Overtraining by Commuting

[TimB]

The last couple weeks I've been feeling tired, trouble sleeping, no zip in my legs...and finally it dawned on me - classic signs of being overtrained. But the only riding I've been doing regularly is my 20 mile round-trip to work and home. With the current drought this means I've only missed about 8 days riding to work since February. Throw in an occasional weekend ride, and I guess there you have it. Too much.

Anyone else experience this? What did/do you do? I'd hate to stop riding to work - but is that the only way to get enough real recovery time? What say you other commuting machines?

[markie]

Umm,

I have always wanted to ask a real trainer this question.......

I too commute 20 miles a day. My commute is flat, but normally the wind makes up for it. I think after a while I have just gotten used to riding everyday. It used to be that after commuting all week I didn't feel like riding on weekends, now I seem to rest/hang-our with the wife on Saturday and do a proper ride on Sunday.

I feel my overall fitness is pretty good from commuting, but I don't train so my high end "race-pace" has suffered. Not that it was worth shouting about, anyhow.

[znfdl]

Tim:

When I am training hard on the weekends, I only commute on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This sometimes pains me when the weather is nice. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I do some very hard efforts on my commute. I have set places where I do a two mile interval or hill sprints with an extended hard period when I crest the top. On Wednesday, I just roll easy and try to keep my watts below 150 and heart rate below 120.

My commute will range anywhere from 34miles to 43 miles roundtrip.

[markie]

Do you do anything to vary your commute? Different bike, different route? Ride a different speed? Stop off at the park to watch the ducks?

I also find myself some nights going back out for a gentle cruise around the neighbourhood for 30-minutes or so.

So, yeah, I think my body got used to commuting, but I try and mix it up a little to stop it getting boring.

[TimB]

for practical purposes, I can't vary my route very much. And it's not flat. No majoor climbs, but several places with rollers big and long enough that I need to get out of the saddle. I try to switch between my fixie and another bike which helps with the monotony but riding fixed really only makes the ride more difficult.

Znfdl - so do you ever take extended breaks from commuting? (Aside from times when you're riding across the country, that is.)

[J.Greene]

The last couple weeks I've been feeling tired, trouble sleeping, no zip in my legs...and finally it dawned on me - classic signs of being overtrained. But the only riding I've been doing regularly is my 20 mile round-trip to work and home. With the current drought this means I've only missed about 8 days riding to work since February. Throw in an occasional weekend ride, and I guess there you have it. Too much.

Anyone else experience this? What did/do you do? I'd hate to stop riding to work - but is that the only way to get enough real recovery time? What say you other commuting machines?


Can you take a week off from commuting every 3-4 weeks?

JG

[znfdl]

Znfdl - so do you ever take extended breaks from commuting? (Aside from times when you're riding across the country, that is.)

Too Tall has me set up where I take every 8th week off.

[Kevan]

I'll commute usually twice a week. My daily distance is around 45 miles and the whole shower/change thing was a bit of a drag. I think monotony too can be a real contributer to being worn out. My commute really wore on me when I would do the ride Friday and then have a club ride on Saturday.

I also think commuting alone can be a bit of a drag. I always jumped at a chance to ride with a pal or even chase someone down and share a few words. People riding in my direction were always few and far between.

[Fixed]

Do you do anything to vary your commute? Different bike, different route? Ride a different speed? Stop off at the park to watch the ducks?

I also find myself some nights going back out for a gentle cruise around the neighbourhood for 30-minutes or so.

So, yeah, I think my body got used to commuting, but I try and mix it up a little to stop it getting boring.
bro that sounds like me
the world is something if we take time to look
the bike ..the thing is it can be easy like a walk or hard like sprint run it's up to you tired ride easy ..
cheers

[jthurow]

My commute's similar to yours and I usually only try ride to work 3-4 times a week. I've found that if I don't, my desire for long rides on the weekends (which I really love) begins to diminish and my legs start to feel like lead (which I really hate). I'm sure part of it is riding too hard too much when I'm commuting. Sometimes it is hard not to ride but it really seems to keep my desire to ride from waning. ymmv.

jimi

[mschol17]

I've been commuting 5 days a week, 20 miles rt, for over a year now, with most of a Super Randonneur series thrown in. I've been thinking about asking this very question, since lately I've been really worn out by the time Saturday comes around.

