what's going on???!!! HELP ME OUT!!!!

yjuosj said:

I stared a thread a couple of weeks back saying that I was training on my trainer and was gaining a lot of strength and conditioning. today, february 24th, after training on the trainer for nearly three weeks, the weather gave me a go.
I went outside excited to try my out my new conditioning. I was flying down the flat part of the course, 25 m/h, even with a head wind. I wasn't really trying to push myself to hard I wanted to try my new conditioning in the mountains, which by the way I hadn't climb in more than 3 months, too snowy. so, I wasn't really pushing myself too hard, leaving time for recovery. Before getting to the mountains there's a nasty little climb that leads to more flat almos half the way to the distance where I go climb. Something didn't just feel right. I was struggling to climb my breathing became heavy, too heavy, and my power decreased dramatically, I was getting out of the saddle, when I usually could just power myself all the way up. I was a little worry, but completly forgot about it when my speed pick up quickly. When I finally got to the mountains, my worst nightmares became true I could not climb. My legs burned and my breathing was heavy. what I could climb at 11m/h before, I was doing at 6m/h and 4 m/h. I was devastated, I couldn't even finish all of the four miles. Before winter came I was an excellent climber, it was my strength and pride, but now it was just devastating. I wanted to cry, all my hard work of last year and now it's gone.... please, i beg you to tell me what to do. I was doing intervals of 3 minutes high intensity and out of the saddle (to simulate climbing) and two minutes of rest, an hour and twenty minutes four days a week, during one of those days, 2 and half hours of basketball. Please help me out, I'm very deppress for what has happen to me, I'm willing to work hard to get back to my original shape. I have a race in march 10th, which is mostly climbing, but now I don't know what can I do to get back in shape in time.... please help me out!!!

Of course I don't know you or your background, but based on what you've described, recommend you forget the hard work for now. Believe you've already done too much of that during the last three weeks. Jumping into the heavy schedule of intervals 4 days a week for 3 weeks straight was too much for your current fitness level.

As you just found out, hard training doesn't make you stronger; that comes only after the body completes a recovery process. Proper rest and diet are just as important as the training to enable this process. Overtraining is worse than undertraining.

To prepare for the 10 Mar race, take time off to let your body recover and build that improved performance. Suggest about 10 days of recovery time, where you either stay off the bike, or do 30 minute spins in a very small gear. Then, in the last few days before the 10 Mar event, do a couple of good warm up rides. No maximum efforts, but include a couple of short moderately-hard intervals and accelerations to ensure you've got a good warmup in.

Bet if you rest, relax and recover now, you'll do great in your race on the 10th.

Build slowly, get back into shape.

You have been working on three minute intervals...that is nothing like a four mile climb! So take it easy, keep working on the hills, make sure you can finish the climbs before working harder.

assuming your diet and recovery programs are bulletproof for your needs, if you jump into intervals too soon and too hard in the season, you will develop those energy systems so fast that your aerobic system wont be able to keep up. let me guess, you felt somewhat strong at first, then the breathing became REALLY hard and the legs burned badly. it takes a very long time to develope the aerobic energy system, sometimes years! but only a few months for your anaerobic systems. for now, take some time off to recover. then focus on upper aerobic work. upper aerobic work means well below lactate threshold. having a heart monitor helps a lot with this. i prefer no more than 80% of your max heart rate. ease off the interval frequency. 1-2 times a week is sufficient to stress your body. when the weather isnt pleasant, elevate you front wheel by 3-5". you should do 3 sets of 8-12 minutes. with equal amount of recovery. intensity should be hard, just above lactate threshold. cadence should be something you expect to climb this mountain of yours. intensity is key, not cadence. and for next year, use the fall months to hit the gym a few times (careful!! dont gain weight!!), then WHEN YOU ARE BUILDING YOUR AEROBIC ENERGY SYSTEM, shift your work from the gym to on-the-bike strength intervals. hope this helps

yjuosj said:

I was doing intervals of 3 minutes high intensity and out of the saddle (to simulate climbing) and two minutes of rest, an hour and twenty minutes four days a week, during one of those days, 2 and half hours of basketball. Please help me out, I'm very deppress for what has happen to me, I'm willing to work hard to get back to my original shape. I have a race in march 10th, which is mostly climbing, but now I don't know what can I do to get back in shape in time.... please help me out!!!

I reckon you need to do longer intervals to work on your lactate threshold. 3 minutes will help build your VO2 max but you want to be doing 15 to 20 minute intervals for longer endurance efforts such as climbing longer hills. I would also suggest higher resitance with a slower cadence to simulate hill climbing or better still get out there and ride the hills 2 or 3 times a week.

so i need to do longer intervals to increase my lactate threshold. Will it also increase my power and accelerations? and what does the VO2 Max does anyways?

yjuosj said:

so i need to do longer intervals to increase my lactate threshold. Will it also increase my power and accelerations? and what does the VO2 Max does anyways?

