50 miles and felt like ****...waste of time?

[Bike4Him]

I'm doing the Assault on Mt. Mitchell in a couple of weeks and I've trained enough to finish without too much trouble.
Tonight I rode about 50 miles and never felt good. It seemed like I bonked right out of the garage and never really got better.
I felt rested and motivated, but it was bad.
The question is...should I have just quit? I thought I'd get better.
Is there a benefit to pushing through a terrible ride?

 

[Enriss]

It sounds like you just had a bad ride. You might want to consider a bit of a taper though.

 

[Umvelo]

I have frequently experienced what you describe and, like you I pushed on. Most of the time I get over that crappy feeling and when that familiar endorphin rush finally comes over me and i wonder what I was feeling so crappy about. Sometimes it doesn't happen that way and I feel awful all through the ride. The point though, I have always experienced a gain of some kind from such rides. So, yes, I think it was worth persisting. Good luck with your challenge!

 

[swampy1970]

I'm doing the Assault on Mt. Mitchell in a couple of weeks and I've trained enough to finish without too much trouble.
Tonight I rode about 50 miles and never felt good. It seemed like I bonked right out of the garage and never really got better.
I felt rested and motivated, but it was bad.
The question is...should I have just quit? I thought I'd get better.
Is there a benefit to pushing through a terrible ride?

At the very least you got a few miles in the legs. That could have helped a bit towards losing a bit of weight...

There's nearly always a plus side, unless of course you bonk so bad that you really work yourself over a couple of days before a big even and blow all hope of a good ride - or fall over sideways underneath the wheels of a passing big rig. Then there's really nothing good that can come from that.

 

[decca234uk]

I think most of us have experienced this at some time. i've been on rides where i felt like **** before I even got on the bike. felt worse throughout the ride and shattered after it. It's never put me off though because the great feeling i get when i feel 100% and can ride forever compensates for it. Most of the time I feel great but some rides just take everything out of you.

 

[64Paramount]

I think most of us have experienced this at some time. i've been on rides where i felt like **** before I even got on the bike. felt worse throughout the ride and shattered after it. It's never put me off though because the great feeling i get when i feel 100% and can ride forever compensates for it. Most of the time I feel great but some rides just take everything out of you.

+1

Sometimes when it's happened I can look back over the 24 hours prior to that ride and determine that I didn't eat what I usually eat, or didn't sleep well etc, and sometimes I can find no reason for it at all.

 

[Bike4Him]

+1

Sometimes when it's happened I can look back over the 24 hours prior to that ride and determine that I didn't eat what I usually eat, or didn't sleep well etc, and sometimes I can find no reason for it at all.

I looked back and found that I may have depleted my glycogen stores the day before and ate mostly protein the day of "the" ride. During the ride and after it I was starving. Couldn't wait to (embarrassed to say) get picked up and eat anything in site. I did call for a ride. It got that bad.
Tonight I went out just to see how I was and I did 20 miles and felt nearly 100%.
Looking forward to a long ride this weekend.

 

[64Paramount]

I looked back and found that I may have depleted my glycogen stores the day before and ate mostly protein the day of "the" ride. During the ride and after it I was starving. Couldn't wait to (embarrassed to say) get picked up and eat anything in site. I did call for a ride. It got that bad.
Tonight I went out just to see how I was and I did 20 miles and felt nearly 100%.
Looking forward to a long ride this weekend.

Good deal! It's helpful when you can narrow down the cause like that.

 

[Threshold]

This actually happened to me yesterday. I went out on saturday for about a 30 mile ride and I felt like a million bucks!!!! My legs felt like I could have easily done 50 or 60 miles that day and this was at an above normal pace. So then I took sunday off due to Mother's Day and did pig out a bit.

So then yesterday, I was at work feeling great again. My legs were not sore at all and all day I was just so eager to get out on the bike and put these great feeling legs to work. So I started out and then after about 5 miles, I just totally hit a wall. I felt so fatigued and tired... no idea what hit me. Well... I ended up only doing about 16 miles and at a fairly moderate to easy pace just so that I can at least get an active recovery out of it. The only thing that I can think why I felt like that is maybe because I only had about 5 hours of sleep the night before. Eating all that food the day before I figure would only help me and not hurt me.