Afternoon nap before a ride

[Louis]

Say you get home from work and plan on doing about a 2 hr ride of moderate intensity. However, you're feeling a bit worn out (went to bed too late last night) and you have enough time for a pre-ride nap of up to 1 hour. What do you do? (If I nap too long I'm super-groggy when I get up and it takes quite a while to get up to speed again.)

[Steve in SLO]

Coffee, suit up, ride. I do it all the time.
Nap not usually required afterwards.
I hardly ever nap before a ride, in part because it's impractical with the kids running around, in part because of the groggy factor: it takes me forever to feel strong after a nap.

[paulrad9]

Naps are dangerous unless you take one of the correct duration. I've found a 15 minute nap is best, but anything more than 25 minutes and I feel more groggy and tired after the nap than I did before the nap.

[rugbysecondrow]

If I was up to late watching the Cubs lose while drinking beer, then a nap might be good, but only for about 30-45 minutes. There is also something to be said for the first few miles riding to sweat the evil out of you body. Normally though, I operate on the object in motion stays in motion theory, so I force myself to keep moving. I find that I do better. Also, I can nap before I go MTBing, but almost never before road riding. Thats just me though.

[Geoff]

go straight away and nap after.

[WadePatton]

we'd all be healthier if we took more naps. get 'em while you can.

cheers.