I've been trying to follow the advice I read on here somewhere that recovery pace is when you can breathe exclusively through your nose. My route is rather up and down, no big hills but longer rolling ones.

What does everyone suggest to get faster? Recovery on Mon/Wed, hard on Tues/Thurs and relaxed on Friday with a ride on the weekend?

I have to commute, since it would be a 1 hour bus-ride otherwise... we only own one car.

[tmanley]

I've often wondered about this myself. There are weeks where I have commuted 5x/wk (26 miles roundtrip) and didn't really think much about how it was impacting me. After putting a powertap wheel on my commuter I learned quite a bit. Depending on how I felt I was riding across the spectrum from active recovery to hard tempo.

Ultimately after seeing several weeks of data and comparing it to my goals & race results I determined that commuting wasn't a bad thing as long as I kept my wattage below a certain level.

The ironic thing about it was that my total cycle time from my house to work wasn't too different depending on the effort! Previously I was going hard and waiting at stop lights...now I'm taking it easy and rolling through with the cars on the green lights.

-Thanks, Todd

[Kevan]

were typically casual-paced. Heck, just being out on the road before 6am was enough for me to say to myself I was going gang-busters. Mine is a hilly route so I wasn't aiming for brownie points, just a shower at the end.

On the way home it was a different story, I would pick up the pace. There is this prominent intersection in my route about 1 hour away from my office. Almost every night I'd ramp up my ride and see if I could better my time getting to that intersection. I seemed stuck on 50 minutes, and no better that.

[Samster]

I spoke with a someone about this once when I felt a little tapped out from my 160 mile weeks during the summer months.

I can't remember verbatim, but his reply went something like this:

1. Maybe 10 percent of cyclists are what he'd call "competitive."

2. Maybe 10 percent of those "competitive cyclists" actually have the ability to push themselves hard enough to "overtrain."

3. Maybe 10 percent of those "competitive cyclists" who have the ability to overtrain actually cross the threshold and _do_ overtrain.

4. Basically, Sam, if you're feeling tired because of your 160 mile weeks, you're "undertrained" in that you can't hack even that!

It was a pretty sobering discussion, for me at least. I asked the guy exactly what "overtraining" meant and he said something to the effect of there not being a clear definition, but for him it meant riding yourself to somewhere near the brink of malnutrition and immunological collapse.

Rough standards...

[John H.]

I used to commute about 45 miles round trip for about 6 years. The 1st year I was pretty much always tired/overtrained.
I changed my routine to commuting very easy most of the time, but also adding key days once or twice per week.
In January I would start doing a hill day- as many of this 5 minute climb @VO2 max that I could get in before dark. I started with 3-4 efforts and increased to 8 efforts.
When the time changed in the spring I would do our Tuesday night training crit rather than commute home- I would catch a ride home after the crit.
On thursdays I would do 10-15 min climbing efforts. If I had good legs I would nail it- if I did not I would just cruise them.
I would usually race both days per weekend.
All other ride I just cruised in the small ring. I never chased after other riders/commuters- the "commute pursuit" is the worst thing you can do!
This produced some of the best form I ever had.

[paczki]

Could you have a cold or some other underlying blah?

[swoop]

this sounds more like fatigue than overtraining. it could also be that your nutritional needs aren't being met. and there could be a mental tiredness as well.
so make sure you're getting the food bump you need to get through the day. on the bike play with different gearing and cadence and try to think of the commute as playtime.

bike riding does wonders when you're working towards a goal... so make sure you are connected to some sort of goal.. like reducing your carbon footprint. the ride has to mean something.


when the ride becomes another cog in an unsatisfying routine it will get weighed down. you'll condition yourself pavlov style to link the riding to the working and it can be become joyless.


and yeah.. a week off every six-ish weeks for you for sure.
atmo.

[djg]

Sometimes you need a day off and sometimes you need a few days off, and that's how it is, but it might be that you really just need to think a bit more about commuting miles as training or recovery miles or -- simpler still, just take it easy for a bit. Depending on where you are, there might be a lot of temptations to go too hard, or too hard too early, on a 10 mile ride to work. I guess I'd just ask a few simple questions. First, do you take a few miles to warm up? It's easy to shortchange yourself on the warmup if you think you have only 10 miles (each way) to ride, but it's not that helpful to hammer right out the door, even if it is a short ride. Second, are you taking easy days? Unless you commute through absoutely killer terrain, it ought to be possible to spin some days, and a 10 mile little ring spin often (not always) does more for recovery than a day or two off.

