Collapsing after a ride

gthyer

So... bit of a weird one but was wondering if there was anything I was doing wrong and how I may avoid this in the future!

Last night after my 20 mile ride back from work, I had a bit of an odd turn - half collapsed, mind all over the place, short-term and long-term memory mix up and senses getting very oddly inter-twined. Bit hard to describe, but I could hear smells and odd things like that. Bit freaky.

I was wondering if this may be due to exhaustion or dehydration or something like that, or maybe I'm just overdoing it? Felt fine the ride into work in the morning but on today’s run in I had very little energy and also very little motivation!

I normally ride about 100-150 miles a week and have done the commute many times over the past couple of months. I tend to go at about 80-90% pace and make sure I have a bottle of water that I have on the way. Also have a banana half hour beforehand.

Diet hasn't changed recently and I’ve been making sure I get enough carbs and protein. One thing I have changed in the past couple of days though is to cut out chocolate and I've started using some of those dissolvable tabs in the water – the High5 Zero Xtreme Electrolyte things. Could they be responsible?

Really keen on this not happening again! Especially the lack of energy and motivation the next day. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

Phil_D

See a Doctor.

nicktheluddite

+1 on see a doctor

gthyer

hmmm yes, that does actually seem sensible. Thought it might be a common cycling thing. Maybe not

Phil_D

gthyer wrote:

hmmm yes, that does actually seem sensible. Thought it might be a common cycling thing. Maybe not

Just don't do what a lot of people seem to do and live with it for 15 years before going on Embarrassing Bodies

ncr

gthyer wrote:

hmmm yes, that does actually seem sensible. Thought it might be a common cycling thing. Maybe not

Better be safe than sorry---- doctor + blood tests, Been there done that, in my case it was an under active thyroid.

gthyer

ncr wrote:

Better be safe than sorry---- doctor + blood tests, Been there done that, in my case it was an under active thyroid.

Absolutely. The potential severity of things like this only become apparent when I write down the symptoms or talk to people. My naivety for thinking feeling odd is normal!

The tests the Doc did yesterday haven't thrown up anything seriouse (stroke/tumour etc) so off for bloodtests to check for anything else. They didn't think it was the electrolyte drinks but I'll stop those and re-introduce them later to rule those out thoroughly.

ut_och_cykla

Doctors for a double check
but my guess is you were just short of glucose in blood- bonked, knocked or whatever you want to call it after a hard ride - xtreme has coffeien & green tea extract which you might have reacted badly to. good luck

gthyer

Well good news on the doctor front - nothing showing up in the bloodtests.

ut_och_cykla wrote:

...my guess is you were just short of glucose in blood- bonked, knocked or whatever you want to call it after a hard ride - xtreme has coffeien & green tea extract which you might have reacted badly to. good luck

Think I'll just have to put it down to this for now. Never experienced it before and will be wary about the caffeine. I don't drink tea or coffee so maybe the caffeine injections is a bit too much for me to handle!

Pross

In reading the OP my initial reaction was it sounded like a full on case of the bonk unlike all the 'I Just Bonked' threads in beginners where it is usually just that they have knackered themselves out. I've said on many of those threads that you have to experience the bonk to really know the difference, not nice is it? At least it happened when you finished - when it happens 50 miles from home on a remote moor you just want to curl up and lie at the side of the road!! It was probably best to be safe and get some reassurance from the doctor though, last thing you want is to collapse on the bike in traffic.

gthyer

Thanks for that post Pross. It's reassuring to know that someone else may have experienced something like this. Not a pleasant experience at all but seems like something I may be able to overcome or at least try to prevent happening again.

Had some of the sensations after a hard ride last night - being able to smell a metally type smell. Fairly confident that was just from going full-out for an hour though.

saprkzz

Something like this happened to me, although not quite as bad. Had an extreme case of dizziness and feeling sick, legs basically stopped working and felt like i was going to pass out. I put it down to not eating beforehand and was very hungry, I can lap up 60 mile rides for fun "usually", but this happened on my commute home which is 18 miles.

Horrible feeling, but in my case just did too much with not fuelling properly.

Pross

The metallic taste / smell could be a result of ketosis which occurs when glycogen levels are depleted and your body uses fatty acids as an alternative energy source. Not sure whether your doctor tested for this using a urine dip?

I'm assuming your male but if not there could be another explanation for the symptoms!

kamil1891

I've bonked quite a few times because I always thrown myself into the deep but the biggest one was when I've decided to go to Southport and back (from Rochdale) which was like 150kms after just 2 months of riding a bike The main mistake I did is that I didn't take any food with me just 1 snickers bar and two bottles of water were not good enough too. On the way there it was fine, managed to do quite good time anyway but on the way back it was horrible! At around 30kms from home I could not pedal anymore, I've started losing contact with my eyes, they just closed themselves while I was "riding". I had to stop every 10 minutes and once I lied down on a grass by the road and almost fell asleep. It was complete lack of energy and I didn't even have a pound on me... When I got back home I just lied on the floor in the living room and slept there for few hours. I felt like I was dying. Now I only lough at this and I consider it as a very valuable lesson and good experience at the same time

davidof

For a 20 mile ride just water in your bottle is good and you should be able to ride that without any food no problems but a banana is a good idea.

Dehydration sounds plausible although your symptoms were quite severe.

Tom Butcher

On a number of occasions I've come in from a hard chaingang and about half an hour to an hour later started feeling ill, vision gone funny migraine type stuff, and it normally carries on into a general feeling of fatigue over the next couple of days. On most occasions it's where I've got in and then rushed off to do something else rather than sitting down, having some food and resting. I just put it down to pushing myself too hard maybe when I'm a bit worn down anyway - it hasn' t happened often and not for a while but it has happened often enough that I'm fairly sure the hard exercise was a trigger.