Come on... Don't worry too much.

You can't base your jugement, and asses your current fitness level based on one single ride.

If you were riding 25mph before the climb, that is a good sign.

Now don't worry, hit the roads again, keep training in the hills. Your love for this type of training will pay off pretty soon, you'll see.

For what it's worth, I don't think you've been training too much. I may as well be wrong of course. That's just a guess. But I think that it's the opposite.

I think the motivation you feel while riding outside, especially in the hills, pushes you to train much harder than while riding your trainer.Outside, you ride against the clock, so you push, without even wandering about what's LT or VO2Max. You lost your references when you switched on the trainer.

Your fitness is right there, just in front of you. Just few weeks should be enough. But you need to hit the roads though.

I don't know about your race in march, maybe it's gonna work, maybe it won't. Your conterperformance in training may as well be a sign that a Flue (influanza) coming soon. If you get it on tuesday, you'll loose one week of quality work.

What I know though, is that givin some importance to the first race of the season, is not a good idea at all !

Keep us posted !

yjuosj said:

so i need to do longer intervals to increase my lactate threshold. Will it also increase my power and accelerations? and what does the VO2 Max does anyways?

VO2 max is related to the maximum power you can sustain for short durations of 3 to 5 minutes. Lactate Threshold is the power you can sustain for long durations (an hour or two). If you want to ride hard for a couple of hours and climb long hills (20 or 30 minutes +) then you need to tain your LT. In you original post you said you rode fairly hard for a long time before you hit the hills and then found you had no legs left for the climbs. That suggests to me you need to work on your LT with longer intervals. Suggest 2 x 20mins with 10min warm up and 5min cool down after each interval. Ride as hard as you can sustain for the 20min each time.

VO2 max can be trained relatively quickly by multiple short intervals but your improvement will plateau after a few months. LT training increases the % of your VO2 max power that you can sustain for longer durations and takes a few years to reach your maximum potential.

Don't worry too much. Indoor training is not the same as the real thing. You could also be lacking the endurance right now. Perhaps you weren't ready for the longer ride.

Sounds to me like you've been doing too much too soon.
Your body will take time (48hs) to recover properly from hard interval sessions

4 sets a week is probably too much. Have you done any steady base miles before your intervals?
I found a good book on the web the other day that might help you out at:
http://www.50topbikeracingtips.com

Hope that helps.

Take into consideration that it is much ahrder to perform in cold, dry air for several reasons.

pod said:

VO2 max is related to the maximum power you can sustain for short durations of 3 to 5 minutes. Lactate Threshold is the power you can sustain for long durations (an hour or two). If you want to ride hard for a couple of hours and climb long hills (20 or 30 minutes +) then you need to tain your LT. In you original post you said you rode fairly hard for a long time before you hit the hills and then found you had no legs left for the climbs. That suggests to me you need to work on your LT with longer intervals. Suggest 2 x 20mins with 10min warm up and 5min cool down after each interval. Ride as hard as you can sustain for the 20min each time.

VO2 max can be trained relatively quickly by multiple short intervals but your improvement will plateau after a few months. LT training increases the % of your VO2 max power that you can sustain for longer durations and takes a few years to reach your maximum potential.

I rested for 48 hours and today decided to give it a try again. It was SO MUCH better. I was abble to ride at a steady 8 mile an hour rythm. My breathing wasn't as bad. Over all i just felt better😄 . I plan to ride a 40 mile long trail that's flat tomorrow (tomorrow being tuesday) and hit the moutains again on wendnesday, on thrusday do the flats again and finally by friday the mountains again. What do you guys think?

I forgot to mention that the race was cancelled, bad weather. Thanks to all of those that helped me get back into shape, I'm almost climbing like my old self. Thanks again.😄

yjuosj said:

I wanted to cry, all my hard work of last year and now it's gone.... please, i beg you to tell me what to do.

Geez man calm down! How old are you? You have to leave the emotions at home, be objective and keep doing what you're doing. Just don't go too hard at once and expect big results early in the season.

Sounds like you might have been over training if you took some time to rest and then had immediate results.

When your very keen and passionate it can be hard to hold back and give your body adequate recovery but you won't improve nearly as much if you don't let your body recover.

I would think about having two easy recovery days on the flats (low hr, low gear, high cadence) for each hard day in the mountains.

yjuosj said:

I forgot to mention that the race was cancelled, bad weather. Thanks to all of those that helped me get back into shape, I'm almost climbing like my old self. Thanks again.😄

Agree with Rhubarb. Mountains on Weds and Friday, with 40 mile rides in between? If you're really going hard, that sounds like way too much to me. Suggest once a week is plenty for hard climbing for most of us.

Be patient and relax. Improvement takes time, and you'll be amazed how your body with adapt if you allow it do recover properly from training. You'll get better and more consistent gains by controlling your hard training. Progress will come in due time if you stay with cycling; no need to kill yourself and burn out by June.