Recovery questions
 

I've been getting more serious about road riding for the past year but I have no real training plan or schedule. For July I've been doing a Strava challenge and I've put in 375 miles in the last month. This doesn't include my short daily commute which would bring it to 455 miles. This is easily twice as much as I've ever ridden in a month. My legs were feeling like rubber a couple of weeks ago now they feel like stone. Despite this I did 50 miles on Saturday and I did a fast 16 miles this morning (second fastest time on my regular loop).

Once July is over I fully intent on focusing on rest and recovery for the first week. But since I have no real training plan I'm looking for suggestions. I have to do my commute which is 4 miles a day 5 M-F so I can't take many full days off the bike completely. I would like to do one longer ride on the weekend and at least 1 other ride. Thinking one 30-40 mile ride on a weekend at an easy pace with 2000 feet of climbing give or take and one fast ride of 15 miles with 750-1000 feet climbing and stay off the the bike the rest of the week.

Is this reasonable or should I stay off the bike entirely for a week...?

I would just do the regular commute at an easy pace each day, and not a weekend ride, unless your legs feel pretty fresh again by Friday. (They probably won't, but maybe you recover faster than I do :)).

Thanks. I'm 37 so I don't recover too fast any more. Legs always feel a little sore

IMO whatever you're doing is working great. Don't stop! I'm 69, don't recover well, and I can still easily absorb that much. Rather than thinking about taking time off, I'd think about how I could increase the training load and still keep getting faster. That was a big jump up, but you handled it (stone, really?) Anyone under 60 should be able to handle 200 miles/week with the proper hard/easy ratio of around 20/80, though usually with every 3rd or 4th week with no more than about 120, same ratio. But don't bump it more than 10%/week. Distance=strength.

Thanks for the advice. I guess absorbing rather than recovering might be my best bet too.

You're only worried about recovery because you aren't yet conditioned to the higher workload. The mileages you're suggesting aren't high, a couple of years ago I rode approximately 1000 miles per month aged 57.

There's certainly no need to take a week off the bike. Increase the time on the bike gradually, and start to build in some short intense efforts. You can use your short commute either as recovery rides or to put in some short, sharp intervals. And as time goes by and you are increasing your training load you can lengthen the commute - throw in a loop on ypur way home so it becomes a worthwhile training ride.

Something else to consider is nutrition. I don't like to eat on the bike and need to force myself to eat enough. This year I'm making an extra effort to eat and it is making a positive difference in the ability to recover for a ride the following day.

Most of my rides are 20 miles or less (about 1 hour) so I eat a real meal after my ride. I've recently started dabbling in gu for my longer 2+ hour rides on bike.

I also have a 4 mile commute and just consider those to be recovery rides. Give yourself a little extra time to get to work and ride really, really, really easily. Like getting passed by little old ladies on beach cruisers. You want to spin the legs but not put any stress on the system.

Have you thought about racing? Racing could help you get into a more structured training plan.

I'm working toward that. I need to get involved in some organized group rides first. I've never done any group rides more than 4-6 people so getting into some group ride will be the first step and I'm sure that will help my training