Overdoing it

Derf

I have been training for a charity ride (Solvang Century), but recently have become concerned that I'm overdoing it. Yesterday, I rode 63 miles and climbed 2600 feet. On one climb I stopped twice because I was so winded. I never really seriously considered that such exertion could cause damage until I happened across this topic on the main board on this site. Now I'm worried. I'm 31 years old, 5'3 and weigh about 130 (trying to lose 15 lbs). As far as I know I'm in good health and have never visited a cardiologist. My HR was way up yesterday, like 190 at a couple of points. I'm thinking of going to a cardiologist just to get checked out. Any thoughts? Thx.

Mellic

It is really important to schedule your training properly. Research has shown that going out and training hard all of the time leads to overtraining which decreases your performance because you are not giving your body enough time to recover adequately. So make sure you put in "recovery training days" and "medium paced training days".

Derf

Thx. I am trying to do that and listen to my body. One of the problems is having a coach that keeps yelling at me to stand up when I've already hit the wall!

Mellic

At the moment your goals and expectations of yourself seem to be too high. I think you need to spend some time reading some books and learning ways to improve your personal performance (both physiologically and psychologically) on the bike. Alternatively you might also benefit from having a "coach" to write up a training regime for you to follow, that way you have some realistic goals and expectations every time you get on your bike.

Plus, you need to let your couch know who is boss as tv is a great way to wind down and let yourself recover.

Derf

Thx. We are now in week 19 of training. I choose to do the charity ride because I thought it was a good cause, but also liked that they would be doing weekly training rides. I try to spin two or three times during the week and do one recovery ride.