+1 on the "you are overdoing it". +1 on the Maffetone approach, which I just learned and have been applying for the past 3 weeks. +1 for the "listen to your body" and if you don't feel like riding, then don't. You'll feel like riding again once it's recovered.
I had the same problems you describe all my life, with much less riding. It seems I couldn't get myself to even commute via bike and train 4 times @ week (total of 15-17 total miles per day, all flat, without feeling completely bogged down. When I re-started riding last december, it seemed that I could go for an hour 2-3 times a week, but anything longer would be a problem. I started increasing the mileage slowly and managed to do a 38 mile ride with 1000+ feet of climbing, but the way I felt afterwards made it seem like there was no way I could do a metric century. (I'm planning to do the 72 mile ride around Lake Tahoe on June 4) Then, about 4 weeks ago, I bought Mark Sisson's latest book, Primal Endurance Training, in which he describes the Maffetone method coupled to eating to become fat-adapted, which I've been doing since last may. The Maffetone method is all about riding at an aerobic intensity, which for most people seems like it's going to be extremely slow, and build a strong aerobic base before adding intensity for up to 3 weeks (4 for athletes). Each aerobic period should be at least 8 weeks before you add the 3 week intensity period. During the intensity period you reduce the volume significantly to allow for recovery. Another big point that I know I was guilty of, is that most people ride in the "black hole" zone, meaning too high to be aerobic and too low to be truly intense and drive the benefits from high intensity. Essentially one should not ride in this zone (70-90% of max HR approximately) because all one does is stress the body without reaping the benefits. Exercising stresses the body and leads to an overall inflammatory response. This is prevented by riding below the Maximum Aerobic HR, which is rigidly defined as 180 - your age. For me it turns out to be 124bpm, which I thought was silly. Here's what I found when I tried it 3 weeks ago: - When fresh, riding at or below 124 (your are warned not to ever exceed it, which isn't easy) resulted in being able to ride for much longer feeling much fresher and also being able to ride back to back days, something I couldn't do before. - You have to constantly watch the HR monitor, as it's super easy to exceed this limit. - The reason you should not exceed it, is to ensure you only burn fat but not carbohydrates, which would trigger inflammation and the need to feed yourself with more carbohydrates. You also discover that you can do super long rides without eating anything or having breakfast. - My speed at that HR intensity is actually very close to the speeds I could sustain when pushing harder like I was before to try to "go fast". After a number of rides/weeks, I can feel the need for additional recovery in how my body feels, so I build that in automatically. If I don't feel like riding, I won't. Then the feeling of wanting to ride again comes back. - I've been able, for the first time in my life, to ride to work in the morning all the way (15.5 miles) and then in the afternoon, feel like riding back with a nice detour along the Bay (18 miles), so far once a week on the last two weeks. The pace is always dictated by the HR, so this means that with a head wind I ride much slower and on the short overpass climbs, I slow to a crawl and take like a balancing exercise to improve my balance at ultra-slow speeds. It's amazing to not mind riding with a head wind now, something that used to destroy me mentally and physically in the past. - As you become aerobically strong, and keep developing a stronger base, at the same intensity you'll start riding faster. The aerobic training coupled with the fat-adapted diet creates a lot more mitochondria and allows you to become much more effective while remaining aerobic. How critical is this if you "just ride"? I do believe it's core to ensuring you can ride frequently and as much as you want. For now it seems like "training" because I'm disciplining myself to ride that way, but the short term effects I'm already feeling are very encouraging. By the time I do the America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride event in Lake Tahoe, I'll be 8 weeks into the aerobic base, and the event will actually be my foray into intensity. Then I'll do another 8 weeks of aerobic base building exclusively and ride the Marin Century on August 6 (Metric Century for me) and compare. Hope you find this helpful, tailor it to yourself as appropriate. René On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 11:57 AM, 'Mark in Beacon' via RBW Owners Bunch < rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com> wrote: > Yes, speed play, aka fartlek in Swedish, is a way to not-train. Once > you've maybe cut back your saddle time a bit and have a fresher outlook, > try gunning it between telephone poles a few times on one ride, then go > hard but in the saddle on few small rollers in the middle of another > otherwise steady ride. > > On Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at 1:26:25 PM UTC-4, Tim wrote: >> >> Mixing up your intensity once you start to ride in the spring. >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. 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