Sierra_rider

I have that issue with insomnia. It's at it's worst after long/hard events, but still a frequent issue. I'll fall asleep quite easily, but then be wide awake at 3:30 in the AM...almost always at 3:30. I think I read somewhere that cortisol levels peak around that time, but I may just be misremembering that tidbit of info. Even if it happens without the stressful workout component, it still comes along with an elevated resting HR and decreased HR variability.

Sierra_rider

The arrival of the crappy weather coincided perfectly with the recovery week I had planned, I'm expecting 24" of fresh powder overnight.

Today was 2 hours of easy indoor zone 2 at an average of 240 watts. Split between 2 Rouvy routes(but all in the same block of riding,) I did 33 virtual miles and 3800' of virtual climbing.

Troul 

circadian rhythm plays a role in how well you'll sleep too. It's not an onesie (one size fits all) & your body has its own cycle which can conflict with your environment.
We often overlook it & think circadian rhythm is supposed to align with the 9 to 5 work week.... when that is not the case.

rsbob 

Interesting that you have the same experience - helps validate the studies.

Alcohol - a drink or two - has the same effect. Evidently alcohol suppresses the CNS and it takes a few hours to clear the system and when it does the CNS overcompensates. The result is being wide awake and unable to go back to sleep until it recedes back to a normal state. And amazingly, 3-3:30 is also the witching hour. If I drink four glasses of wine (my limit - and a rare exception) then I will sleep all night. Not recommended.

So the question is; does riding a hard event AND having alcohol after have a compounding effect on insomnia? I am not going to be the guinea pig.

Think I will pose exercise induced insomnia on the Road Cycling forum and see what the brain trust comes up with - should be weird as usual.

Sierra_rider

I think my sleep "zone" is just a narrow window of time. I make an effort to go to bed around 10-11pm, but I could totally stay up all night if I didn't have that discipline. On the flip side, I also seem to naturally wake up at an early time as well. I average more than this, but I feel fully functional with 6 hours of sleep. I've even had as little as 4 hours before a big event and suffered little in the way of deficits from it. Probably my biggest issue with sleep like that, is that I end up having stomach issues that day.

I'll add that there seems to be a threshold of event/ride hardness, where I don't have the insomnia issue past that threshold. I can think of some mountainous centuries that I rode at a hard pace...instead of the insomnia that I get from the 60-80 mile rides, I just crashed out for 8 hours...and I sometimes end up waking up fresher than I would after those moderately-hard 60-80 mile rides. Our body systems are fascinating things.

I really like to drink(mostly Irish and German lineage,) but force myself to partake in moderation. I could get away with heavy drinking in my 20's, but nowadays even a few drinks within a few hours of bedtime, leaves me waking up with night sweats. I have experimented with copious amounts of alcohol after a hard event, but it was a social thing, rather than in the name of science. I was absolutely $#%*ed for sleep and recovering after that.

Funny you mention the witching hour, it's likely that psychological phenomena have contributed to this folklore. Reminds me of a guy I used to work with at a previous fire station assignment. He woke up one morning pale as a ghost...he didn't want to tell us what was wrong, but finally relented after enough pressure from us. Said he woke up around that time, to some demon sitting on his chest and pinning him down. Some Googling on our part and turns out that's a common symptom of sleep paralysis. Easy to see how, before the age of science, we could develop folklore to explain such things.

rsbob 

Holy crapolie, I had that experience once in high school - scared the living s out of me. Could not move a pinkie. It was total body paralysis. But remembering that in some sleep states, the body does go into a state of paralysis, which makes me think that the brain erroneously wakes up at the wrong time - and then the brain says, WTF!

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/healt...leep-paralysis.

“During a sleep paralysis episode, you're aware of your surroundings but cannot move or speak. But you can still move your eyes and breathe. Many people hear or see things that aren’t there (hallucinations), making episodes even more frightening.” <-your friend’s demon hallucination (that I did not have)

I am half German and half Swiss (same thing really?) and through my 40s could drink like a fish and never got sick - but hangovers were a waste of the following day - so gave massive drinking up. Now am a lot more cautious.

calamarichris

[QUOTE=rsbob;23172476]“During a sleep paralysis episode, you're aware of your surroundings but cannot move or speak. But you can still move your eyes and breathe. Many people hear or see things that aren’t there (hallucinations), making episodes even more frightening.”
[/QUOTE]

Sounds like "Night Terrors". I used to get those when I was young and in the Army. Not quite awake, not quite dreaming, but you can see someone coming to kill you with a Rambo-knife to stab you multiple times. Your brain screams "GET THE F UP AND FIGHT!" but your semi-sleeping body says, "No, no. If you hold still, they'll leave you alone." And so you lay there with your whole body clenched, waiting to either get bayoneted to death or not. Dreaming? Kinda. Awake? Who knows?

Happened dozens of times. But then I had to share sleeping quarters with some deranged interesting fellow Americans in uniform of varied backgrounds. When you're averaging ~5 hours of sleep per night (and skipping sleep altogether twice a month to pull CQ), you're never fully awake. I knew guys who'd suck on straight coffee grounds, like chewing tobacco to "Cope".

rsbob 

[QUOTE=calamarichris;23172491]That sounded positively horrible besides waiting to be bayoneted. Good grief.

calamarichris

[QUOTE=rsbob;23172505]Later, I had one roommate from Philly who admitted to shooting a guy to death when he was 15. He grew up in a bad neighborhood in the crack era.. He was actually a really nice guy.

