Overtraining Question



GruveB

New Member
Nov 6, 2011
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I'm new here and exited to have found this forum.

Let me start by introducing myself. I'm 38, male, and was obese for the past 12 years, until about a year and a half ago. Before that I was an athlete but suffered a major spinal injury and allowed that to give me reason to eat, drink and be lazy.

Now I've been riding for about a year now. I'm worried about riding too much. Over the past month I've ridden almost 800 miles, including a century each of the past three weekends. The first two were solo, but yesterday I rode with someone. Those are my first centuries.

This morning I wake up feeling great. My legs are a little tired, and I'm a bit tired, but I feel good. I'll do an easy ride today and see no reason why I can't hit this week with my planned workouts.

I mention these things because I'm worried that I may be doing too much, but not picking up on warning signs. Am I over doing it? Last spring I over trained for a race, but don't feel like that now at all. I know it's a subjective thing, but thank you for your comments and advice.
 
It's certainly possible you are either over reaching as in a build up of harder than usual workouts and getting yourself very fatigued or even over training as in a chronic state of fatigue including hormonal imbalances that can take a while to bounce back from. The former is pretty common and a planned part of many training programs, the latter isn't as common as many folks think especially for riders focusing on sustainable aerobic fitness as opposed to those doing a lot of intense short anaerobic interval work on a regular basis (including frequent high intensity racing).

There are a lot of good warning signs to help you know when to back off a bit and take some extra rest and there are good tools based on power or heart rate or even training hours or miles that can help folks manage workload. For folks that don't use one of these tools (e.g. TRIMPS, WKO+ Performance Manager, etc.) then you can always go with the safe but conservative approach of taking an easier week every third or fourth week of training.

The serious warning signs I look for includes unexpected mood shifts, fatigue that doesn't go away after an easier couple of days, restlessness and insomnia after hard training sessions, high waking or at rest heart rate. There are many others, but the real question is whether unexplained things are happening off the bike after periods of harder training that don't go away after perhaps a complete rest day and an easier and shorter ride or two.

Too many days completely away from training and off the bike can cause problems as well. Most folks feel pretty sluggish after taking three or four days completely away from training and often need several days of easy to moderate riding before they're ready for higher quality workouts. So it's a good idea to limit complete rest days and use some low intensity active rest days when you need a breather rather than completely hanging up the bike. Same for 'rest' weeks, when you do need a rest week consider perhaps an extra day or two completely off the bike but mostly replace your normal longer or harder workouts with shorter more moderate to easy rides to keep your legs moving while avoiding additional deep fatigue when you're trying to freshen up a bit.

Bottom line, everybody needs to come up for air occasionally and balancing workouts with rest is important but based on what you've posted no one can know whether you're over reaching or over training at the moment or whether you're working at a good level. The back to back century rides (especially as these are your first such rides) is definitely a warning sign and I'd probably back off a bit on the midweek training (but still ride) between those weekends but that won't necessarily force you into a chronically overtrained state if you're pacing those long rides, feeding yourself well and getting sufficient rest off the bike including good sleep on a regular basis.

If in doubt, swap a few of your normal training rides for short easy spins and take an extra couple of days off here and there but unless you start showing the sort of warning signs listed above or start losing your interest in cycling I wouldn't worry about it too much. OTOH, don't try to keep up this pattern of long events and weekday training forever, take a weekend off every once in a while and back off your weekly training from time to time if you want to stay in this for the long haul.

Good luck,
-Dave
 
Dave,

Thanks for the detailed information presented in a way that I could digest it!

Resting heart rate and illness are two things I can easily monitor. Everybody around me has been sick and I've only had the slightest symptoms. My resting heart rate has been steady in the low 40's, upper 50's, so I think I'm probably ok. Plus, I woke up this morning happy and cheery, even before coffee!

I asked the question because of an article I read that suggested the number of centuries for different types of riders. I also know that things can go from fine and dandy to sick and injured in a flash.

But, I feel good. I am greedy about sleep, television and internet are always there and can wait. And I eat and eat and eat, and consume between 6 and 8 liters of water a day. I'm in shape, but still a heavy person for my height, 5' 10", 205...like a college running back. So it takes me a lot of fuel to ride.

I'm training for El Tour de Tucson, which is on the 19th of this month. This week I was thinking of, but now am sure of, having an easier week, and then the week of the race I'll have a short workout Tuesday, an easy ride Thursday and then race day Saturday.

