big john

Yes, 10 hours per week.

big john

I never roller and only stretch sometimes. When I have a hard weekend my legs get sore but not to where it bothers me just walking around. Self-massage helps, pushing toward the heart whatever muscle you are working on. And lots of water the day after, even if you weren't dehydrated.

If you can, go for an easy spin when you are tired or sore, even on a trainer.

The soreness will get better as you ride more and figure things out, especially at your age.

Oh, not time and distance, time and intensity.

Carbonfiberboy 

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?

terrymorse 

Yea, definitely. Once you have enough miles in your legs, DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) stops happening. Your muscles will fatigue during a ride, but they won’t be sore the next morning.

I started road riding again 14 weeks ago. My legs stopped being sore around week 9.

rubiksoval

After a few years I stopped getting muscle soreness at all. 100 mile race, 400 miles a week, whatever.

Massive fatigue, "wooden legs", stiffness, however; that's still always there after overextending myself.

Contrast that to say, sprinting across a playground or playing basketball for a few minutes, which can leave me sore for 2-3 days!

rubiksoval

I've bonked in as little as thirty minutes after a huge ride the day before and inadequate nutrition. So sure, it can and does happen early on in rides, but that's due to the day/days of eating prior to the ride.

This, however, is very unlikely to be what the OP experienced after adequate fueling in the days prior, breakfast, and on the bike nutrition. He had plenty of calories and was unlikely to be expending huge kJs.

burnthesheep

I'd like to address the hours per week thing.

That book is a good intro for folks without a lot of time. After repeating a plan from in there a few times, up to maybe a year or so, you "get the idea". Then you can apply the principles without doing the same exact prescribed workouts and plans.

My work calendar tells me this is week 39 in the year. If I take my gross hours and divide, I get 4.6 per week. Removing off weeks for my vacation and work travel earlier in the year, it goes up to maybe close to 6.

If I had to, pretty sure I'm close to 320w for 20min now. I can do right at 350w for 5min and am weekly adding power over 2min right now being in the 420ish range. All at 70kg.

I get a lot of the weekend enduro paceline clubbies wondering if I could make it on a long ride. Last one was formally 70ish but I rode alone to and from the ride to hit around 90mi. I pulled probably a lot and another racer guy and I broke for home with 4 miles to go and traded turns at whatever we could manage for a minute at a pull. We averaged about 30mph the last few miles into town. Once a month I'll do a solo metric non-stop at a hard tempo on just three bottles and a banana, only stop for turns/lights.

I can do distance/time just fine. The issue is people put out too much power on longer rides early on when they're not trained for that power zone for that duration. I could do the AOMM tomorrow solo, I'd just dial the power way way way down. My butt would hurt from saddle time and not making enough power to lighten the load, but so be it.

I tend to do a lot more intervals. It's all in how you manage the time. You can do some fantastic workouts in the sub-hour range. You can accumulate a LOT of training stress in upper SS zone on minimal time, including outdoors.

You just have to be more focused because you can't afford not to be if you have less time.

I don't think you have to have 8 hours a week and more unless you're doing back to back fondo stages OR you're an upper level racer. You have to have laser focus though.

Last week I had 505 TSS on only 6.5 hours. No farting around.

sanmateoclimber

Right. To clarify, my breakdown on Saturday had nothing to do with muscle soreness. I brought up soreness as a separate issue because I think DOMS is basically what's holding me back from increasing my overall weekly time and mileage. But that's definitely a mental limitation-- I'm not avoiding a fourth/fifth ride per week because I'm in too much pain, I'm just avoiding it because I tend to think of DOMS as something I need to minimize.

What you guys are saying about DOMS diminishing over time with increased fitness is actually a totally novel concept for me. A concept to which I respond "hell yeah, sign me up for THAT." Time to start learning about intervals...

terrymorse 

1100 calories per hour? That seems too high. Or have I misinterpreted the units you didn’t specify?

A pro cyclist doing a hard ride reportedly burns 10-15 calories per minute.

rower2cyclist

That's exactly my point. His #1 issue is lack of fitness which it will take years to improve. No shortcuts there. My main observation was his nutrition wasn't completely dialed in. It's the low hanging fruit. We are all speculating about how much calories he had in his body and what he ate that morning was enough to compensate. We don't know how fatigued he was that week. We don't know if he pulled an all-nighter Wednesday night. We don't know if he had a sick toddler to take care of or he has a stressful day job. All of these contribute to the eventual result.

