Motivation

chopper1

I've lost my racing legs and motivation after a great start to the season. (won second ever race) but last night pulled out of race.
Any tips and advice to what to do would be great.
Bite the bullet and keep training and get stronger and end up throwing my bike off a cliff! or take a few days off, if so how long?

fizz

I'm not at your level, but I go through spells of loosing my motivation, I get periods where I just cant be bothered. When I feel like this I take time off the bike and go and do something else I like doing. I dont watch my diet and just eat what I like

I find after a week or so the feeling of not wanting to ride passes and I want to get on the road again...

Sounds to me like you need a break for a few days...

hodsgod

How about a second form of exercise, I started cycling as cross tarining for running. Now I cycle four days and run two. Anyway each one helps to keep the other fresh.

dennisn

You don't give a lot of information about how you're training, how much rest you get,
how much racing you do. That kind of stuff. So it's hard to say where you "lost" "it".
If I had to guess what as to why people get "burnt out" like this it would be two things.
1.) You are not resting / sleeping enough to recover from your racing / training schedule.
This is probably the main reason peoples athletic performance doesn't get a whole
lot better over the weeks, months, and even years. Rest harder than you train.
2.) You are training too hard on a daily basis. Everyday is race day or hammerfest with
the boys. This is something that pretty much everyone has done. Pounding
themselves into the ground everyday thinking that it is the "WAY" to get strong.
They try to ride faster / harder than the day before. This is a really quick way to
"fry yourself". At least that's what we call it in the states. It's a fine line between
training hard and overtraining yourself into a state in which you don't even want to
ride at all.
Not trying to say you don't know what you're doing but look at yourself and ask "Am I geting enougn rest?" "Do I have my training under control or do I go out like a madman
on every ride?" The answers might suprise you. Especially #1.

Dennis Noward

BUICK

Seconded. At least from the sound of what you are describing, it seems like classic overtraining. There's a point where you'll start to go backwards, get slower, feel down etc and then usually get ill