And another guy from an Appalachian state who was sharpening his bayonet on a whetstone the first time I met him/walked into the room. I said, "Hey, I'm Chris. How's it going?" He just looked at me while licking his whetstone and went back to sharpening his bayonet without saying a word. Fortunately only roommates with him for 2-3 weeks. He never talked much.

Had another prodigy of a roommate from Pennsylvania who insisted on hanging a Confederate flag on his wall. We had a black company commander. I explained to him why this wasn't the best idea, but he was adamant. Not the sharpest needle in the sewing drawer. But we both looked like @-holes during a barracks inspection.

jaxgtr

Was sick all week, Wed and Thursday, light fever..., Friday felt a little better. Decided to try and ride inside today since we have rain coming and going. It started off rough, but once the legs warmed up and loosened up, I was all in, did 106 miles 1k ft of climbing. Legs not so good now,

Sierra_rider

No outdoor riding today, as this is looking out my front porch:


There hasn't been nearly as much snow as predicted, although the blizzard warning lasts through tomorrow. The power did go out last night, killed my white-noise maker, so I could hear the wind and the creaking of 125' tall pine trees.

Came back on this morning, so I did a Rouvy ride on some of the "Strade Bianche" roads. In total, 27 miles and 3200' of climbing.

rsbob 

Damn. Was wondering how your were making out. Read there were winds in one area in the Sierras clocked at 180. Insanity. Good to have power and you back on the Rouvy

Sierra_rider

Wouldn't surprise me if that 180mph wind gust was recorded at the local ski resort. It never gets that crazy at my house, but that particular resort is in the top 10 list of highest wind gusts ever recorded. Depending on the source, they either had a 209 or 199mph wind gust a few years ago. Nearby to that also holds the record for thes deepest single season snowfall on earth.

I'm about 1/2 the elevation of those spots, so the weather extremes are much more mundane here. The worst apart about the wind here, is just worrying if trees are going to fall. I've cleared most of the tall trees that were leaning towards my house, but I still have a couple to go.Most of what's left are big enough to do a number on my roof, but probably aren't going to kill me in my sleep.

jaxgtr

Yikes....It was almost 80 and very humid with all the rain in the area....

Sierra_rider

The sun came out briefly and it hit a balmy 32F...back down to 30, overnight low was 27...so at least it's consistent. It's humid here too, 99%

rsbob 

26 fake ZWIFT rolling miles, with 10 all out sprint sections - (which I call intervals, since I get my heart rate back under 130 before the next all out effort). When I finished sprint 10 my power was so off, I called it a wrap. Rode most of the miles with an Ausie and we each would sprint each sprint section and then ride together until the next one. He had an additional 10 miles on me when I started riding with him. Certainly made it more entertaining. I won all the sprints, except one which I gave him for fun. BUT, he continued on riding when my hour was up - since I ran out of quarters.

In weather news, hail, rain-snow mix, light snow, then sun then hail and on and on. Not too conducive to riding outside when hail is pounding down.

ofajen

23 hilly, windy miles yesterday. About 68 degrees F. Beautiful early spring-like weather. Upper 70s today, and I’m scheduled for a run at some point today.

Otto

rsbob 

Did it to myself again - restless night - but this time the hard workout was at 2-3 PM. Looks like I will have to reserve mornings for intense workouts. Blech.

Sierra_rider

It's still a winter wonderland outside, or is it seasonal disenchantment? Anyway, I think we're closing in on 2' of snowfall this weekend...so, more inside riding.

Today was a couple of hours of Rouvy, I did the "Mirror lake highway" for a total of 29 virtual miles with 4400' of fake climbing.

jaxgtr

I will have to look that one up. I signed up for the Spring Into Action Ardu challenge, 15 routes, most in the 20-30 mile range and 2-3k in climbing.

rsbob 

4,400’ is a lot of fakery in 29 miles.

Almost broke 40* today, so did 30 flatties with a pinch (‘500’) of climbing. Only got rained on. Was anticipating hail and rain and snow mix - lucked out.

Sierra_rider

Today's trainer session was finishing the "La Sal Loop Road" in virtual Utah. I've been using bits of this route already as a cool down, but I finally finished it today. I think it's around 25ish miles normally, but today was 17 miles and 2.7k' of trainer climbing.

I did this one at a very low intensity for me, as I'm thinking about incorporating a Zwift race into this week as an intensity session. I might not though, if I can find exactly what I want to virtually race and/or if it interferes with preparation for this week's very real XC racing.

Smaug1

I rode 26 miles on Saturday with the local Coffee Riders group. We meet at one coffee shop, leaving at 8 AM, riding to another coffee shop 12 miles away, then having breakfast and chatting for an hour or two, then riding back. It's super fun, but the pace averages out to maybe 12 mph. I don't care. We have one 82 year-old guy who is slightly ashamed to be ignoring his gravel bike to have switched to an eBike. He's a retired Iowa farmer, so there's this background work ethic...

Yesterday, I met with the brunch group and rode 36 miles at a 15 mph average pace. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm the youngest of the three of us who showed up (7:30 AM departure contributes to that) by at least 25 years.

These guys are in their declining years, but I'm just now catching up to them. (they're 73, I'm 47)

13ollocks

WFH, so took a few hours out for a solo. 39mi, 17.1 mph av, 2300 vertical feet. Bike now needs a clean 😟

Rmg360

Typical commute to and from work is 8 miles, so 8!