Wow, fitness goes fast!

[jeffg]

After almost two weeks of working too much and sleeping too little, I managed to get in a short ride this morning. Yipes! Performance down, HR up! I averaged 175 for a hour "interval" at the end with a max HR of 201. Say, how fast does fitness drop (generally) and how long does it take to get back. I had dropped volume a bit before, but always stayed about on par to keeping at least a few rides a week. Scheiße! I need a new job ...

[Tom]

Tell me about it. Five days off last week and two all nighters this week and the same thing with me. I hope it's only a few days before things settle back. It's really odd, because when I was running I'd every now and then take five days off to let things stop hurting and it was about three days before I was back: one flat day, two days with too sharp an edge and then I was back to that not too sharp, not too dull feeling again. Riding or age changes things, now it seems like it's a week.

[Too Tall]

Jeffg as I recall you are a hammer of the first order and your fitness / consistency prior to a brief layoff was good....sooooo what you are feeling is lower blood plasma mostly and of course some adaptive response to cardio stress is adding to that pain baby. 3-4 weeks and you are good as new. It is a good idea to spend the first week not doing 2X20s!!!

[jeffg]

Jeffg as I recall you are a hammer of the first order and your fitness / consistency prior to a brief layoff was good....sooooo what you are feeling is lower blood plasma mostly and of course some adaptive response to cardio stress is adding to that pain baby. 3-4 weeks and you are good as new. It is a good idea to spend the first week not doing 2X20s!!!

Ouch! 3-4 weeks to make up a lousy 12 day layoff! I quit (my job, that is ;) ). I don't mind the pain. Besides, who said anything about a 2X20? This was just a 55 minute climb at 87% MHR ...

I want to go riding in the Black Forest soon, and those climbs can be tough!
Anyway, what I really need is more time and a coach. Of course, if I leave Europe and don't move to CA then I will have few Gran Fondo or DC rides to inspire me, so then I#ll have less to train for. Hmmm, I'll have to think about that one. How close are you to DC, and where are the good hills?

[FlaRider]

Jeff, I don't think your fitness has decreased considerably; you're just feeling "flat" from the time off the bike. I felt the same way after taking 10 days off the bike following L'Etape. I just rode at recovery/easy pace for a couple of days and then did a few LT efforts to open up. I regained my "form" in a few days.

[davep]

FlaRider,

You should post a report about l'Etape. I would love to hear about it, as I'm sure others would. If you've already posted one, sorry I missed it.

[lnomalley]

i guess i'm wondering why you are trying to hold any fitness for this time of year.. let it taper down and then rebuild. or if you have a week off the bike.. don't go out and destroy yourself, do a little zone 1/2 and some cadence work for a few days and then drill it.... gaining strength is an adaptation of a lot of complex processes.. you have to warm up the different parts of the engine rather than just go load yourself up and onder why you can't go fast, and why your body shuts down.

also, the more base miles you have in your body, i think the quicker you are able to bring back the sharp edge of fitness when you lose it. think of it as a knife that's gone dull, if you want to sharpen it it takes more than just banging it into the stone.

[shinomaster]

I know how you feel. I rode a really hard ride on Sunday and a tiny ride on wed. Today I rode home from work and felt like my legs were bloated baloons. I felt terrible. I'm sure I'm feel great again, though sometimes you need to ride for two hours before the body remembers wha it was doing before.

[Tom]

The other thing is I don't seem to recover for squat any more. It's a beautiful Sunday and I am looking at an easy spin after the last four days. Of course I'll run into the Sunday SCC boys and there'll go my discipline, I'll be charging along with that group. Must be smart. Must just say hi and head my own way... ha.