My original post was more about sharing what works (not what's adequate) if he wants to perform day after day. Some comments here on nutrition is just infuriating. Do not tell me three bags of oatmeal and a banana is good breakfast. It's not. Yes, go ahead crush a century on a bag of gummy bears and two water bottles. Is it doable? Hell yes if you really try. But trust me you won't be doing much until next Saturday. We all have done that. It's really up to him to find the right balance on and off the bike. Having a clean and healthy diet is a good start.

Having said that I found this podcast very helpful:

Clyde1820

Can, yes. Depends, but over time if your stamina and muscle endurance is increasing then, yes, you can find a given level of effort to result in reduced soreness as your fitness improves.

Of course, if old enough or with conditions such that your ability to recover just isn't sufficient given the level of work you're demanding, you're likely to fail to repair the damage you're inflicting upon the muscles (as evidenced by soreness, fatigue, etc).

Sufficient time to recover is also needed, for improvements. Again, how much depends on your age, fitness and other factors.

Myself, I simply no longer have the ability to recover from, say, two intensely hard "leg day" exercise stints weekly. Back in my early 20s, I could do this with a fair chance I'd have it all back by the start of the next week, but it was pushing things. These days, nearly 40yrs later, I need another two or three days' of recovery for such effort, and the effort is lower (along with the gains). IOW, recovery time is slower now than 30-40yrs ago. As one should expect.


Back in my running days, we distinguished between "long, slow distance" and other types of training (which invariably were harder, interval oriented, involved hard hills, or whatever). To a man, we all found that without sufficient "long, slow base" we simply didn't have the gas to compete at higher levels of performance. But, with it, with sufficient "general mileage" under our belts, we all found we had better overall endurance, better ability to recover, better ability to withstand the occasional hard day.

Can't say that I've ever pushed that hard in cycling. But, given that it still involves cardio and hard use of the leg muscles, I can't imagine the parallels are all that off.

You can do other activities to boost your cardio as well. Cycling needn't be the only one. A good rowing routine can be stellar, in that regard. As can swimming.

You certainly should consider strength and stretching exercises if you're facing hard/hill sections in your rides or runs. There's simply no substitute for sufficient strength, on sections or for times when strength is needed (above and beyond whatever stamina you might have overall).

eduskator

1) Bad day (it happens)
2) Lack of fitness / preparation - which doesn't seem to be the case given that you've indicated having done this particular ride in the past...

hubcyclist

Well if I were doing threshold for an hour yes, but 100tss is more like something I'd do for 90mins

Sunday I did a 5x10min sweet spot session on the trainer over 90mins, 98TSS and 1093 calories
Today, I did a 3x20 sweet spot session over 2hrs, 120TSS and 1396 calories.

The calories are derived from my power meters, my threshold is 285w (4w/kg) so I've been doing intervals at 250-265.

terrymorse 

No, it’s not a good pre-ride breakfast. It’s a great pre-ride breakfast. More than 600 calories of mostly carbs, plenty of fiber, and some protein.

My big event breakfast was alway oatmeal, plus sometimes scrambled eggs.

rubiksoval

Having a clean/healthy diet (whatever that is for the day) is a nonsequitor and has nothing to do with the op or this thread.

You just went off on a tangent espousing your rather extreme (and strange) nutritional ideas that are irrelevant to just about everything .

rubiksoval

Just to add on some relevant information...Haven't you only been riding for like...2 years? Without ever having done significant training volume? And you really have no idea what your performance would actually be with said training volume?

That you've had relatively good results simply speaks to a better endurance disposition than most (ie, talent) It doesn't mean that your plan is actually any good. It gets you to where you want to be, but it's unlikely to get you much further. It's kind of disingenuous to say something like "you just need to be focused and you can get by with 4.5 hours a week."

Well, no. A very few select people can. A very few select people can also run 4:10 miles off of 20 mpw. The vast majority cannot, however.

Enter actual training.

That's the funny thing about stimulus and response. When that stimulus stays the same, so does the response...

rubiksoval

I, too, am a pre-ride/race oatmeal person. One of the best bang-for-the-buck meals I've found.

rubiksoval

Not sure what the reportedly is.

1000 kJ an hour is only 276 watts. I did a workout that was 300 watts for three hours and finished up with 3520 kJ in three hours, 18 minutes.

Not really that big of a thing compared to actual pro riders who can do that for 6 plus hours.

terrymorse 

1000 kJ is 239 kcal, or 239 Calories.

238 Calories/hr is about 4 Calories per minute. Pros can burn over 3 times that rate on a hard ride.

rubiksoval

As much as I dislike resorting to a cut and paste, I'm not going to pretend I'm a scientist, so I will defer to my elementary understanding of the matter based on articles like the one below.




https://blog.trainerroad.com/calories-and-power/

burnthesheep

Never considered that.

