i ride pretty consistently an average of 110-120 miles a week - my lowest week in the last 2 years is probably 80 miles and the highest 150 or maybe 160. typical pattern is every other day, occasionally skipping two and occasionally two days in a row, weekday rides 20-30 miles and weekend rides 40-80. most rides are about 75 feet per mile, and average speed has hovered around 16mph for most of the year.
i've only been riding seriously for a couple years now, and noticed very steady progress in power/speed/endurance over the first year or so. initial progress was followed by a solid plateau earlier this year, and although my rides got faster because i got a new bike, i more or less stopped getting stronger, with few bumps up on the strava power curve except in the 30 seconds to 5 minute range, and pretty much flat times on my most-repeated segments.
a few weeks ago, flat turned south/downwards, and average power on sustained segments has dropped perhaps 5%, with a corresponding drop in speed, although the route is windy enough that the drop in speed is less consistent or meaningful. a caveat to all of this is that i have a heart condition, take various meds, can't let my heart rate get above 135 or so (average for the segment referenced below ranges from 105-125), and have pretty significantly reduced left and right ventricular ejection fraction.
wierd cardiac limitations aside, is this what overtraining looks like? or is a drop of 5% in power over a few weeks more likely a fluke than anything else? subjectively, i enjoy the rides just as much and still do all the same rides, but i'm just putting down less power for the same effort. i am often sore the day after a ride, but not cripplingly so. for rides <40 miles, i don't eat or drink anything, but don't feel the need to.
here's data for one segment, a squashed loop (winds can be blocked on one side of the loop so it is somewhat variable), around 30 minutes in length with zero traffic impacts, no stop signs or stop lights, 6.8 miles and 800' of climbing. ends at the same elevation it starts. data shaded in grey is different bike, so the trendlines are split to account for the discontinuity of bike weight and different power meters. disregard the white shaded data on the left, it's not comparable. the total dataset is 92 segment attempts.
