Zeggelaar

I'm in my first year of XC mountain bike racing and have shown some pretty promising results. I love riding and being in the saddle beats doing anything, anywhere almost anytime. The problem is I have gotten so focused on training for racing and obsessed with nutrition that my whole life has begun to revolve around riding and trying to eat right. My wife thinks I'm overdoing it and it seems a lot of the fun has gone away and I've become a very boring person. If you eat something I'll be the first to give you the details on what you're eating and why you shouldn't eat it. Friday nights used to be beer and fun with the boys now it's "if i do that I won't feel good on my ride tomorrow so I'm going home now" I have recently upped my training schedule from 5 - 6 hours a week to 10 - 12 hours a week and find it a bit hard to keep it up. Is this normal?? How much do most other people train??

danch

Sounds like you might be a little obsessive. Do you get this way with other things? One of the hardest things I've had to try to learn is to maintain balance in my life.

Going from 6 hours to 12 hours a week is a pretty drastic jump - did you do this all at once, or was it a gradual thing? From my personal experience, the obsessiveness can lead quickly to burn out - I've done that periodically with various hobbies.