The day after....
 

So I did my first century yesterday. First 75 were what I thought they would be. Relatively easy. Did not ride beyond myself.

The last 25 were hell. Got the nausea that comes from eating at the last check point, the heat, the exhaustion. I got the same thing that someone else had mentioned before--I could not shift. I had to shake my hand to get it to function. My heart rate was up and stayed up. But I finished it--in around 7hrs 15 of ride time.

The worst thing was that I lost the use of my thumbs last night. There were shot. I have never had that happen before. The nerves were not functioning. It was actually pretty funny, I had a hell of a time getting my car key out of the ignition.

But my real question is do I ride today? I feel okay. My legs are tired (not sore), my morale is not the greatest. (I am wondering "so now what?" since this has been my life for the last 4 months.) I don't love Precious right now. Though I feel I should get Precious a gift for carrying me over 2,500 miles in 4.5 mos. Any suggestions?

(Oobviously my mental state has been effected by the century--I did not mean to put this under training & nutrition-oops!)

i would go out on a short ride and take it easy

for your long-term development in cycling, recovery is almost as important as how you train...

oh yeah, congrats on the 100!

total recovery when you really trash your body can take as long as 2 weeks... but usually is more like a few days.

personally, after a really hard ride, i usually take one day completely off the bike (i commute, so i take the train instead) and maybe do some short cross-train or 15 mknutes REALLY light spinning on the bike (this means if the old lady on the 50s bike passes you, DON'T sprint to not get dropped) and then the next day ride VERY easy.

you've basically got 2 things to deal with:
1) energy, water and vitamin and mineral loss -- make sure to eat and drink and keep these up for proper stores for regeneration
2) muscle actually gets little tears in it when it gets used heavily as well as building up lactate acid from strong execrtion. doing SOME exercise helps stimulate the muscles and help get rid of the acid and other waste, BUT keep it very light so you don't re-tear the muscles in their weakened state

then use muscle soreness and general feeling as a guide. IF your body and mucles are weak, training will usually NOT help, but actually take you back further.

after a complete recovery, your body will have rebuilt itself stronger and you're ready to do another massively painful ride to break it down again and get even stronger!!

i just finished 8 days and 15,000 vertical meters on the mountain bike in my TransAlp tour (see http://mitglied.lycos.de/nathank/). I took Sunday completely off the bike (OK, i rode to the park) and played basketball. today i rode the 12km commute to work, but rode about 20km/h and everyone passed me and i had to keep repeating "recovery, recovery" over and over in my head soas not to accelerate to not get dropped by old guys riding clunker bikes...

I know this isn't what you're asking about, but it got my attention. It's not normal or expected. It's probably caused by restricted circulation during the ride due to too much weight on your hands. Did you notice any hand discomfort while riding? Usual recommendations are to change hand positions often, and raising the h-bars. Sometimes changing the tilt of the saddle can help, too (usually tilting the nose up a little).

Good job on the century!

Thanks for the advice. I will probably ride a little bit. I can not really see staying off Precious. But spin. I do have a problem with the being passed while riding at no miles an hour. It drives me a little crazy, but today I don't think I can ride faster than really, really slow.

I am trying to eat a lot to replenish but I am just not very hungry. Even last night I got a big salad and could only finish half of it. It is a little strange. I am not forcing it. Nathank, congratulations to you on your 15,000 meters of climbing!!! Quite impressive!

Roadbuzz--The hand thing I too believe came from putting too much weight on my hands. It has never happened before. I rode 80 miles the weekend before and was fine. I don't remember what my hand position was at the beginning of the century, my guess is that I was grasping the bars and not resting on them as I usually do. I tried different hand positions after I noticed the problem but at that point it was too late. I will worry about it more if the problem persists on the next long ride. The thumbs are not perfect today but at least work.