My big goal is to qualify as a platinum cyclist. I'm viewing the Tour as a step in that process and will be making a serious bid for platinum in the end of April.
 
Originally Posted by GruveB .

Dave,

Thanks for the detailed information presented in a way that I could digest it!

Resting heart rate and illness are two things I can easily monitor. Everybody around me has been sick and I've only had the slightest symptoms. My resting heart rate has been steady in the low 40's, upper 50's, so I think I'm probably ok. Plus, I woke up this morning happy and cheery, even before coffee!

I asked the question because of an article I read that suggested the number of centuries for different types of riders. I also know that things can go from fine and dandy to sick and injured in a flash.

But, I feel good. I am greedy about sleep, television and internet are always there and can wait. And I eat and eat and eat, and consume between 6 and 8 liters of water a day. I'm in shape, but still a heavy person for my height, 5' 10", 205...like a college running back. So it takes me a lot of fuel to ride.

I'm training for El Tour de Tucson, which is on the 19th of this month. This week I was thinking of, but now am sure of, having an easier week, and then the week of the race I'll have a short workout Tuesday, an easy ride Thursday and then race day Saturday.

My big goal is to qualify as a platinum cyclist. I'm viewing the Tour as a step in that process and will be making a serious bid for platinum in the end of April.

Part of your problem is that you are considering a casual fund raising ride a "race." Another part is that you seem to consider casual riding to be "training" - something you are overdoing.

I don't know what a "platinum cyclist" is, but it cannot be good.

You have a year of just riding around. It appears you are not riding hard enough to have any problems.

---

I think that you riding schedule - 3 days of 35 miles, 1 day of 100 miles, and 3 days of rest is a poor choice, but I suspect you have obligations.
 
Originally Posted by An old Guy .


Part of your problem is that you are considering a casual fund raising ride a "race." Another part is that you seem to consider casual riding to be "training" - something you are overdoing.
I don't know what a "platinum cyclist" is, but it cannot be good.

You have a year of just riding around. It appears you are not riding hard enough to have any problems.

---

I think that you riding schedule - 3 days of 35 miles, 1 day of 100 miles, and 3 days of rest is a poor choice, but I suspect you have obligations.
All due respect, but my problem has nothing to do with misunderstanding the nature of a given century ride. If I approach it like a race, then it's a race to me. What else matters?

As for training, I've not discussed what I'm doing. I work two jobs, the second job being Monday and Wednesday evenings. As a result, I ride Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I run in the mornings Monday, Wednesday and Friday (training for a marathon), and I do core and body weight workouts at the gym two days a week.

This past week I snuck in a quick 11 mile loop on the bike Monday afternoon, Tuesday I rode 50 miles at tempo (17.5 mph), Thursday I did a 40 mile ride of hills, climbing just over 3000 feet. It might not be serious training to a professional rider, but I'm not casually going at this either. In the past four weeks I've ridden just under 800 hundred miles.

So if you'd like to complain about my misuse of a charity ride, that's fine. But to suggest I'm riding 35 miles during the week at a leisurely pace and as such my fears of over training are silly is inaccurate.

I think I have a legitimate question here.
 
Originally Posted by GruveB .


All due respect, but my problem has nothing to do with misunderstanding the nature of a given century ride. If I approach it like a race, then it's a race to me. What else matters?

As for training, I've not discussed what I'm doing. I work two jobs, the second job being Monday and Wednesday evenings. As a result, I ride Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I run in the mornings Monday, Wednesday and Friday (training for a marathon), and I do core and body weight workouts at the gym two days a week.

This past week I snuck in a quick 11 mile loop on the bike Monday afternoon, Tuesday I rode 50 miles at tempo (17.5 mph), Thursday I did a 40 mile ride of hills, climbing just over 3000 feet. It might not be serious training to a professional rider, but I'm not casually going at this either. In the past four weeks I've ridden just under 800 hundred miles.

So if you'd like to complain about my misuse of a charity ride, that's fine. But to suggest I'm riding 35 miles during the week at a leisurely pace and as such my fears of over training are silly is inaccurate.

I think I have a legitimate question here.

At that pace you're not going to get the platinum level. This year El Tour is 111 miles, so finishing in a time that qualifies for platinum praises will require an average speed of more than 22.2mph. That's a big jump. Big jump. Real big jump.....especially when you consider that pace over that distance. To achieve a gold worthy time will mean averaging more than 18.5 mph over that distance. Have you done El Tour before?