I've just pilfered through the data, plans, and info and tried to make the best sense of it that I can and optimize what I've got (time and myself).

rubiksoval

Sure. And that you hit those numbers off of that training is pretty awesome. It's definitely not a common thing.

I wish I could get similar results like that! It'd make cycling a lot more time efficient.

burnthesheep

Thanks.

I'm glad you did address this though for the original poster's topic because highlighting that it isn't common makes sure people don't end up with expectations that don't work out. It is very relevant.

I think the "Time Crunched" book does mention the genetic lottery portion, but in their own self interest (of selling a book) they seem to gloss over that pretty quick.

You can't sell a book about big gains on short time if you toss in a bunch of caveats.

If I had to give tips about the time crunched thing specific to the workouts: your results may vary........disclaimer, etc........

-Do your "not so fun" work indoors on a trainer. The 3x3's, under overs, etc. You accumulate more stress per minute than outdoors where eventually you go downhill. It sucks, but that's the situation of being short on time. And by indoor, I mean do it in ERG. Zwift with a smart trainer would be just like outdoors. It's better to put out some power to circulate your blood/oxygen after hard efforts to recover than just coast back down a hill.

-On the back end of their "hiit" workouts (or any hiit workout) where you're well above 100 % (like 120% and stuff) tack on whatever intensity and duration SS interval on the tail end you can manage physically and time wise. You've mobilized some energy stores that are now circulating your body, but aren't super great for hiit. The hiit helped bring them out. Use them on the tail end of the workout. It's mentally taxing, but I've had good luck doing this. Like..........2 sets of 3x3 then one SS interval of 8min. That's short for SS, but you'll already be feeling crap. (I credit this with a FastTalk podcast segment and the gurus on Slowtwitch)

-Double up days once in a while. Somehow I've had success with doing a fairly tough lunch hour workout, having a good nutritious lunch, then a good snack right before the weeknight worlds ride. Just seems to workout really well for training stimulus. If you look at how training stress accumulates, if you're short on time and can accumulate 100 TSS today instead of 50 today and 50 tomorrow......that's a bigger training stress.

firebird854

What a fun thread, I've always held the notion that you can do on any given day about 90% of what you could do in an entire week (given of course that that is your sole activity that week and you are well rested). So, if your weekly maximum is normally around 10-12 hours then your longest ability to ride should be around there too.

I've seen plenty of anecdotal evidence that this is true, given your situation I would assume you just had a bad day. If you've been reasonably training for 2 years, something like 70mi with 5k of climbing really shouldn't be that hard at all. The symptoms you describe sound to me like a combo of heat getting to ya and possibly dehydration.

sanmateoclimber

Taking everything into consideration, I think this is right. I wasn't exposed to an enormous amount of heat/sun, but I think it snuck up on me and I let myself get a little more dehydrated than I realized. Plus I was a bit undertrained for a ride of this magnitude, and totally inexperienced with the conscientious pacing required for someone at my level to finish strong at these distances. Still, on a good day I'm pretty sure I could have managed fine and this productive conversation never would have happened. I'm chalking it up to a bad day, and it's helpful to hear all these experience folks say that these things just happen.

Progress works in funny ways. I think I easily could have come out of this fairly discouraged, taken it easy the next week with the excuse of sore legs, and backed off in general as the days get shorter and cooler. Instead, I listened to you crazy bastards and decided to take a stab at increasing my training volume and intensity. So, after one day of rest and feeling down on myself, I got back on the saddle last Monday and committed myself to finding out what a proper ten hour week feels like. I started the week with some longer, flatter rides where I focused on intensity over flats and gentler climbs. Things got dicey for my ten hour plan when a cold front came in Thursday and brought some hardcore winds with it, but I stuck it out and got some good wind conditioning in. I finished the hours off strong with a great ride yesterday, knocked off a good PR on Kings Mountain (another good climb in the area,) and just generally enjoying myself cruising through the redwoods on a beautiful day. I feel like I've had a total paradigm shift about the training volume I'm capable of and interested in pursuing, and my legs feel fine and ready for the next ten hours I'll start this afternoon. I also picked up and worked my way into the Time Crunched Cyclist book and finally bought a scale so I can start thinking a little more seriously about my weight. As we move toward the dreaded dark months, I imagine I'll be back around with a new thread asking some questions about intervals and indoor trainers soon.

So thanks, ya crazies, & happy trails.