training/recovery

portuguese mike

i'm planning to do the autumn classic sportive (115, farily hilly) at the end of next month so i have started to up my mileage in order to prepare for it. My normal riding consists of a 24 mile round trip commute 4 or 5 days a week followed by at least one ride of about 50 miles on the weekend but i have now started doing a ride of about 80 miles including as many climbs/hills as i can find.

my problem is not so much the long ride i can manage it faeily comfortably at a good pace (>18 mph average) but how i've been feeling for the days afterwards. What is the best way to recover from a ride such as this? Should i lay of the bike for a few days or ride but take it really easy (hard when its as windy as it has been this week)?

any advice would be much appreciated

Blonde

To increase your fitness you need to overload. This is Ok. You also need to rest in between sessions. It is hard to know exactly how much to do as everyone is different but basically if you feel very tired, dont ride. If you feel OK but with heavy legs, take it easy. Eat well.

The article below, is about overtraining, which happens when you don't get enough rest and recovery in between sessions. Rest and recovery means not just getting enough sleep and taking the weight off your feet home/work where possible, but also avoiding stressful situations where possible, as these place exactly the same stress on your body as cycling does, in terms of making your heart beat faster and your body produce cortisol, adrenalin and other stress hormones which in turn effect your physical state. Overtaining can happen to those who do short intense sessions or to those who do steady endurance riding. Mileage increases really do take their toll on your body especially if you are fairly new to this. Your energy and even your nutritional requirements, may be quite different to that of someone who has cycled for years and cyles 80 miles every weekend, simply because of the larger effort required by you than them to do this, and the larger amount of stress placed on your body than theirs in doing this.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/ ... ining.html

This site also has some good articles about how to train or build up without becoming overtrained: http://www.pponline.co.uk/ - if you type 'overtraining' into the yellow search box you'll get many articles.

fidbod

Blonde wrote:

The article below, is about overtraining, .....

http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/ ... ining.html
.

Great article - thanks for taking the time to post it.

Portugese Mike - I am in a similar position to you. I am training for a 90 mile cyclosportive in the middle of September and trying to combine with some hardcore preseason rugby training and commuting on the bike to work each day. So from personal experience four things that I find help

Ice cold baths after intense training sessions. I only do this after the long ride and my two rugby sessions each week but for me it massively reduces the achyness factor the next day.

Protein Based recovery Drinks - I was immensely sceptical but a friend got me to try them and they seem to make a noticable difference to my recovery and ability to work the next day.

Rest days - Two days a week I do nothing, don't even get on the bike

Finally and this is a complete luxury but a very nice one - get a sports massage. It is a painful experience but a couple of days afterwards your muscles will feel wonderful.

Let me know how you get on.

portuguese mike

Thanks, that's very heplful. i'll keep you posted.

BTW, Fidbod, when you have an ice cold bath do you just run a bath from the cold tap only or do you actually put ice in it? Also, how long do you stay in it for?

fidbod

I run the bath from the cold tap and then drop in half a dozen ice packs ( the kind you would normally put in an Eskimo box) - I then stretch down whilst the ice packs do their work.

Advice from training websites seems to be to never stay in the ice bath for more than ten minutes - I never make it that long but fiveish minutes is doable