[znfdl]

Tim:

I also try to take very good care of my body when I ride.

After my 23 mile commute in the morning, I consume a recovery drink. I also take a multivitain with a small amount of iron.

[Blue Jays]

Riding 150-175 miles per week very likely wouldn't result in an overtrained person, just a fit person. Increasing the mileage to the 200+ mile range would enhance fitness for most adults and still be tolerable to the body.

[TimB]

Thanks everyone for the insights...

Swoop might be on to something...a general sense of fatigue over about the same period as I've been feeling uninspired to ride. With two toddlers I've also definitely not been getting as much sleep as I'd like either.

I _rarely_ see anyone else on a bike during my commutes...just lots of cars most of which are traveling 45mph or faster. My route is not conducive to easy rides - the hills and the traffic make it tough to relax and ride easy or 'enjoy' the ride. The weather has been a pain too - I'm ready for some cooler temperatures.

At any rate, it seems best to plan a week off every now and then...and force myself into my car.

Okay, one other thing I just thought to check - about 6 weeks ago my doctor switched me from Toprol XL (Metoprolol) to Lisinopril. And here, just as plain as day:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/medmaster/a692051.html#side-effects

I see "excessive tiredness"

I thought at first it would be a good switch - an ACE inhibitor in place of a beta blocker. But perhaps not? I have an app't this week, will discuss with him whether it makes sense to switch back...or to something else. Toprol has most of the same side effects listed, but perhaps I'm just reacting differently to the Lisinopril.

[stevep]

the older you are the more days off you need.

[DukeHorn]

Tim,

I applaud you for commuting in the Research Triangle area. It's not the worse place for cyclists but definitely not the friendliest. Definitely not a large number of road cyclists around (California has opened my eyes to that). Keep up the good work and take care of yourself.

[Fixed]

bro the docs gave me some meds on time made my hair thin out toe nails come off pain in the joints pain in the soles on my feet and a fever like a cold ..and hurt my white blood count ..sound good ? and it didn't work it just made me sick and cost a fortune .
check with your doc
cheers

[rickygarni]

This may sound strange or unscientific, but I find if I ride different bikes I am less fatigued. First of all, that counts for people who are either rich (not me) or spend money unwisely on too many bikes (that is me.) I imagine, then, that it has a lot to do with, well, boredom. A slightly different ride experience, and an iPod download of Car Talk seems to do the trick for me. My ride is about 30 miles a day, also in RTP, coming from Carrboro, NC.

Ricky

[thejen12]

I used to ride too hard on my 25-mile r/t commutes. Heck, it wasn't a "long ride" like I do on the weekends, and I usually left the house a little late, and the traffic gets my adrenaline up, so what's wrong with quickening up the pace? But I felt like my non-commuting friends had more energy on the weekend ride than I did. I talked it over with a friend who's a PT and a Cat2 and she said to make my commutes pure recovery rides, except that Thursdays I could go harder to prime the pump for my weekend ride.

I got very disciplined about riding to/from work in zone 1 (using a HRM), and it made a big difference! It also helped (echoing someone else's comments) to commute on a different bike, loaded down with rack and fenders, etc. It kept me from feeling bad when the racer-dudes passed me - I was in a different mind-set on my commute bike. It brought joy back to commuting, too.

Good luck,

Jenn

[palincss]

Tim:

When I am training hard on the weekends, I only commute on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This sometimes pains me when the weather is nice. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I do some very hard efforts on my commute. I have set places where I do a two mile interval or hill sprints with an extended hard period when I crest the top. On Wednesday, I just roll easy and try to keep my watts below 150 and heart rate below 120.

My commute will range anywhere from 34miles to 43 miles roundtrip.

Speaking of your commute, has that situation with the whack job who hated your lights been completely resolved?

[swoop]

the older you are the more days off you need.


stevep does training rides every lunar eclipse.

[spiderman]

with a 20 on the way to work
20 at noon
20 on the way home routine
even though my commute is just a little over two miles.
that is, until last week.
the rain and early morning meetings were
what i thought was keeping me from riding as much.
i just decided i needed to wear a shirt and tie
under my rain gear
and ride the minimum number of miles for a change of pace.
monday i was more motivated again
but i thought it was the cool, crisp, clear weather.
it wasn't until our 'mole day breakfast' this morning
that i figured out the problem.
i had recently quit making breakfast.
...but this morning at 6:02 on 10/23
a dozen of my wife's ap chem students came for
eggs in the mole and swedish molecakes with capmoleccino's...
wow, do i feel better!
what a difference eating real food makes!

