Originally Posted by
sanmateoclimber
So, my initial reaction to this is: "ouch, my poor thighs." I'm probably on my bike for six, six and a half hrs/week, and I think muscle soreness is a big part of my limitation there. That's not to say that I'm miserably sore all the time, but my current level of activity allows me to space out my rides enough so that I'm not generally riding on sore legs. Or sitting at my desk thinking about how sore my legs are all day. Or saying "oof" every time I get off the couch.
Does muscle soreness diminish significantly as you up your endurance? Do you just meditate it away until you achieve muscle nirvana? Am I that much worse about stretching/rolling than the average bear? Or maybe I need to deliberately back off the climbs for a while, so that I can focus on time and distance.
In general, thanks so much for the feedback, and I'll definitely check out the book and HIIT. This thread has been really cool and I feel motivated to push through this to a better place with my riding. Tonight I changed it up and did a weeknight ride with the same total elevation gain as normal but 50% more distance over a longer period of time, which seems like the the right direction to be moving. Plus it was just good to confirm I can still go out for a ride without ushering in a metabolic apocalypse upon my poor, poor body.
There are three types of sore legs. The usual for my legs is yes, they're sore most of the time but work just fine anyway. The soreness goes away within the first 15-20 minutes I'm on the bike. They warm up. That's fine. The second type of soreness is sore legs during an ordinary ride. You ride and your legs are sore and the further you ride, the sorer they get. That's an effective diagnosis of insufficient dietary protein. Double it and see if they feel better in a week. The third type is not really soreness, more like excruciating pain at about 250k into a 300k 10,000' ride when all you've been doing is futzing around for 60 miles. One takes ibuprofen, meditates on the futility of life and just keeps riding. No problem. My take on your post is that leg soreness was not the issue?