Tired legs

Hi

I'm cycling approx 80 - 100 miles a week at the moment, mostly at a reasonable pace. My typical week
is as follows:

Sunday: club ride, 40ish miles on pretty flat terrain, 17-18mph average Tuesday: evening chaingang,
15 - 20 miles at about 17mph to get there and back and about 10 - 15 miles at a hard pace with the
group Thursday: 10 mile TT in evening or soon to be 30ish mile road race Saturday: rest or perhaps
shortish ride with intervals

The problem is that more often than not my legs feel slow or tired during the day. They're really
not keen on moving when asked! I often feel awful on the bike for a few miles at the start of a ride
but then my legs "wake up" and I start to ride better.

I'm not losing weight, so I presume I'm eating enough. I get 7.5 to 8 hours sleep a night and don't
feel conventionally tired during the day.

How can I reduce this jaded feeling? I do stretch before riding and try to remember to stretch
afterwards, though I often fail this. I'd like to up the amount of training I'm doing, but I'm
reluctant to until I work out why I don't seem to recover very quickly.

Cheers,

Mark Drayton

 

Mark Drayton wrote:
> I'm cycling approx 80 - 100 miles a week at the moment, mostly at a reasonable pace. My typical
> week is as follows:
>
> Sunday: club ride, 40ish miles on pretty flat terrain, 17-18mph average Tuesday: evening
> chaingang, 15 - 20 miles at about 17mph to get there and back and about 10 - 15 miles at a hard
> pace with the group Thursday: 10 mile TT in evening or soon to be 30ish mile road race Saturday:
> rest or perhaps shortish ride with intervals
>
> The problem is that more often than not my legs feel slow or tired during the day. They're really
> not keen on moving when asked! I often feel awful on the bike for a few miles at the start of a
> ride but then my legs "wake up" and I start to ride better.
>
> I'm not losing weight, so I presume I'm eating enough. I get 7.5 to 8 hours sleep a night and
> don't feel conventionally tired during the day.
>
> How can I reduce this jaded feeling? I do stretch before riding and try to remember to stretch
> afterwards, though I often fail this. I'd like to up the amount of training I'm doing, but I'm
> reluctant to until I work out why I don't seem to recover very quickly.

When are you eating in relation to when you ride?

How long have you been cycling at this rate?

I get tired legs normally when I haven't eaten much before cycling i.e. cycling mid-morning, and
they were particularly bad when I was just getting back into the swing of things (now I just have
sore knees!).

--
StainlessSteelRat "All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike-and yet it
is the most precious thing we have." -- Albert Einstein

 

On Tue, 22 Apr 2003 15:45:15 -0000, Mark Drayton <[email protected]> wrote:

>The problem is that more often than not my legs feel slow or tired during the day.

Eat-a more pasta, like-a mamma says

Dojn't get hung up about it, though - riding hard makes your legs hurt. No pain no gain. My legs
often feel like lead if I ride home at nutter pace (7.5 miles at over 20mph average), and when I
ride fast to and from work on a Wednesday and then do a club ride with a couple of big hills in the
evening, I am hard pressed to keep out of the bottom ring most of the way to work next day. As
summer progresses the hurt vanishes and is replaced by (a) more speed and (b) nice comments from
Myra about your legs[1].

[1] Terms and conditions apply, your mileage may vary.

Guy
===
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Just zis Guy, you know? <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Tue, 22 Apr 2003 15:45:15 -0000, Mark Drayton <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >The problem is that more often than not my legs feel slow or tired during the day.

If it's any consolation...

I ride 5 days per week, approx. 350-400km. I ride hard, averaging 30+k so I would class myself as a
'seasoned rider'. 3 weeks ago I pushed myself over the limit on a 40k TT into a head wind and my
legs were like lead for the following 4 days, with aches still being felt 7 days after!

As long as it's not pain from an incorrect set-up, ride through it, it will do you good.

I stress though, make sure it's not from an incorrect set-up otherwise you could screw up ya knees
etc. for good.

--
Mark
____________________________
Practice does not make perfect... Perfect practice makes perfect

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In article <[email protected]>, StainlessSteelRat wrote:
> Mark Drayton wrote:
> > The problem is that more often than not my legs feel slow or tired during the day. They're
> > really not keen on moving when asked! I often feel awful on the bike for a few miles at the
> > start of a ride but then my legs "wake up" and I start to ride better.
> >
> > [..]
> >
> > How can I reduce this jaded feeling? I do stretch before riding and try to remember to stretch
> > afterwards, though I often fail this. I'd like to up the amount of training I'm doing, but I'm
> > reluctant to until I work out why I don't seem to recover very quickly.
>
> When are you eating in relation to when you ride?

If I'm going for an evening TT or chaingang (both start at 7ish), I might have a small snack
beforehand and eat my main meal afterwards. I often feel sick when trying hard, and with a full meal
inside I'd probably feel worse!

I eat breakfast (porridge) before going on a morning ride.

> How long have you been cycling at this rate?

I've been doing a base of about 60 miles a week for most of the winter but I've only started the
chaingang and TTs in the last month or so. I hope I'm just 'wearing in'!

The tired feeling doesn't seem to affect me, though: last night I had tired feeling legs and did a
TT I was very pleased with (7th out of 21 on my 3rd TT!).

Cheers,

Mark Drayton

 

>That's good to hear. Now he'll need a computer so he knows how much faster he is than Mum ;-)

He is speeding up quite a bit now. He's just starting to notice the benefits of cycling on his
stamina and on his physique - he was showing off his developing calf muscles last night - LOL

So far he's now really starting to enjoy his cycling and is chuffed to ribbons with his new bike,
especially since he's been promised carbon forks for it ;-)

Cheers, helen s

~~~~~~~~~~
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~~~~~~~~~~

 

In article <[email protected]>, StainlessSteelRat wrote:
> Mark Drayton wrote:
> > I've been doing a base of about 60 miles a week for most of the winter but I've only started the
> > chaingang and TTs in the last month or so. I hope I'm just 'wearing in'!
>
> I would think give it another month or so to see how it goes. Has the winter training been
> outdoors? i.e. real cycling.

Yeah, nearly all of it was outdoors.

I'm pretty sure it's down to training volume. I'll have a few easy days before resuming my current
workload and see if that's enough to catch up.

Cheers,

Mark Drayton