| Re: Beautiful ride but too tired.
Stephen Harding wrote:
> "fastturtle" <fastturtle@answertonewsgroup.com> wrote in message
>
>
> > Halfway through this final stretch, I catch sight of two more guys ahead
> > of me. But there is no way I can follow them. At the end of the day, I
> > have 172 km in the legs, 6:45 hours on this (too) new Brooks saddle. And I
> > feel too tired. The kind of tiredness with which I don't eat well and
> > don't sleep well. And this was _not_ my first ride since months. I have
> > done another century last week-end (slower but which left me less tired,
> > by the way), and another in late november. And I have my short ride to
> > work every day. And I don't think I am overdoing it. And I have done
> > faster _and_ longer rides. Why then am I so slow and so tired ? Is it
> > because of winter ? This is depressing.
>
> I had a similar thing happen to me this summer, which has continued
> to the present time.
>
> I rode northwestern Nebraska in some very hot weather and really tired
> myself out (moreso as the ride was over dirt roads on my 37mm tires).
>
> I continued on and met up with friends in central Iowa and we did the
> last three days of RAGBRAI (paved roads). I actually got sick on one
> of the days and was fortunate that the last three days of the ride were
> low mileage.
>
> I don't seem to ever have fully recovered though. My speeds cruising
> to and from work are down a couple mph from "before Nebraska" and
> perhaps a bit more than that now.
>
> Certainly I've recovered from whatever bug I got in Iowa but I'm
> coming to believe perhaps I'm just showing my age (55) as I'm
> definitely more tired climbing hills and trying to maintain my old
> cruise speeds.
>
> I think perhaps I'm destined to be a slow, bicycling geezer from now on.
>
>
> SMH
As an over 60 rider I can tell you there are lots of riders around my
age, and older, who are far from geezers.
That said I think that some older riders too often ignore rest &
recovery. My experience is that I can still do a serious effort but it
takes me a couple of days to recover. Ignore recovery and you are
doomed to constantly feel tired and ride more slowly than you should. |