochondriac when the answer is probably staring you in the face. Enjoy some time off and hit it again when your energy returns. Remember that most of your progress happens while you are asleep.

+10 for this particular saying and a lot of other machoistic BS.

Is it getting on for winter where you are? Have you been doing this all summer? If so, what you're experiencing is normal. Take a break ... ease back through November and December. Do other things ... go cross-country skiing or snowshoeing. Go for long walks with your family. Get some sleep.

Then start ramping up the cycling again in January.


And in answer to your question, yes. As a matter of fact, I've got a Dr appointment on Monday to have a serious talk about what's going on.

Alright! Thank you for your advice guys. I can take some of this with me for when it is time to jump on it again. First, I realize that all this fatigue is probably accumulated from 3 months of hard training. I also need to use rest days for rest days not simply "ride but not as fast" (so yes, I was ignoring some of the rest days because I wanted to ride around with friends etc.).

I have an appointment with a sport nutritionist tomorrow . Hopefully that will help tons. Will do a BMR test between some others. I think this is really important. Last night I just went ahead and feasted right after my work out. Felt so good to have a full stomach . I am always afraid of going past that 1800 calorie diet thing but I know that will be changed once I come back from the nutritionist.

I feel like i've been doing it for a couple of months. I guess it is cumulative. A friend of mine says he wants to try the appalachian trail next year so I might go hiking with him sometime.

Good luck on your appt.

OP - Just to give you some context - for me, a 2:30 endurance pace ride has me going through 12-1400 calories. I did a 3:30 ride last week with 3x20 Z4/5 intervals and I burned over 2200. My record low recovery ride with average HR of 90 and average 88 watts over 1:04 burned 326 calories.

Ouch! Everytime I think about those long threshold intervals I cringe a little! 2200 seems a little on the low end for 3:30 with those intervals though. Probably right. I typically burn around 1400 on 1:30 with 3-5x10-20 min Intervals. Using a power meter rocks for calorie counting! This saturday I expect to burn around 3,300-3,600 for the century. I WILL EAT LIKE IT IS MY LAST MEAL that night! Cant wait.

I couldn't tell if you were using a power meter. For the rest of that 3:30 ride, I was at endurance pace, so about 1400 calories for the 2:30 at endurance pace and another 800 for the hour at Z4/5 is probably how it worked out.

If it's an organized century, don't forget to eat at the rest stops, secure in the knowledge that you'll burn it off.

I calculate with the Power meter about 1000 cal/hr. if at z4 which is around 250w average. for z2 (170w) I drop down to about 500cal/hr. and z1 (100w) 300cal/hr. For the century I'll be doing generally a z2-z3 50/50 pace probably averaging 190-200w for about 5.5hr so I expect a little bit above 3k Cal burnt. I tend to overeat than undereat since the efforts are not to the point that may create digestive discomfort so I take up to 300-350 cal hr. That means that I will be consuming around 1700 calories during ride. That leaves an extra 1300 +/- plus 1800-2000 BMR calories to eat during the rest of day = FEAST, pizza, orange chicken, fried rice, chocolate+almond+coconut ice cream etc... DROOL!

OP, don't be surprised if after your rest week you find yourself struggling on the bike. As I said earlier, it sounds like you have been over training. Taking a week off to rest is good, but if you have over trained too much, your body and fitness can crash.

Not sure about my fitness crashing but I agree with you that I may even feel tired after rest week.

Just came back from the refit. It seems like I was sitting too low (1.5cm) on the saddle and that gave me a really sore right knee. Shortened the stem 10mm since I had to move the saddle back again, but lowered it one spacer. It seems like a better reach to the bars and much more comfortable on the hoods. I am going to try the new Stem length out during saturday's century, if it is the right length I am getting a 3T ARX stem that will fit the bike just perfect with the black and red theme. I know, the vanity of it all

If you're married, the feelings are normal..... and only gets worse with time...

.... and I was supposed to get married next year! Might have to give that a second thought

That sounds low for 170W, see the video below where the presenter (170lb. male) measured this in a metabolic chamber. At 175-200w on a trainer he was burning 820 calories an hour. He's using the most accurate method of measuring energy expenditure.

https://youtu.be/NqwvcrA7oe8?t=48m57s

Changing the saddle position by 1.5 cm is huge. And then riding like that for 100 miles sounds like a recipe for injury.

Now that I think about it I did a z2 trainer ride yesterday(161w average w. 99% of the time being in z2) and it came at 674 calories for an hour. My HR was at 113bpm. Zone 1 HR with Zone 2 power. Interesting right?

LOL blame it on the "Hot or Not" thread! I amuse myself sometime seeing how stupid I can be...

I think topflight's concern is genuine. You have put countless miles on with your current setup and to change it the week of the century 'could' cause much longer term damage outside of a sore knee. Just offering some food for thought.

And regarding food, make sure you sports nutritionist has your training plan for review and to help build a plan. Like I have told others when working with nutrition, follow the plan... Don't make substitutions thinking that it won't make a difference, it will.

Thanks waki. It feels much better now though. the alignment of knee, hips, ankle is spot on. Before the knee would displace to the outside on the pedal upstroke. Now it sticks in a straight up and down line. The stem was shortened and the saddle pushed back some. The reason the saddle was raised is because I pushed the saddle forward a good amount recently (about a week ago) and that made all the difference in terms of saddle to pedal length. Now it is back to normal leg stretch, like it was before I moved it, but a little closer to the bars and the bars a little closer to the saddle. Hopefully that makes sense.

I will definitely make the nutritionist aware of my training plan.

Alright! Things seem to be getting much better now . After much improvement at the fitter yesterday today the nutritionist helped me out greatly. Apparently i wasnt eating often enough and as much as i needed for my level of activity, i was bot eating the right stuff either. She bumped it up to 2100 cals a day. Apparently i was suffering from constant hypoglycemia which was driving my cravings for chocolate and soda, making it even worse. I am also much more lean than i thought i was, i still considered myself a fattie at 175#s but it turns out i am at 8.5% body fat. We set the goal at 5-6% with improved muscle build up. So ill be losing 5 pounds of fat but hopefully gaining muscle. Lots of protein shakes and non processed food. I have a feeling im gonna be beastly for the next racing season schweet!!!

I had low T at that age. Might as well get it checked.

How to tell when its time for a recovery week(week off)-you have no energy, don't feel like riding, hurt all over, hate your bike!

How to tell when you are ready to ride again-2-3 days after you start to miss your bike and riding.
Don't expect to go out and feel awesome right away. Take it easy the first couple of rides back.
There is a big difference between somebody just jumping into competative cycling with two feet and somebody who has the baseline of having ridden for the last 10-20 years. Don't compare yourself to the people who have been riding consistently for 10-20 years. That will land you right back feeling like you do now.
The person who pointed out that you can't get lean and fast at the same time is very wise!

A cyclist you all should know: Tommy Godwin

For all the HTFU rhetoric, burning out, hitting the wall, recovery rides, and all the advances we've made in sports nutrition, sports physiology and training, road bike design and construction - all to help make us go faster longer, Tommy Godwin rode 205 miles a day for a whole year. That's 75,065 miles. In 1939. On a steel-framed, four-speed bike.

If that's not motivation enough when you're down in the dumps, I don't know what is. And tomorrow happens to be the first anniversary of his death, at age 91.

Don't expect to build muscle at 2100 cals a day. You need excess calories to build muscle. Instead of scale weight, focus on building muscle, more muscle burns more fat. Weight may go up since muscle is more dense. Eat to perform is a good site to check out https://eattoperform.com/ , also check out this article https://breakingmuscle.com/cycling/wh...ength-training