[coylifut]

I find I can get fatigued by forcing my self to commute after hard race weekends. I usually drive in on Mondays to bring in my dry cleaning for the week. If I'm still tired on Tuesday, I'll drive about half way to the beginning of the bike trail and then commute in. It's easy to get in the mode where you feel you have to commute. It should be fun, not a chore. If you need a day(s) off, take it.

[Fixed]

It should be fun, not a chore. If you need a day(s) off, take it.
that about nails it imho
cheers

[Bernie]

Overtrained, no way. Undertrained, yes. Samster nailed it. I regularly do between 5000 to 7000 miles annually, which is about what you will be doing with an occasional weekend ride thrown in. Your 20 mile round trip daily should be only 1 to 1 1/2 hour daily riding. In the large scheme of things, that's nothing. Perhaps more than the average american that's 30 + pounds overweight that gets no workout, but certainly not overdoing it. I'd be considering diet, overall general health, stress levels, or some other cause. Doubt if that much physical labor is creating a problem. On the other hand, if you spend 8 hours at work digging graves by hand, then ride home, you might be on to something.

[93legendti]

Thanks everyone for the insights...

Swoop might be on to something...a general sense of fatigue over about the same period as I've been feeling uninspired to ride. With two toddlers I've also definitely not been getting as much sleep as I'd like either.

I _rarely_ see anyone else on a bike during my commutes...just lots of cars most of which are traveling 45mph or faster. My route is not conducive to easy rides - the hills and the traffic make it tough to relax and ride easy or 'enjoy' the ride. The weather has been a pain too - I'm ready for some cooler temperatures.

At any rate, it seems best to plan a week off every now and then...and force myself into my car.

Okay, one other thing I just thought to check - about 6 weeks ago my doctor switched me from Toprol XL (Metoprolol) to Lisinopril. And here, just as plain as day:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/medmaster/a692051.html#side-effects

I see "excessive tiredness"

I thought at first it would be a good switch - an ACE inhibitor in place of a beta blocker. But perhaps not? I have an app't this week, will discuss with him whether it makes sense to switch back...or to something else. Toprol has most of the same side effects listed, but perhaps I'm just reacting differently to the Lisinopril.
I have 2 little ones too. Besides the physical strain of young kids, there are the mental strains--not too mention the lack of sleep. Never thought I'd get used to less than 6 hours a night!

The unknown is the job stress. You don't have to do manual labor to work "hard". Nor do you have to work long hours for it to weigh on you. Bud Grant used to say "time doesn't equal work".

The trick is finding out what combination of training, recovery rides, diet and mental relaxation works for you. The one thing I can stress is since I have been getting less sleep, I make sure I emphasize quality protein in my diet.

[dawgie]

I generally bike commute 3-4 days per week. When I first started, it definitely hurt my performance on some weekend rides, when I usually ride longer distances at a faster pace. I quickly discovered that I needed to take it easier and treat most commutes as recovery rides. Even when "taking it easy" while commuting, it can be hard work on my route due to all of the hills and trying to make it through traffic lights before they change. I still have commute rides when I ride fast, but I generally schedule those rides for the middle of the work week -- when my legs have recovered from the previous weekend, but not so late that pushing it will hurt my performance in the coming weekend.

Whether it's technically over-training or fatigue, I think you can definitely overdo it commuting based on my own experience. Of course, I'm in my 50s, and the same issues might not apply to a 20 or 30-year-old.

[bigbill]

When I lived in Virginia Beach, my commute was 22 miles each way to the Navy Base. I stopped viewing it as a 44 mile round trip and starting handling it like ten 22 mile rides. If you rode 40 miles every evening and varied the pace, it wouldn't be that much because you have 20 or more hours between rides. Commuting means that you have 12 hours or less between rides. My Va Beach commute would wear me down enough that I would have to take a week off from commuting every 4-5 weeks. I commuted thirteen miles each way in Hawaii, I was able to do that and hard training rides. The Va Beach commute had no place to go easy due to traffic, the Hawaii commute had plenty of places to sit up and spin.