Recovery

[Makaveli88]

Hi there, I have been riding regularly for 2years now. However in the last few months I have cycled 85-90 kms every day.

I have found in this last week though that I have not been recovering well after my rides and it takes great effort to get out of bed in the mornings.

I am eating around 2000-2300 calories a day and drinking enough water. I am not very strategic with when I eat but genrally I'll eat before a ride and then a few hours later at dinner.

I find that my legs are suffering the most apart from general fatigue. I do weights a few times a week too so I should have sufficient muscle to endure these rides.

Is there something I am doing wrong?

General facts: I am female, 24 years old

[foo on patrol]

At what level of intensity, are you riding and are you doing it the same, everyday at this level?

Foo

[PawPaw]

If your weight is stable, that indicates you are in energy in/out balance.
You could be eating too much nutrient poor energy dense food, and too little nutrient rich energy poor veges, salad, fruit.
You may have ramped your distance up too quickly.
Your other activities might combine to be overloading your body's ability to recover.

The most likely is that 600km a week, week after week, is not allowing adequate recovery.
The elite cyclists I know with this workload
- don't work f/t, or are students with light workloads and contact hours.
- get a 1-2 hour sleep in the middle of the day
- in bed by 8pm
- do block training with recoveries = 2-4x 400km weeks, 4-6x 600km weeks, 1x 100km week, then repeat.

Most serious amateur cyclists require 1-2 rest days per week, where bike time ranges from zero to 2hrs at <25kph.

If you have been tired for some time, I'd recommend you have two weeks recovery = 4 days a week on the bike doing no more than 2 hrs at 25kph.

And google "overtraining syndrome".

[trailgumby]

I'd also recommend acquiring a copy of Joe Friel's "The Cyclist's Training Bible". It's very thorough, and a skim will give you a broad understanding of what to do, what not to do, and what to do when things go wrong (eg overtraining).

Some on this board will point you to Carmichael's "The Time-crunched Cyclist", which is also good, but produces a different type of fitness which is less deep, and it doesn't touch on the troubleshooting in anywhere near the same depth as Friel.

Hope this helps.